A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from someone in Admissions asking me if I would speak at a student panel for the first Fall Sampler, back at the beginning of October. That same week I was had also been chosen as a participant of a focus group for a new study Macalester has commissioned from a research institution. Apparently, I am the perfect little representative of the Macalester College community.

For instance, contrary to popular administrative propaganda, I think that socio-demographically, politically and racially, I fit the profile to a T. I come from an upper-middle-class, white, liberally-inclined, suburban family. I grew up with NPR. I audit classes because I find them “interesting” and “engaging.” I wear overpriced clothing. I have reached a “healthy state” of racial consciousness. I have queer friends. I speak two languages. I have an inoffensive facial piercing. I spent a semester studying in Europe and had an internship at an impressive political organization, to which I returned the following summer. I am impressive.

So of course they asked me to come speak at the panel of prospective students and parents! I am Katie LaZelle. I am the pathetic Macalester College that is left when you factor out our pitiful numbers of domestic students of color and our weakening international student body.

So to this particular Fall Sampler panel invitation I instantly replied “Yes!” Oh! But, there was more—could I please send them a short-list of all of my activities, committees, and organizations on campus, also any relevant internships or volunteer commitments would be helpful.

Suddenly it hit me. Holy shit! Where had my three years gone? What was there to list? I had neither begun that crucial student org. nor engaged as a meaningful contributor to any particular group. I hadn’t even made any institutional changes. I had neither confrontations nor meaningful interactions in my past. Hell, the institution barely even knows who I am!

These thoughts threw me back to my sophomore year here, when Nick Berning was MCSG president, and as go-getting as any and all Political Science-overachievers should be. Nick and I had a course together. Imagine how cool I thought he was! The president! So involved! But what I really liked about Nick was that Nick thought I was going places. He must have fashioned me ambitious in the way that one would have to be in order to be involved on this campus. Once, during one of Mike McPherson’s trademark dinners at Café Mac, Nick tried to introduce me to the president as someone “that he ought to know.” I agreed! Boy, was the future going to be exciting for me!

Nick also explained the way knowing people worked on campus. Committees were the places where things happened, he said—but you had to be picked. No worries though, right? I’m well-liked by faculty and staff. I was a good student. I contribute to class discussions. I go to candidate luncheons for departments in which I don’t even major! I’m schmoozy. And I never miss a keynote.

But here I am, updating my résumé and preparing grad school applications and there’s nada. The closest I’m getting is the post that I was peer-elected to on the now-defunct and faculty-revamped Committee of Political Science Students (COPSS). I never even actively served on this committee because by the time I returned from studying abroad, it had been disbanded. In came the Pi Sigma Alphas; out went my opportunities for upward mobility. Things needed to be institutionalized, and I was institutionalized out of them. Oh, but I do not doubt that there were committees of people for that.

The joke on campus has always been, “If there’s a problem, start a committee or a task force about it!” Well, which students, exactly, are worthy of such honors? I’ll tell you whom—the same damn group of kids that’s worthy of all the honors. But how do you get on the committee circuit? Why are they the student representatives in the faculty searches when I, a student that might just know the department better than any other on campus, am left out? Why do they get invited to the non-Bon Appétit free meals? Why is it that I’ve always wanted to be on a committee for something, anything, and no one has ever asked me? Is there somewhere that I can sign up? Is there a waiting list? Should I begin speaking in a euro accent? Do I have to do an honors project or lead a student organization? Is MCSG a priority? Do I have to start addressing the people that teach my classes by their last names? With “professor” or, heaven forbid, “doctor” in front?

But I guess this all just begs the question, why the hell do I even care?