The Aquilian May 2017 Volume 79, Number 6
Gonzaga College High School Men For Others Since 1821
19 Eye St, NW
Washington, DC 20001
Repairing the Historic St. Aloysius Church By: Peter Brown `17 Editor-in-chief On April 6, during the middle of seventh period, Gonzaga met the unexpected. A brief but vicious storm system swept across the greater Washington D.C. area, and with it came several uprooted trees, toppled lamp posts, and downed road signs across the city. Gonzaga caught the brunt of the storm: Several powerful wind gusts swept through the campus blowing loose athletic equipment onto Buchannan Field, knocking over trash cans up and down the Jesuit Walk, and, most noticeably, removing a large
chunk of the steel membrane covering the southern wooden roof of St. Aloysius Gonzaga’s church. Debris from the roof caused by the storm was scattered all over campus. In the alley connecting the quadrangle to adjacent North Capitol Street, wood chips and roof fragments covered the whole driveway, and a large black slab of roofing draped over the north end of the church (remember – it originally came from the south side). Further on from the driveway, pieces of the roof flew all the way across the chasm between Cantwell Hall and St. Al’s to land on the roof
of Cantwell. In fact, many of those pieces still lie there today at the writing of the article on account of how difficult it can be gaining access to Cantwell’s rooftop. The damage done to St. Al’s roof led to a temporary closure to the section of North Capitol Street adjacent to the church while they cleaned up the pieces that blew off the church. Many were concerned that the damage would result in several important Gonzaga events, such as school masses, the annual Ignatian Heritage Day celebration, and graduation, to be held outside of St. Al’s. While the Ignatian Heri-
tage Day event had to be moved moved last-minute to the Carmody Center gym, Gonzaga did eventually congregate again under St. Al’s as a community for its last school mass of the school year on April 26, about three weeks after the storm. I recently sat down with Gonzaga’s President Fr. Stephen Planning, S.J. to discuss his perspective of the roof incident, to look over the immediate aftermath of the situation, and to iron out any details he could provide regarding the timeline for fixing the roof. “I could see that the skies were a little threatening and looked rather ominous that
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Rugby, p.4
Poets to Poets, p.5
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day,” Fr. Planning said. “I could see from my office all this heavy equipment blowing across the field and thought to myself, ‘That’s not supposed to happen.’ Then the window started to rattle. I was nervous the window might even blow out! But it only lasted about fifteen seconds or so.” He mentioned that no sooner did it end that he received a phone call from Mr. Kilroy, Gonzaga’s Dean of Students, saying that something major had happened. “I went to the alley between the church and Cantwell Hall and I could Continued on page 2
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Interview with Fr. Planning
Continued from page 1 see a large portion of the roof hanging down,” Fr. Planning continued. “I thought that that was where the damage was. It wasn’t until much later that I realized that all the roof parts had blown from the other side. Some boards had even flown all the way over to the roof of Cantwell Hall and had even smashed through the windows of parked cars. I was most worried that someone would get hurt or had gotten hurt. I hadn’t known that there were students actually in the church until much later, and thankfully they got out OK. That’s the most important thing. The second most important thing was that there was minimal damage in the church, since many things in there such as the art are not replaceable. Thankfully, the damage inside the church ended up being very minimal, although we may have to do some repainting.” I then asked Fr. Planning about the prospect of graduation for the Class of 2017, as well as broader plans that the school may have for fixing the roof in the months ahead.
