By: Taylor Fulkerson

The remarks of friends who graduated only this May still haunt me: “This university is not the same place now that it was when I first came here.” And another friend mentioned that, “If I had known that Xavier would turn into what it is now, I would not have come here.”

This university is a place I both love and hate. I love the community of people that exists here but I hate the institution that casts its long shadow over the rapidlychanging place that is Xavier.

Why? The administration of this university is inflated, sees the world with a business frame of mind and seems to be more concerned with making this place bigger and better than with making a real commitment to what the Jesuits call magis—growing deeper and growing in quality.

Instead Xavier is sprawling out, trying to amass quantity (of dollars, buildings and students, in that order).

To be honest, I feel like I am shouting at a wall whenever I try to inform other students about the problems we are facing as a university community. To clarify, I don’t mean to say that Xavier students are thick-headed or static. What concerns me is that I hear no response.

I don’t mean to place blame on the student community. We are here for a limited time, a mere four years. Big university announcements almost always seem to come at an inconvenient time— immediately before finals week or over the summer. Regardless, it feels near impossible to rouse any serious student activism.

So what am I getting at? If we don’t gather together as Xavier the community to challenge Xavier the institution (and in earnest), we may have the rug pulled firmly out from under us.

Taylor Fulkerson is the Opinion & Editorials Editor at the Newswire. He is majoring in Philosophy and Spanish, with minors in Latin American Studies, History and Peace Studies.