MSU has a terrific public relations program, and it shows when students listen to or read the words of university officials. Provost Kim Wilcox wants to “take a chance to think about” pushing the beginning of the school year past Labor Day. R. Sekhar Chivukula, a physics professor and chairman of the University Council on Academic Policy, said the survey is a way to appease students, faculty and staff.

Oh, and by the way, the Tooth Fairy is real, too.

If student inclusion is the ultimate goal — and let’s be honest, it hasn’t been until this point — then the issue of Welcome Week must be brought back into discussion. Actually, it just needs to be brought into discussion, since the university so cleverly kept students’ mouths silenced by not offering them a choice in the first place.

It’s purely laughable that the university thinks students will be appreciative of this survey, of this chance for some semblance of democracy. Where was the democracy, the survey, even the soliciting of student opinion when Welcome Week changes were being contemplated? I can only imagine these student-including discussions about Welcome Week changes occurred in university officials’ dreams, because they are certainly dreaming if they thought students would agree with their proposal.

There are some decent enough ideas to provide student relief during the school year. Ideas include starting the school year after Labor Day, a two-day break in October and a mini-term in January. Some of these changes could require a complete overhaul to the school year, but it will be up to the students to decide. Or so we’re told.

If appealing to all audiences is the golden standard for the calendar debate, how does the now-former Welcome Week format not accomplish that aim? Welcome Week was the perfect time for freshmen to learn campus, for faculty and staff to get established in their offices and put the finishing touches on course plans and for overall mental preparation for classes.

It is especially important for freshmen to have those extra couple of Welcome Week days to make friends and the transition to college easier, but all the university probably sees when it thinks of Welcome Week is a bunch of college students drunkenly terrorizing East Lansing. I’m not going to pretend the parties don’t happen, but at least I know acclimation to college would have been much more daunting were it not for the bonding and adjustment period of Welcome Week.

There are other activities and programs that will be hit hard by the Welcome Week change. Community-building programs in residential colleges, such as JMC Inc., a community service-based Welcome Week program for incoming James Madison College freshmen, will be sacrificed. Fraternity and sorority recruitment will be affected because students will not have the same amount of time to check out houses. Welcome Week events at the Union and around campus, where many student organizations gather contact information and new members, might be forgone by students who don’t think they have the time to accomplish everything in those first days at MSU.

Students who don’t live in residence halls will come to East Lansing whenever their lease allows and begin their partying rituals as if Welcome Week were never canceled. That is not the point, though. It is simply hypocritical that the university only now cares about how the academic calendar affects students but will not submit Welcome Week back to the drawing board.

I can’t help but thinking that maybe this whole column has been written in vain. And, ultimately, I doubt the university will listen to me about Welcome Week.

When have they ever listened to the students about Welcome Week?

Zack Colman is The State News opinion writer. Reach him at colmanz1@msu.edu.