“It took them about two weeks to get [the roof] water tight and safe for occupancy through graduation,” Fr. Planning said. “So we will be having graduation in the church. For now, our contractors are going to look through the church and see what’s best to do.” I asked Fr. Planning if he by any chance knew how much the project would cost. “I don’t know how much the cost will be,” he explained. “But there’s likely going to be a difference between what insurance is going to pay for the damage and what we will have to spend to fix it. The reason for the difference is that while the insurance company is responsible for covering the storm damage, the reality is that there is also some old one-hundred-andfifty-eight-year-old wood underneath the steel covering that needs to be removed and replaced with plywood. My guess is that insurance will cover half of it, and that the out-of-pocket cost to Gonzaga would be in the hundreds of thousands. Hopefully no more than half of a million dollars. But I can safely say
The Aquilian Founded In 1940
Gonzaga College HIgh School 19 Eye Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 Men For Others in the Jesuit Tradition Since 1821
that it will be in the hundreds of thousands.” As the interview drew to a close, Fr. Planning took the time to iron out a few more details that some members of the community were concerned about. In terms of the general timeline Fr. Planning said, “It’ll be a four or five month project,” he said. “We’ll be good to have events in the church during the weekends like weddings. There were many brides who were worried about that. But we may have to have the Mass of the Holy Spirit” --- the mass on the first day of classes for
every new school year --“in the gym. But we would hopefully have [the church] done by December so that we could have our Christmas mass in there.” When asked about the operation of the McKenna Center, Fr. Planning said, “Part of the conditions we put on this is that the McKenna Center should be able to continue to function…they’ll have to put up scaffolding to make sure that there is a safe way for people to enter and exit the building during the time of construction.” Beyond just what’s happening to the church, Fr. Planning alluded to the reality of other renovations planned for the Gonzaga campus in the near future: “Not at the same time as [the roof], but as we look forward to the bicentennial of the school in 2021, we’re looking at some possible renovations. Nothing on the scale of what you’ve seen before, but maybe putting in a few more science labs and things like that. Definitely on the smaller scale. We’re still in the planning phase for that.” Lastly, I asked Fr. Planning what the most interesting thing was he had learned throughout this ordeal. He laughed and said, “There’s a tremendous beauty in the construction of the roof of St. Al’s. The
Editor-in-Chief Peter Brown ‘17
Associate Editor Matt Gannon ‘18
Senior Editors Dela Adedze ‘17 Griffin Buising ‘17 Charlie Goetzman ‘17 Michael Jerakis ‘17
wood that was up there was put there by people who were probably also ship builders. It was interesting to see how they did it engineering wise it at that time. That’s a large open space held up by just wood…and they didn’t have cranes. How they managed that is just beautiful.” I thanked Fr. Planning for taking the time to share this information with The Aquilian and answer many of the questions that the community had been raising recently. “If we are going to rip the whole thing off, we might as well do it right,” he said. “We’re doing it because we want people to keep having their graduations in the church, and so it can last for the next one-hundred and fifty-eight years.” If you are considering donating towards repairing St. Aloysius’ Church, visit http:// bit.ly/GonzagaStAlsFund (or take a picture of the QR code below with your smartphone) for more information and where to send donations.
Phototography Jack Chesen ‘18
Moderator: Dr. Harry Rissetto
OP ED: Cell Phones and Privacy By: Jack Buckley `17 Senior Contributor The perennial conflict between privacy and access to information is one not only prevalent in the real world, but also highly relevant in the context of high school. Technology and the addition of various electronic devices in a student’s life only further opens this Pandora’s Box of controversy. Many are familiar with scenarios of a student’s phone or laptop being confiscated for one reason or another, and a subsequent screening of said device further incriminating the student. For a hypothetical example, a student is caught using his phone for something highly innocent such as texting a friend about golf plans, but administrators search through his phone and see a video of him engaging in illegal behavior at a party, and he is consequently punished. Again, this is of
course hypothetical. This hypothetical scenario is a common one in schools across the country, and there have been many court cases challenging this practice such as: Klump v. Nazareth Area School District, J.W. v. DeSoto County School District, Riley v. California, to name a few. Is this methodology of searching through unrelated information on a student’s device unjust? Potentially, and it can also be seen as unethical and a severe breach of privacy. The legal framework that provides context for cases regarding phone use and privacy is highly outdated; the most commonly cited Supreme Court case (New Jersey vs. T.L.O.) is from 1985. It dealt with a public school student who was caught smoking cigarettes and the constitutionality of a subsequent search of her locker (in which they discovered mari-
juana). The conclusion made by the Court was that each search must be “reasonably related to the objective of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the… nature of the infraction.” The example provided in the opening paragraph is not only common, but a direct breach of this judgement. To further reinforce this idea of related and unrelated searches, another relevant case adds to the legal precedent. In 2013, a Kentucky Federal Appeals Court made the decision that a public school had overreached by reading the text messages on a student’s confiscated phone (after he had been caught texting). The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that this search was unjustified, stating that “the search was unnecessary to gather evidence of the texting infraction; the school was merely fishing for evidence of other possible misdeeds.”
