So, here’s my “senior” goodbye. I’m not a senior, but this marks my final issue at The Daily Beacon.

Earlier this year, the parent of a prospective student told me that the junior year is the best year of college because it’s the last one in which you are completely focused within the campus space. After that, you’re looking ahead. Your sights are no longer set within the university community but, rather, beyond the place you’ve come to call home.

So, perhaps it’s appropriate that I write my goodbye column at this point in my college career.

During my tenure at The Beacon, my goal for this publication has been to highlight and explain issues of concern to students on this campus. I may be unusual in that my concerns for this university are primarily fiscal ones. The truth is, though, the issues most students worry about obviously are not fiscal, but monetary problems underlie most issues of student concern on this campus (class size, quality of buildings, class availability, tuition increases, etc.).

As I look ahead to the future of the university, one particular date looms in my mind: July 1, 2011. None of us really knows what this university will look like once the stimulus funds run out. Sure, administrators have been making plans for over a year now in preparation for these impending budget cuts, but that does not mean that any of us knows exactly what to expect when that day finally arrives.

Though all students may not be aware of the plans and strategies administrators are considering in the face of these multi-million dollar cuts, all students are aware of different problems that plague this campus and this university as a whole.

So, in saying goodbye, I ask you to consider what you see to be the primary downfalls of this university. Think about these issues, and then brainstorm potential solutions to these problems. (And let me just say that cutting salaries, for the most part, is not a reasonable solution.)

As students, you live your lives on this campus more so than faculty, staff and administrators do. You know what’s lacking on this campus, and you might even know how to solve these problems. Take the initiative to consider real solutions to these problems. You have just as much insight — maybe even more — into these issues as do administrators. And if you come up with a brilliant idea, share it! The chancellor and the provost, I know, are eager to hear your feedback.

This place has become my home, as I trust it has become yours as well. It’s easy to merely complain about the issues on this campus, cathartically releasing our frustration with bureaucratic red tape. In truth, though, we have a responsibility to own our alma mater to do something about its problems in order to ensure that it continues to be a place in which students learn and grow into their full potential as adults, as human beings.

As students, it’s difficult to make The Beacon all that it can be, but I hope that at least to some extent you feel that you have been more informed and more educated about the goings-on of this campus as a result of our publication. And, in saying goodbye, I hope I have in some way inspired you to an active and practical consideration of ways to improve your and future students’ experiences at UT.

And may our university continue to improve itself, with continued commitment to its students and its students to it. And thus, may the University of Tennessee, with the help of its students and alumni, increase in excellence, building upon its rich traditions: “On a Hallowed hill in Tennessee / Like Beacon shining bright / The stately walls of old U.T. / Rise glorious to the sight.”