Just about 18 percent of University Park undergraduates voted in the student-government elections this spring.
Still, that doesn’t mean Penn State students are apathetic, said defeated presidential candidate David Adewumi, a 2005 graduate of State College Area High School.
Rather, he said, students are inactive on public issues ‘because they don’t feel or don’t know they are empowered to change things.’
Adewumi is aiming to reverse that trend – starting now.
In a conversation last week at his fraternity, Beta Theta Pi, Adewumi vowed to continue his work on serious matters of direct importance to students – tuition, technology and housing. He said his efforts will materialize through his own, emerging organization, Project Blue Pill, which promises to serve as a local-policy think tank and as a reviewer of policy proposals.
The student-led group stands ready to unify and clarify the Penn State student voice, to foster collaboration across groups such as the University Park Undergraduate Association and the Off-Campus Student Union, Adewumi said.
Already, he said, he has met with State College Mayor Elizabeth Goreham and Penn State administrators, building relationships and reviewing bona fide student concerns.
And Adewumi is developing ideas – big ideas – to improve the disjointed wireless-Internet coverage on campus, contain tuition rates and pressure state legislators on university appropriations. He also wants Penn State to establish a university-sanctioned online database that students could use to review and scrutinize private landlords.
In a sense, it seems Adewumi is building an unelected student government where he believes the elected UPUA has fallen short. He often points out that the UPUA spends about $50,000 each year – roughly a third of its budget – on a spring concert, ‘The Last Stop.’ The expense hobbles the UPUA’s credibility with administrators and government officials, he argues.
‘It’s not that a concert is a bad idea, but these are tough economic times,’ Adewumi said. ‘I’d rather they spend the money on nothing than to spend it on something we don’t need. … The role of student government is not to be a party-planning committee.’
Adewumi delivers his criticism with a smile, an upbeat tenor and the perspective of a well-traveled man. Shortly after high school, he left the area for a couple years to serve in the Army and work in the business world, including at a start-up company.
The experience lends him – and his cause – a level of professional poise and credibility rarely seen among undergrads.
Polite and kind to an extreme, Adewumi carries a charm that almost makes you forget that he failed in his bid for the UPUA presidency.
He lost the race by a two-to-one margin in the March 31 vote count, conceding to Christian Ragland, a New Jerseyan. But the defeat seems to have emboldened Adewumi, who climbed closer to the top leadership role than any other State High graduate in recent memory.
It wasn’t a desire for the high-profile position that motivated him to run, he said. Instead, ‘I’m attracted to the empowerment … to better address student needs and concerns.’
For the future, Adewumi envisions student representation that shows students their own strength, that explains to them how the university budget works and why they pay the highest tuition rates among public universities in the country.
He envisions motivated students who spend 15 minutes a month – or even 15 minutes a week – reaching out to the legislators who influence Penn State’s appropriations and, in turn, its tuition rates.
And he envisions a town-gown community that undermines dangerous drinking not through draconian policies, but through more personal relationships, community service, perhaps regular meals shared among students and permanent residents.
‘It’s not about us or getting our name out there,’ Adewumi said of his ongoing work on Project Blue Pill. ‘It’s really just caring about the issues.’
Five semesters into his Penn State career, he has plenty of time left to prove it.