After reading this, some may make the claim that the students waive an important right by signing a Student Handbook or similar agreement. While this point holds a slight level of validity (more on that later) the Sixth Circuit Court continued on, saying “using a cell phone on school grounds does not automatically trigger an essentially unlimited right enabling a school official to search any content stored on the phone that is not related either substantively or temporally to the infraction.’” Again, this idea of subsequent searches being unrelated to the initial infraction might sound familiar, and this practice can end up hurting students. For us here on Eye Street, it is common knowledge that each Gonzaga student has diligently read through the Student Handbook line by line and knows it by heart;
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however, to jog the memory, here is a quote from the Student Handbook on Page 17, lines 14-17, which states that “A student found using either a phone or a laptop or tablet… in violation of the following standards will be subject to… having the contents of his phone or device (including texts, pictures and videos) screened.” After reading this (and remember that each one of us signed the document attesting that we read this), did you have any questions? In light of legal precedent did you think further about this provision? Did you ponder the ethical nature of this rule? While it is important that Gonzaga’s rules are followed, is this rule a breach of privacy? Men of Gonzaga, critical thinkers, reflective brethren…have you asked yourselves these questions?
The Grueling Grind of A Premier League Season
By: Michael Jerakis ‘17 Editor While the soap opera drama of an improbable titlewinning run may have been left out of this year’s Premier League calendar, this season saw seismic shifts in narratives, a shuffling of supremacy, and sensational styles of play unique only to perhaps the most competitive and talented league in the world. The prophesized changing of guard in North London seems to have finally materialized, the Blues reminded the country and Europe how much they ought to be reckoned with, the city of Manchester was left both disappointed and hopeful, and the Reds began their meticulous climb back the summit of English football. After a sluggish start, a sleeping giant, Chelsea, awoke from its long-overdue slumber to the relentless tune of wing-backs Marcos Alonso and Victor Moses and midfielder N’Golo Kante running opposition into the ground of rain-clogged British pitches. Manager Antonio Conte’s brilliant deployment of his 5-at-the-back system opened up acres of space for attackers Hazard and Pedro alike. Free of defensive duties, the effortlessly-roving wingers created chance after chance, with many falling to the feet of an in-form Diego Costa. Their system
of play caught fire in the English football world, with several other Premier League clubs trying their hand at it. So too did England National Team manager Gareth Southgate utilize Conte’s signature shape. Even with Diego Costa seemingly on his way to China next season, Chelsea would look forward to a potentially trophy-filled next year with the powerful pockets of owner Roman Abramovich. Across the capital city, the inevitable tide the color of Lilywhite has covered the shores of North London. Tottenham found a way this season to, well, not be so ‘Spursy.’ Fueled by the continuing emergence of young stars Dele Alli and Harry Kane alongside a steadfast defense, manager Mauricio Pochettino seems to have finally cracked the enigma of “almost” that Tottenham have always been. His intense pressing game has created an abundance of chances for his side, chances which have been snatched up and taken clinically by not only Kane and Dele, but also the club’s Korean revelation, Son Heung-min. Arsenal, on the contrary, have had, to their illustrious standards, nothing short of a disastrous season. They clamored out of the Champions’ League Round of 16 while stumbling in the league to a Europa-place finish, support for their manager of 20-
