First of all, I’d like to thank God who is the head of my life…I’m just joking. Thank you so much to the entire Dillard University community for allowing me to serve you all as a columnist and the opinions editor for the Dillard University Courtbouillon.

When I first became a columnist for the paper, my goal was to provide the views of a becoming educated young woman on issues of the world and our community. The stirring of controversy was only a side benefit of the process. I understand that through my opinionated columns, there were many people who may have disagreed with my topics or even my opinions and luckily they offered feedback on the subjects. That is the purpose of my job.

As opinions editor of the Courtbouillon, it is my job to bring up issues that encourage the entire student body to engage in conversation. I did not become the editor of such a small but powerful section just to speak weekly on subjects that I thought were important, I became the editor so that I could get everyone active. That is the reason we decided to incorporate the 18 questions that would be compiled by the students, and sometime the faculty.

In order that we may have a well-balanced campus, we must see all sides of each story. We often see what administration feels about certain topics through the rules and regulations put into place, but before we had no way to see how students really felt about them. This is where the feedback and 18 question come into play. The questions and feedback give everyone the opportunity put those issues in the air that they may not have time to schedule an appointment with administration to address.

The questions and issues addressed in the opinions section are not overlooked. Certain members of administration have issued their respect for the paper and their concern for the issues addressed in the section. No matter what anyone feels about the Courtbouillon, we are a source of information for the student body as well as a voice that students don’t use enough.

We encourage feedback and the use of everything we have to offer from our website to the ask Karmen column. I will still hold a place on the editorial board of the Courtbouillon as the Online editor where I will manage the website, but there comes a time in everyone’s life to pass the torch on to another person.

In my case, my successor has not yet been chosen, but he or she will step up and serve the university as I have. Around the beginning of the school year, I received a feedback email that questioned the student body.

This member of the Dillard University staff asked the students why is it that students do not just come to accept the things that go on here at Dillard?

My response to that question is easy for me. If a person goes to McDonalds and pays for an extra value meal and only receives an order of fries, they are not getting all of the products guaranteed in the amount that they paid. Any normal person would then question where the rest of their food is and would require that the employees give them the missing products.

Personally, I do not see Dillard as any different. I believe that when we pay our tuition, we are paying for a service that should be rendered to us in a timely but very high quality fashion. Should the timeliness or quality of the services rendered here at Dillard begin to slack off or no longer be of good quality, as paying customers, we have the right to question anything that goes on here.

The reason I do not just simply accept some of the things that are going on here is because I know that we can do better. There is not a perfect aspect of this university or any school for that matter, but it is what we are doing to improve that make the university great.

As African Americans many of us have lived our lives where we have had to be twice as good and twice as talented as other races in order to succeed in what ever we were trying to accomplish. I do not understand why our university is not held to the same standard.

If Dillard is producing educated African Americans who will have to work twice as hard to succeed in a world that many times does not have many faces that look like ours in it, then our university should be twice as good and should put in twice as much work to make sure that our college experience is fulfilling.

Teachers and professors should know their classes and students twice as well so that each student has twice the opportunity to succeed in college. Our standards should be higher because our challenges in life are harder, and college is the training ground for us to go out into a world that was once against us and succeed.

As a columnist for the paper, I only wanted to raise the bar and make sure that the Dillard community knew that things could be better. It is when we started just accepting things the way they are that the declines in the morality and standards of society began to take place.

We cannot afford to just accept things as they are given to us. It is my prayer for the Dillard community that one day, the dream of an excellent university will become a reality. Though many believe that this is only a dream, it is more than possible. Many times, life is about improvements. If something does not work, find the problem and fix it. Many times people use the cliché if it is not broken, do not try to fix it. I agree with the statement but only to a certain extent.

Just because something is not broken, that does not mean that it cannot be better. There is always room for improvement. I have had my successes and failures as opinions editor and as the Diva, and though it is not broken, the next columnist has the opportunity to improve the Opinions section. As I said before, it has been an honor and a pleasure to serve the Dillard community through my opinion and my writings. There will never be another Diva like me, but we will make sure that our next columnist raises the bar higher than the one I have set.

Thank you again.

The Diva has spoken.