PETITION UPDATE – Friday 4/18/19

As of today, it has been seven days since this petition was posted. In those seven days, just under six thousand members of the Notre Dame community – primarily current undergraduate students, but also graduate students, alumni, faculty, staff, and parents of students and alumni – have signed their name in public agreement with its message. Over three thousand of those signatures came in the first day.

Since then, members of Student Affairs, Residential Life, and the broader administration have read this petition. They have met with me, members of the outgoing student government, members of the incoming student government, and various other student leaders in closed-door meetings.

And yet, they have failed to issue any public statement addressing the controversy.

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The political climate in this country is, by any measure, toxic. Ad hominem attacks and shouting are the dominant, if not the only, approaches used in public discourse. The only thing that anyone can seem to agree on is that no side in any issue listens to the others.

The Notre Dame community has read and listened to the policy change released last week, and it has (for the most part) respectfully expressed its views. If the administrative leaders of the University of Notre Dame truly want this institution to be a force for good in the world, they will continue this example against the failure to listen. If they believe the slogans and taglines preached in every jumbotron commercial, then they will listen to the outpouring of concern from this community in response to this policy announcement.

If, after listening, the leaders of Student Affairs and Residential Life disagree with the sentiments expressed by an overwhelming portion of the student body and broader university community, then they should, at the very least, publicly explain their side of the issue in clear-cut terms. They should explain why they will go forward with the policy despite the outrage and concern evident in the reaction to its announcement.

If and when they do issue a statement, we must be ready to again listen in turn. This is the only way to build to a solution that both serves the administration’s broader goals and takes into account the realities of the dorm communities that students cherish.

 

On the Policy

The Division of Student Affairs must come to terms with the fact that the dorm communities they hold up as the central pillars of student life are indeed, as current off-campus junior Christopher Schilling of Keough puts it, strong enough to transcend the buildings. Off-campus students regularly attend mass in their former dorm; in Alumni, my now-off-campus former roommate, Jack Adams, consistently sits in the front row at Dawg Mass, often participating as a lector. His ability to also participate in programming like hall dances and interhall sports is no different, and it would be strange and confusing if he were excluded from those things. He is a Dawg of Alumni Hall – a Blessed Man and Brother, as Father George would say – and always will be.

These aspects of community life are far, far more than mere perks and privileges that come with the $15,640 residents pay annually for on-campus room and board. Rather, inclusion in such things is a crucial indication of their continued inclusion in the family they were welcomed into on a hot August day four short years ago. Force dorms to exclude people who move off campus, and the message of welcome into a permanent family is called into question.

If Student Affairs chooses to use these things as a bargaining chip to disincentivize the move off campus, they will severely undermine the values of welcome and inclusion that are rightly plastered on every available surface of this university’s promotional material. They will fail to take into account the variety of more pressing reasons that lead people to move off campus, excluding even those who left on the basis of mental health, financial necessity, and discrimination on the basis of gender identity, as well as racial and ethnic status – the list goes on – but still wish to maintain a connection with their on-campus family. As members of these residence hall communities, we must make it clear that we know firsthand how damaging this will be.

 

Going Forward

In about four weeks, the senior class of 2019 – which includes me, the organizers of last Friday’s protest, and the rest of the seniors who count their dorm as a home no matter where life has taken or will take them – will graduate. We will join the masses of Notre Dame alumni who live in every corner of the globe yet still count this campus as their home.

In addition, the rest of the student body will depart for summer break. When they return in the fall, the responsibility to speak out on this issue will belong nearly exclusively to the students still here. From the upcoming seniors of the Class of 2020 to the incoming freshmen of the Class of 2023, students will have to take personal initiative to have their voices heard. It will be on Student Government at every level, it will be on hall governments, it will be on student advocacy groups, and it will be on individual students in this community to come together and make it clear that excluding off-campus seniors from their dorm communities is detrimental to both those individuals and the communities who are forced to exclude them.

This petition alone will likely not be enough. Other mediums suitable for voicing opinions and feedback on this policy, such as direct emails, participation in student government, further demonstrations, and others, may be necessary to create change. It will be up to the students who care enough about their dorm communities to take leadership roles in this effort and decide exactly how to go about it.

In the meantime, I ask each person who signed this petition to encourage their friends who feel likewise to sign on and make their voices heard. This is most important for the freshman class, which, if the policy is implemented in the fall of 2021, will be the first class to feel its effects.

The administration may take a long time to respond, if they ever choose to do so. Regardless, it will take a sustained effort by the student body to make its position clear. That way, should the Division of Student Affairs and Residential Life choose to go forward with the policy, they will, at the very least, be well aware that they do so against the wishes and recommendations of the people it will affect. Everyone from the faculty to incoming freshman classes to those high school students yet to apply (and their parents) will be well aware of the way that policy is made in the Division of Student Affairs. They will be well aware of the priorities that matter, no matter whether these priorities make sense in the spectrum of reality students inhabit.

So: Share the petition. Encourage your peers to sign. Most importantly, continue the effort into next year after the Class of 2019 is gone from this special place.

We cannot ensure that the administration will listen. We can ensure that they will hear.

 

Credit Where Credit is Due

In the original posting of this petition, I neglected to give credit to the other senior RAs who gave vital ideas and feedback in its drafting and distribution. Without help from these people, this petition would not have been possible. In particular, I need to thank Matthew Bartilotti (Alumni Hall), Megan Reilly (Pasquerilla West), Jarek Jankowski (Carroll Hall), Amy Mansfield (Welsh Family Hall), Joe Trzaska (St. Edwards Hall), and Niko Martinovic (Zahm House) for their part in ensuring the petition adequately addressed the issue and took into account a variety of perspectives.

In addition, Belin Mirabile (McGlinn Hall), Mark Hancher (Dillon Hall), Andrew Stineman (Zahm House), Michael Doherty (Alumni Hall), Justin Buettner (Carroll Hall), Sean Scannell (O’Neill Hall), John Bodien (Duncan Hall), Michael Davis (Siegfried Hall) and several others provided important suggestions and assistance.

Finally, I need to thank you, the signers of this petition, for choosing to state your agreement and further opinions publicly. I thank you for generally doing so in a respectful way, and I ask that people continue to do so in this and other forums. In the end, this is a disagreement over ideas, not people; ad hominem only poisons the debate for all concerned. Virtually everyone involved has a common goal in mind: to make the residence hall communities at Notre Dame the very best that they can be. As the original petition states, this discussion is only part of the larger conversation in that area, and we all look forward to continuing it.

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To contact the Division of Student Affairs Directly, follow the links below:

-       https://studentaffairs.nd.edu/contact/

-       https://residentiallife.nd.edu/contact/

Final Note: Change.Org automatically asks for monetary donations from signers to promote the petition within its website. These donations do not go to me or any aspect of this cause beyond that; since this petition is meant to be from the Notre Dame community, promoting it to the general Change.Org public doesn't actually add to the message very much. If you do wish to make a financial contribution, we ask that you instead send it to the Holy Cross Missions in Bangladesh at this link, which Alumni Hall's chapel collections have helped support for decades under Rector Father George Rozum, C.S.C.