plus years is waning, and the futures of stars Özil and Sanchez remain cloudy. A finish above them by Spurs has only added insult to injury, as the Gunners clutch to their prestige of old for yet another season. North of London in Manchester, City and United both entered this year with hopes of regaining their perch atop the rest. Pep arrived in to the oil-backed half of city to bring a title to the Citizens. The Guardiola-effect has seen bits and pieces of itself translated into the City attack, with the likes of David Silva, Raheem Sterling, and competing forwards Sergio Agüero and Gabriel Jesus injecting creativity into a, at times, frustratingly lifeless attacking side just a year before. The defense is nothing short of a work in progress. John Stones and Nicolás Otamendi both arrived with massive transfer fees and have failed to cement their spot in the back four, while it’s obvious Guardiola sees no place for fullbacks already at the club in his first-choice side. His Manchester counterpart, Jose Mourinho, didn’t fare any better in his first year, either. The Red Devils outspent the league over, but Pogba’s brilliance hasn’t exactly translated (yet) from Serie A, and the same could be said of Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s Bundesliga form. Free transfer Zlatan Ibrahimović delivered the goods until his
untimely injury, along with a markedly improved Ander Herrera to anchor the midfield and English youth in the form of Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard. While United enjoyed a remarkably underwhelming 26-game unbeaten run which has seen them only manage a current 5th-place spot, their loyalties should lie in Europe’s sub-premier competition for a chance to not only claim some silverware, but to secure a Champions League finish United fans have grown accustomed to. A mere 40 miles west, a world-class Liverpool attack featuring the likes of Phillippe Coutinho alongside adept playmakers in Roberto Firmino, Adam Lallana, and Sadio Mané carved up Premier League attacks, at least while the four were actually on the pitch together. But the passion of former Borussia Dortmund manager, Jürgen Klopp, was not nearly enough to prevent embarrassing defeats to bottom-feeders, as inconsistency reigned king during the Reds’ season. As for the cross-river Toffees, star striker Romelu Lukaku has been otherworldly in his quest to power Everton to a coveted top-four finish. There was still plenty of mid-table action to behold, too. The Leicester fairytale sputtered to an end following the sacking of Claudio Ranieri (Sevilla might beg to differ), but managed to
finish out this year strong. West Ham and Stoke both failed to build on successful campaigns a year prior, both showing no signs of breaking out of their mid-table obscurity. The Dmitri Payet saga doomed the Hammers from the start, while the Potters have been frustratingly dull given the creative ability in their side. West Brom were quintessential Tony Pulis, stifling all in their path, and haven’t moved out of their 8th place spot since the first matchday. Meanwhile, just outside London, Watford certainly raised heads last year with a strong start to their top flight stay, but their poor form at the end of last year seeped its way into this year’s, and should consider themselves lucky not be in a relegation scrap. At the bottom of the table, while the football was nowhere near as glamorous as at the top, the relegation battles raged on. Marco Silva breathed life into what was a morbid Hull City team, while Bob Bradley’s disastrous Swansea stint and subsequent sacking called in Paul Clement to somehow salvage the Swans’ season. Even with a most predictable title race as there ever was as the weeks dragged on, this year brought with it a Premier League to remember, depending, of course, on with which club your allegiance lies.
