Real change requires a persistent effort, particularly as graduating seniors leave campus

Two years ago, when I was a sophomore, I wrote my first opinion advocating for campus to allow a pro-choice club, because not allowing one went against Benedictine values and Catholic social teaching.

Now here I am, about to graduate, still advocating for change within CSB/SJU.

You may be asking, why do you care about CSB/SJU when you are about to graduate? Why do you care?

Angela Rose Myers said it best in her conversation with Dr. Siyabuala Mandela on campus a few weeks back. She said that colleges and universities are hesitant to change because students cycle through every four years and most of the time when students leave they stop advocating for change.

We have to stay persistent. When we leave CSB/SJU, we have to continue to advocate for current and future students.

During the CSB senior dinner last Sunday, I sensed a feeling of unease when we were told multiple times to remember to donate to CSB after we graduate.

You and I are not obligated to donate anything until we finish paying our student loans and our institution starts becoming a place that we feel is worthy of our dollars.

Once CSB/SJU becomes more inclusive and decolonized in both its instruction and its environment, then I will start to consider it an institution worth investing in.

CSB and SJU’s tax forms are public, and they are doing just fine when it comes to their finances. When it comes to money, we have given them enough.

It is our classmates who need us. It may seem like I am a pessimist when it comes to the future of CSB/SJU, but I am far from it. If I was a pessimist I wouldn’t be writing this op-ed.

CSB/SJU is an incredible place with an incredible faculty and amazing resources that are not being used to their fullest potential. Our institution has almost everything it needs to be successful, it is just hesitant to change.

One of the only things it needs is to diversify its faculty and expand beyond a western and colonized approach of instruction. I believe that if they do this everything else will fall into place.

Without Black, Hispanic and Indigenous faculty members this institution will continue to be unsuccessful.

How can you say you are working to repair indigenous relations when you have not hired an indigenous faculty member? The hypocrisy.

There is change that needs to happen and most of it doesn’t require money, especially our money.

Seniors, as you graduate please insist on change. Our voice and our actions matter.

I have loved writing these opinions and reading all your responses. If you are a student who is interested in writing opinions, please do so! Please don’t be scared to email or contact me. I am not as threatening as my opinions seem to be.