Two stories in this week’s Mass Media highlight the importance of student leaders as role models on campus. One story, “Dean Janey Chastises Student Leaders” (p. 1), is about bickering and confrontation on the fourth floor of the Wheatley Building between student leaders. The other story, “It’s All About Second Chances For These UMB Students” (p. 3), is about three students who took advantage of the opportunities offered at the this university and went on to excel in leadership and academic roles.

If someone from outside the university community were to pick up The Mass Media, one would hope that they would read both stories in order to get a clear picture of what UMass Boston is about.

The first story is about lack of leadership-to be fair-by both student leaders and administrators. The story is full of finger pointing and criticism, in both directions. While it made for good news copy, it wasn’t very good PR.

The second story, and the students in this story deserve to be named, is about Colis Brown, Danette Jordan and Jeanette LaVasta. Jordan and LaVasta are students who returned to UMB later in life (hence the “second chance,”) and parlayed their experiences here into medical school admissions. They were so grateful for the opportunities that this university provided them-in particular that of Professor Robert Guimond-that they took the time and effort to endow a scholarship in his name.

And they gave the inaugural award to a real student role model, Colis Brown. (Rather than rehash his accomplishments in this space, read the story on page 3). Suffice to say he presents a much more positive, and one could argue more accurate, picture of a UMB student.

And it should be mandatory reading for those “student leaders” from the fourth floor of Wheatley.