In honor of the fast approaching All-Hallows Eve and Day of the Dead, I think it's appropriate for a topic of the spookier variety--ghosts.

Oh yes, dear reader. They do walk among us--particularly in college. In fact, you can find them on every college and university campus in the country. You'll rarely see them in the dorms, but they haunt the classrooms in droves, and no lounge is safe from their silent, mournful presence. In fact, many of them leave parts of themselves behind in odd corners, shelves, and lockers in the lounges. Much of the student body can go by for whole years without ever noticing them, but there are always a select few whom the phantoms choose to commune with. And after you notice them once, you will always be aware of them, always on the corners of your vision as you stroll down the hallways of the academic buildings and the main roads of campus. Of course,hose who know of these forlorn specters call them by another name--commuter students.

Seriously though? Commuter students are practically the ghosts of any college campus. As a general rule, commuters tend to be far less involved in on-campus activities, largely because they aren't given nearly as much advance notification for upcoming events as students who live in on-campus dorms. At least dorm residents can regularly see flyers posted in dorm lounges. For commuters, if flyers aren't posted visibly in academic hallways or lounges, their only source of information for upcoming events are word-of-mouth from other students and anything that might be included in campus-wide emails. On top of that, for commuters with drive times longer than 20 minutes, late night gatherings and parties are nearly impossible to attend. When juggling schoolwork with part-time jobs and longer drive times to get back home after classes and meetings, social engagements often get the axe in a commuter's schedule. They either just don't have the time or the energy for them.

Honestly, I really think we need to talk about the extra commitment required by longer-distance commuters to stay on top of things to the same degree as dorm-dwelling students. They deserve more credit and recognition for what they do, and more activities should be modified to accommodate their full and tiring schedules. I'm just trying to make these hard-working students, these campus ghosts, a little more visible to the rest of us. They've got it coming to them.