Xavier students have not been short on opin­ions this year, and this year has been a rather event­ful one.

Students have made strong statements about everything from the fence around the basketball courts to the ongoing Core curriculum revision. They have expressed interest in international poli­tics, defining what it means to be a student and ev­erything in between.

The Newswire has had the privilege of facilitating many of those discussions, whether through the instigation of our featured columnists or through the responses of students, faculty and community members in letters to the editor.

As a staff, we have not shied away from making controversial statements or writing down our own thoughts in staff editorials.

I, for one, believe student politics in the United States is often a mere shadow of our European, Canadian and Latin American counterparts. We do not seriously challenge the status quo very often.

That is not to say that student politics ought to be forceful and intimidating, either. Universities are steeped in tradition, and it is not necessarily always our place to upset that by overwhelming the ad­ministration or faculty with a slew of petitions or demonstrations, although those actions have their appropriate time and place.

That being said, the student body has certainly spoken up this year, even in the overly polite, con­troversy-averse environment of the Midwest.

It is probably beyond fair use to employ the phrase “we the student body,” but if this week’s set of columns says anything, it says that there is something that unites us despite all our differences. Xavier creates a certain identity in most of us, so I hope that you will permit me to invoke “us” as a collective.

We as a student body have not shied away from letting the administration know that we think its pol­icies are sometimes unfair or from letting the faculty know that, by – God, we do need the Core, whether it is financially efficient or not.

We as a student body have respectfully confront­ed the stark opinions that have appeared in the paper without resorting to pettiness, instead using argu­ments and good reason to defend our positions.

The opinion pages are probably only seen by a small number of readers and receive content from an even smaller group of individuals. However, it has been my privilege to address this group of loyal supporters (and opposition) on campus and to help make dialogue possible.

I will not pretend that most students really appre­ciate Socrates and his constant questioning, but he is a figure we have all encountered nonetheless. And I dare to say that we continue to encounter him and his pestering: we see him in dialogue and conversation, in the opinions of others and in our own willingness to stick our necks out in a desire to know.