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Gonzaga Rugby in the Old Country
By: Max Draddy `17 Senior Contributor The day after an eight hour flight that included a four hour layover in Germany, the Gonzaga Eagles rugby team was ready to take on its first opponent in Italy. With over one hundred total people going on tour, the players were divided into three teams: an A side, a B side, and a C side. The C side was the first to play and they lost to ASC Milano’s U16 team 34-14. The C team, consisting mostly of JV players, did well at some points during the match but committed
over twenty penalties, which hurt them heavily. Next up was the Gonzaga B side, which looked promising against the ASC Milano U18s. This team consisted of Black and Purple (Varsity) players that beat the Milano squad 28-10. The B side matched up well with the skill of the Italians but Gonzaga’s size was no match for the home team. The final game of the day was the A side. Much like academy soccer here in DC, the best players from Milan and the surrounding cities played for the Milan Academy team which beat our Purple side 47-19. It was a hard fought
game between the two teams, but the skill and tactical decision making of the Italians was superior. Day two of games was three days later in Padua, a small city about forty-five minutes outside Venice. After a three hour bus ride that morning, the A side took the field first. Much like the team in Milan the Padua Rugby academy was composed of the best players from Padua, Venice, and the surrounding area. The A side was defeated 36-7, but played some of the best rugby of the season leading up to matches with Xavier and St. Ignatius. The B and C sides each took similar results: the B side lost in a close match, 29-21, and the C side lost 33-0. Day three consisted of just two
games as the B side defeated Imola 40-0, and the C side lost 12-10. The last day of games was great as we were able to have lunch with the opposing teams after the matches had concluded. The games on tour were of very tough competition was looking back, were extremely beneficial for all the teams as the season went forward. During our time in Italy we were able to play a lot of rugby but we were also able to see some great landmarks of Italy. One of the things we did
while in Milan was visiting the local Jesuit high school, Leo XIII. This co-ed middle and high school was very interesting to visit as we got a tour of the school followed by practice on their field. While in Padua, we got a great tour of the Basilica of St. Anthony, which was an amazing experience. A monk of the Basilica showed us around and we even got to see the tongue of St. Anthony which is now encased in Gold. Overall, the tour was a great success for all who went.
Baseball: A Bridge to Better By: Joshua Love ‘18 Contributor Baseball is a bridge to change in America. Baseball is a bridge to change in Washington, DC. Gonzaga Baseball is a part of that better change. Throughout the history of our country, baseball has been on the forefront as a catalyst for change in America, whether for increased social justice or for breaking down historical stereotypes. Here in Washington, DC, the Nationals are a catalyst for neighborhood development, as the once neglected warehouse districts of Southeast DC are now glistening towers of office buildings, condos, and waterfront entertainment. The Nationals have changed the neighborhood surrounding the Nationals Youth Baseball Academy in Northeast, DC, by providing a safe haven for youth to study and to learn the game on impeccable fields, all the while serving as the home field for our Gonzaga Eagles
baseball team. Baseball’s bridge to change started through Jackie Robinson coming to play in the major leagues. Prior to Jackie Robinson’s admission to the major leagues, baseball had two professional leagues: the major leagues and the Negro Leagues. The leagues in the early part of the century were segregated based upon race. Jackie Robinson changed that. Jackie Robinson was the perfect person to represent change in baseball and equality in society. He was an extremely talented athlete, excelling in football, basketball, track, and baseball. Jackie Robinson possessed a maturity and level headedness that helped him battle through adversity like booing crowds, taunting managers, pitchers hurling balls at his head, and death threats to him and his family. But because Jackie Robinson excelled on the baseball field, fans and teammates began to see him as a man with extraordinary talents. That changed view developed because baseball was so beloved that
people accepted Jackie Robinson for his talents, as they began to learn that he was also a good man. Through its acceptance of Jackie Robinson and the many players of color that followed behind him, baseball forced America to look in the mirror and to judge itself by the standard that it espoused for itself: “we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.” Even now, baseball continues to bridge the gap between people all over the world through the World Baseball Classic. Since it’s founding in 2006, the World Baseball Classic has established tournament play between countries from Japan, South Korea, The Dominican Republic, Mexico, and others. Many of these players from around the world play in the major leagues. The recent World Baseball Classic championship won by the United States team served as a unifying force for our country that may have felt division from the recent election of Donald Trump, the Black
Lives Matter movement, and our differences over immigration. Baseball was a powerful bridge for better change in 2008, when the Nationals announced that they were coming to town. The city buzzed with pride. Fans from every ward in the city shared in the promise that the Nationals would be good for the city. Washington, DC waited for years without a baseball team, since the Senators left the city to become the Texas Rangers. The arrival of the Nationals changed the city attitude. The Nationals have not disappointed, and they’ve consistently proven to be one of the best teams in the major leagues, having won multiple division titles and making it to the postseason for the past couple of years. As the fans rally around the Nationals, it is clear that there’s a positive change in the city neighborhoods. Now, the area around Nationals Stadium is filled with office buildings, restaurants, and condominiums. The city has changed for the better.
