So You’re Upset. Do Something: A Case for The Clock.

By James Kelly

Published November 15, 2025

So the dining hall is bad. So there’s never any food. So your dorm is inhospitable. So the bathrooms are gross. So the parties are lame. So there’s not enough parking. So you can’t take the classes you want. So your favorite professor is leaving. So you’re lonely. So you’re angry. So you’re upset. 

So what?

I have spent a large part of the last few months and the beginning of my tenure as Editor-in-Chief considering what exactly it means to be in a student newspaper. Why am I here? The question can be partially answered by a series of self-deprecating descriptions of myself and my personality. I am a nerd; I think writing is fun. I am vain; I enjoy seeing my name in an article’s byline and getting some attention if it is well-received. At the same time, being a journalist in the purest sense entails a larger, if not somewhat idealistic, mission comprising the pursuit of truth and accountability. 

I value those things deeply, but that is a tough sell for prospective members of The Clock. “Join us on our pursuit of Truth” sounds more like a slogan for a cult. Bearing the idealized mission of a free press – a Truth-protecting fourth estate – is a tough ask for college students. But at its core, journalism is an effective tool for something a little more digestible: making change. 

The prevailing theory of the case is that PSU’s student body is a largely apathetic one. I have observed as much as a student, a journalist, and a political activist. Broadly speaking, Plymouth students are uninvolved. They’re unmotivated. They let ChatGPT do their homework. They’re withdrawn. They don’t care. 

But ask any student who lived in a dorm their freshman year about their experience, and they are sure to share a laundry list of horror stories about Thursday-night parades of drunken vandals, urine in the stairwell, or vomit on the floors. Ask them about the cleanliness of the bathrooms or the functionality of the elevators, and it will soon be clear that they do care.

I do not think the correct diagnosis is apathy, then, but rather a widespread feeling of powerlessness. Students do care, but they don’t feel they can do anything about it except leave. And leave they do; Plymouth’s retention and graduation rates (68.3% and 55.2%, respectively) are significantly lower than Keene’s (78.7% and 60.1%), UNH’s (87.3% and 76.0%) and the national average (77.5% and 64.5%, according to the National Center for Education Statistics).

So why do PSU’s student journalists dedicate so much time to a job for which they are not paid? I have been writing for The Clock for more than two years, and that time has affirmed my idealistic notion of what a free press can and should do; The Clock has made change.

Plymouth State has a lot of problems, but it also has a lot of students with a will to try and fix them. To those students, here is my invitation: if you would like to see change, journalism is a tool that can help you succeed. The Clock is far from a cure-all for PSU’s ills. But it is a mechanism for change on a campus full of students whom I know want change. It can be hard work, but done-right it is incredibly rewarding. 

We meet Tuesdays at 7pm in Mary Lyon 050K. You are always welcome. 

Know the times, join The Clock.

James Kelly

Editor-in-Chief