It seems that everywhere we turn, friends, news reporters or bloggers inform us about our spiraling economy. With each passing day we plunge further into this economic ditch. From corporate closings, to small business layoffs to taxpayers funding a $350 billion bailout, it seems that there’s no bottom.

And how did we get here? Irresponsibility, greediness and narcissism are but a few words that describe the behavior of those who got us into this — to put it simply — mess. We have come to expect these traits from bankers and brokers, but not from students at the Fairest College on the Hill aiming to enlighten the world. At a time when many of our seniors are looking for jobs in a failing economy, it seems that many students are complaining about campus cutbacks. The loudest of this noise is about the trimming of menu items at Valentine.

As we know, all departments were required to reduce spending by 10 percent. Val cuts will come in one form or another: plastic cups and paper plates, or people. On Feb. 4, we learned that Smith College is closing some of their houses and, as a result, laying people off. Should we not sacrifice so that the College’s cost cuts come in the form of inanimate, rather than animate, objects? Is it not better to save a person’s livelihood by saving jobs rather than purchasing disposable dishes? Not to mention that such job preservation also constitutes a step toward environmental conservation.

I understand that you want your cereal at dinner; you want your applesauce, your pesto sauce and your plastic cups. But for a moment, let us put our wants in perspective on a more grand scale. As of Feb. 2009, a total of 3.6 million American workers are now unemployed. Would we really like to add to that number?

Most, if not every one of us, applied to Amherst College because we believe in the Jeffs and what Amherst represents. One of the College’s major tenets is finding solutions for pressing issues of the 21st century. To the culprits who trashed our dining hall: vandalizing Val causes the college to spend, not save. Rather, proposing to donate $100,000 to the College, as the Association of Amherst Students (AAS) suggests, aligns “our values and Amherst’s mission,” as AAS President Nick Pastan ’09 stated. So how can we further the consensus about Val?

This is, to borrow a phrase from Amherst alum Joshua Stanton ’08, a “teaching and learning moment” for our college community.

Students understand that cuts must be made and we are not impervious to the economic crisis, but there is consensus that the process should have been more “democratic.” “I would have liked to be more involved in the decision-making process,” someone commented. “I felt as if I was acted upon and I had no choice. It was jarring because I returned to Val and everything was gone,” another said.

Unfortunately, we don’t know how to ride this tide into steady waters because we are in uncharted territory. But perhaps we could return to the drawing board. Yes, we had a College-wide meeting to inform us and ask for suggestions, but did we respond to the call? A suggestion: The College should survey students, ask us where we think that Val’s cut should come from, compare the results to Val’s statistics and then make a decision.

Whatever the net result, we must understand that this is about sacrifice. Think back to the sacrifices someone made for you. Those grandparents who packed everything in one suitcase from Ireland, Italy, Germany or Poland, soldiers in the American Revolution, the men of Amherst who built our college on a hill, the Union army, Civil Rights activists and the first women who integrated Amherst.

Imagine how our lives would be if no one sacrificed for us. When put into perspective on the grander scale of life, we should not only sacrifice cereal to sustain our college, but ask, “What more should we sacrifice?”