Even around the Nationals Youth Academy in Northeast, DC where our Eagles play home games, the youth academy has become a bridge to change to the local community with Gonzaga students mentoring the youth in the neighborhood. The Nationals Youth Baseball Academy is also a bridge to teaching kids in the neighborhood the game of baseball, which is a change for the good. As Gonzaga Baseball plays through the rest of its 2017 season, we should be proud of the players who volunteer to mentor neighborhood youth at Nationals Youth Academy. I have seen firsthand how we leave a positive impression on the youth that we touch. As the season continues, let’s support the Gonzaga Baseball team by cheering them on and seeing a game at Nationals Youth Baseball Academy. Through baseball Gonzaga is finding a way to bring a good change to the community and to our school.
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Poets to Poets By: David McCallum ‘17 Senior Contributor Our trip to Malcolm X Elementary School began with nine of Gonzaga’s Poets and Writers cramming into a van, along with Mr. Ross, and with Mr. Szolosi behind the wheel. A half hour drive brought us to Malcolm X Elementary School on Mississippi Avenue in the Congress Heights neighborhood of Southeast D.C. We were nine young poets on an adventure to help even younger poets, fifth graders, to write a poem. Our goal was to introduce them to writing poetry and to inspire them to use poetry in their lives in a positive way. We arrived at Malcolm X Elementary School, and made our way to their reading specialist work, Ms. Zeba, a former colleague of Mr. Ross, who greeted us a big smile and a lot of energy.
She told us about her important work at the school, helping those who struggle with reading. Pretty soon, in came about twenty-five fifth graders, boys and girls, wearing maroon shirts and khaki pants. We all shook hands, said hello and then our workshop began. Micaiah Paige welcomed everyone and told them we were from Gonzaga College High School and were there to run a poetry workshop. Micaiah told the students he was a senior who had been writing poetry seriously for the last year. He then asked each Gonzaga poet to introduce himself. We were Labi Koi-Larbi, Cliff Wallace, Charles Magnetti, Sam Gonson, Deion Williams, Jirhe Love, A. J. Powers, and me, David McCallum. Deion spoke to the group about poetry. He said
it helps him express feelings he might otherwise not express. LJ read Langston Hughes’ poem “I,Too.”. We broke them into groups of five or six students with two Gonzaga poets helping each group. The energy in the room was high. They were ready to write. We asked them to write an “On My Street” poem. They jumped right in, focusing on details: colors, sounds, smells, textures. Fifth graders know their surroundings so they wrote a lot about what they see on their streets. They wrote of playing football, hopscotch, jumprope. They wrote about cars driving too fast, even about people on their street who frighten them. One boy wrote about seeing many people on
his street-- but then wrote that he was sure they did not see him. That made for a powerful poem. I noticed that all of the young fifth graders were writing their poems with complete focus, many were clearly lost in thought, thinking about their street and translating those thoughts into poetry. We then shifted the chairs for our mini-poetry slam. Cliff Wallace was the MC and he called up the fifth grade poets. About twelve read their poems, including two girls who read their poem together. One fifth grader, Michael was filled with energy and passion and wanted to make sure he read his first. Jirhe and Deion also added their poems to the slam. Seeing the pride in all
of the fifth graders faces as they read their poems gave all of us Gonzaga poets pride in having given them the gift of poetry writing. I read the poem of one of the fifth graders in my group, who wrote a very detail filled poem, but was too nervous to read it himself. Smiles and fingersnapping filled the room. After a few hugs and fist bumps, the students left. Reading and hearing the poems of these fifth graders gave me a glimpse of their lives that I would not otherwise know or see. Poetry can help young children in many ways. Perhaps most importantly, it can help them make sense of their world. Poetry lets them have a voice, their own voice.
take advantage of my ample opportunity and give back to those who are less fortunate. As a young boy, my grandfather pinned a plaque to my wall which read, “Noblesse Oblige,” and until that day, I never actually fathomed its importance. This French phrase encompasses us privi-
leged people with an inferred responsibility to act with generosity and humility toward those less privileged; thus, as a privileged man, I must not only make the most of what is given to me, but must also pursue my underlying duty to serve the less fortunate members of society.
