York is finally taking bold steps to solve one of the biggest problems facing our university: ugly buildings.
I’m glad they’re finally doing something about the outdated, drab architecture on campus—they’re covering it with attractive people.
Wall after wall boasts confident, determined, handsome faces gazing off into the distance. Serious eyes and slight smiles play above their bold visions for the future. Manned missions to Mars are envisioned next to ethically-grown stem cells.
This York place has so much going on! It produces bright, passionate, beautiful students. I can’t help but smile to myself, knowing now what I must do. This brilliant campaign has convinced me to go to York.
Oh, wait.
Don’t I already go here? According to the $16,000 of debt currently hanging over my head, I certainly do. So why am I looking at this ad? It’s not like I can go here any harder.
Why exactly is York paying for all of this? I thought the point of an ad was to get people to come here, so why is the campaign bigger on campus than off?
This certainly can’t be a serious campaign. Otherwise they would have fact-checked the damn ads (or at least explained how to save millions in a country with less than 400,000 people).
More baffling to me than the choice to spend thousands of ad dollars on its own campus is the university’s choice of winner.
Oh yeah, there was a contest—come up with the material for York’s new ad campaign for free, and you might win free tuition (*only the photogenic need apply).
I have nothing against Jacqueline Tran. She seems like a lovely person, and her vision of eliminating gender inequality in the workplace is a great one, but appointing her the winner seems out of character for the university.
With all the money York is funneling into the science and engineering programs, you’d think they would choose a vision to attract those kinds of students. Frankly, between the cuts to and undervaluing of the faculty at York, I’m surprised a liberal arts student even made the list, let alone won.
As I stare up at the posters, I honestly have no idea what I’m looking at. It can’t be an ad campaign, or it wouldn’t be on the campus it’s advertising. It can’t be an exhibition of student vision, or York would have fact-checked to see if those visions made any sense.
And it certainly can’t be a reason to make me proud of York, or it wouldn’t have been a waste of My Money and My Time.
Mark Grant, Photo Editor
