Moving forward from difficult times

By Editorial

This quarter at Santa Clara has been a tough one for the entire campus community.

Students began the quarter mourning the death of sophomore Patrick Wroe, who died in a car accident in his hometown of Cape Cod, Mass. over Winter break.

In early February, Dick Davey, head of the men's basketball team, announced the end of his 30-year career at Santa Clara. His retirement has been marred by skepticism about possible outside influences who had encouraged the decision. Regardless of the validity of the claims, Davey, who has led the Broncos to a memorable season thus far and won WCC Coach of the Year Tuesday, will be leaving on top.

And most recently, the "south of the border" theme party has transcended the Santa Clara bubble and made headline news across the country. Though the theme party has sparked outrage in the voices of many students, faculty and alumni, it has also encouraged debate and promoted a campus dialogue never before seen at Santa Clara.

On Monday afternoon, editors of The Santa Clara had the opportunity to have a discussion with University PresidentPaul Locatelli, S.J., about these parties, along with various other campus issues. Instead of dwelling on the incident, Locatelli saw the theme parties as events that can be utilized as learning opportunities for the entire campus community.

"I don't think long-term it's going to hurt our image," he said. "People didn't realize what the impact of those pictures were ... but the fact that they didn't understand stereotyping demeans and hurts somebody shows we have some work to do."

Although we can't forget about the events of this past quarter, we must, as a university, use this quarter as a lesson to help us improve in the future. Despite thoughts of the pervasive nature of the theme parties, our community can -- and will -- heal and be stronger as a result. We must not move on, but move forward, remembering what happened, but constantly trying to improve.

And these most recent events aren't going unnoticed in future changes within the university structure. The new core curriculum, which will be in place beginning in the fall of 2008, will likely be improved thanks to the theme party controversy. The new curriculum will include a diversity requirement for all students -- regardless of major. "The issues of race and culture are going to become even a greater set of issues than they've been in the past," said Locatelli.

In an age where increasing globalization is affecting all industries, he also believes this new core curriculum will create the foundation for future Santa Clara students to not only be successful in the professional world, but it will prepare students to be greater contributors to society.

We have a lot to look forward to and a lot to be proud of at Santa Clara. Our new library and business school are both on track in their respective construction efforts. Though not all of us will be here when the projects are completed, we can know that these large-scale changes are visible efforts to improve our university for the future.

The university is not a static community. The infrastructure, curriculum and population is fluid. Each generation is bound to face its share of controversy, whether it be women's rights, civil rights, immigration reform or globalization. And our generation is no different.

But we can't let each negative blemish affect our entire outlook on the university. We must, instead, take each in stride and use each as a catalyst to empower future generations.