What We Learn When We Serve By: Rhys Owen ‘18 Contributor Never had I imagined a school where enlightenment could arise from punishment. Well, to be honest I hadn’t imagined it until acted up in my freshman year art class and had to serve JUG after school. This day reshaped my selfish, spoiled identity and in the blink of an eye gave me compassion, a trait I had been lacking. Usually JUG combines a tranquil classroom with an honest reflection on mistakes, but on this rare instance, Student Services collectively decided we’d absorb more if we joined Campus Kitchen in distributing meals to homebound residents living in the apartment buildings in the same neighborhood as Gonzaga.
After hiking about four blocks with large purple insulated meal bags, we reached our destination, Sibley Plaza, a worn-down apartment building. As we walked into the lobby and toward the elevators the cracked floors, tattered walls, and smell of cigarettes which permeated the air evoked an unwelcoming feeling. I repeatedly complained that day about missing lunch, but all my reluctance and whining instantly subsided when I stepped onto the third floor, knocked on the first door, and shouted, “Campus Kitchen!” I was actually startled by the amount of joy that I felt when I heard small voices behind the door yell, “Mommy! Food!” The two children who were screaming with excitement opened the door and their faces held me
speechless. As I removed the styrofoam packages from the purple insulated bag I even forgot to say “you’re welcome” as their mother took the meals from my hands and thanked me profusely. An activity like this has a big impact the first time you do it. One of the first things I thought of afterwards was my own personal situation. I acknowledged my blessings and realized how easily I could have been born into a poor family, living a similar life to these precious children. Some would call it an epiphany, a wake up slap, so be it. That very instance humbled me and instilled in me a more thankful perspective on life, pushing me to
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OP ED: Truimph of the Shill, Part II
By: Charlie Goetzman `17 Senior Editor It has been a while, but when we last left Charlie he was trying to find his way into the Inauguration ceremony... III. There really wasn’t a very good view of the ceremony to be had in that corner of D.C. After trying and failing to walk away from the Capitol in search of some big beautiful door onto the National Mall proper, I decided to head back in the opposite direction and see if there was anything to be seen that way. I had to shuffle back through dystopian Jesus-land. The best picket-to-the-picket sign I saw this time had a picture of a single Cheeto in a red circle-backslash symbol. I got beyond Moronia and the crowds thinned out a little bit. I heard someone call my name. It was Noah Munis, a friend from grade school. He came, I recall, from one of the small handful of liberal families that dared send their kids to St. Mary’s, so, curious, I asked what he was doing at the Trump Inauguration. He was protesting. I told him that I, too, would like to take up protesting as an interest. He told me where he was going, then went there. I told him I was trying to see the ceremony first but would be there soon, then immediately forgot where he said he was going. I kept on walking for as far as I could. Problematically, the fence turned a corner about a block away from the big crowd, so “as far as I could” was only a few hundred feet. I’m not sure why most of the people didn’t scooch up that one block; they had no view of anything but the engrossing/repulsive Hirshhorn Museum. I had a sort of a view of something. If you got up real close to the fence, stood on top of a three-foot-tall stone wall, tilted your body a bit to the left, and squinted your eyes a lot, you could somewhat see the steps of the Capitol Building through the trees and past the top of a building. Or you could at least feel as if you were symbolically present for the swearing-in. I believed I could just barely detect the sound of the speakers on the Mall, but it was impossible to hear anything over the clomping of the literally never-ending parade of horses that was going by on the street in between the two layers of chain-linked fence. So I ended up watching the whole thing on washingtonpost.com on my phone. I was still surrounded the Inaugural crowds, though. To my right on the wall was a spiffy-looking young Nazi boy (how am I sure of his allegiance to National Socialism? well, actually I’m not, but he looked
just like the boy from Cabaret that Samantha Bee made a joke about last week), and past him was a woman with a MAGA hat on but with such an over-thetop pained look on her face I couldn’t tell if she was there to support the incoming president or for masochistic reasons. To my left was a tired-looking man in an army-green jacket. He shared my disdain for the view: “The elites, they get to watch from the lawn. The proletariats [sic] have to watch the horses! The #@$%ing horses, man! We won’t take it anymore!” By “the lawn,” I assume he meant the Mall. The Marxist terminology was an interesting touch. I appreciated the antihorse sentiment. So I talked to him. His name was Warren. He was an electrician from Albany, New York. How’s business been? I asked. Not too bad. Why Trump? Washington doesn’t have our interests in mind, and it’s all about taking care of the coastal elites. Hmm. At this point Donald Trump was walking up the aisle. At least I assumed it was at this point; I’m pretty sure the video feed playing on my phone was live. If we’re being completely honest, I figured there were good odds he might not make it through the next few seconds. Nothing so far in the election had gone to plan. Truly, butchery would have been an appropriate conclusion to a nearShakespearean past two years. He didn’t meet his end. At the time of writing, Donald Trump’s heart is still pumping. Dressed for the occasion — his body a more formal shade of orange, his tie extra plain-red, his hair slightly pointier than usual — he put his hand on two Bibles and said the magic words. Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States. He then gave his Inaugural Address. IV. The House of Commons of England, then of Great Britain (the addition of Scotland to the mix, by the Acts of Union, happened in 1707) was a hot mess from around the mid16th century to 1832. In theory, the House of Commons served as the biggest check on the government of the day: they neither owed anything to nor had the need to curry favor with the Crown, and hence had no problem pushing back against any hypothetical overreach. In practice, things were unattractive. A good deal of the borough seats were filled with government “placemen” — men the government used to bolster their own interests, often debtors being bribed with skimmed government funds. Most members who were neither the bored rel-
atives of aristocrats nor blatant placemen were given some sort of honorary title and pension by the majority government in order to build up party loyalty. There had been grumblings about regularizing the system and expanding the franchise for two hundred years. Universal manhood suffrage was proposed as early as 1647. Grumblings got louder and louder up until the end of the 18th century, when the excesses of the French Revolution tempered support for dramatic reform measures, but picked back up again after the Napoleonic Wars. When change was affected, it happened slowly, gradually, reasonably; the goal, even at this point, was just to make the election system more regular, not to bring about all-out democracy, and, even so, it took two years and three bills to finally get through the House of Lords. The people, at this point, were beginning to lose it a bit — some riots here and there, a deliberate bank run meant to put pressure on the nobility — but Parliament itself took its time. England calmly made its way to eventual democracy. France, my least favorite country, had, arguably, 23 regime changes — ten of which were violent revolutions — in the less-than-a-hundred years between the Tennis Court Oath and the end of the Franco-Prussian War. At the time of writing, their government is still in les toilettes. Donald Trump is, to quote The Simpsons’ Groundskeeper Willie, a cheese-eating surrender monkey. He is the opposite of reasonableness. He is the opposite of gradualism. He is the opposite of England’s famous tendency to “muddle through.” He is impulsive and erratic and doesn’t think about consequences. He is all hot and bothered all the time. He is a pouty wimplepuss who wants to retreat with his tail between his legs so that other people can clean up the world’s messes, then brag to everyone that he’s just so powerful, he’s just the greatest, folks. So strong! Donald Trump is France incarnate. To those holding out for the idea that he is some sort of pragmatist deal-maker; that all this talk of walls and bans was some sort of elaborate ruse, that he’s just great at reading an audience and knows how to elicit applause; that he’s a businessman, he’ll weigh the options and see what’ll work best for the country; that he isn’t actually erratic, he’s just playing a game of (to steal a phrase from David French) “nine-dimensional chess” with the public and the media — and I held out for him, too, for a long time — I dare you to name one time he has said or done anything to
prove this in even the slightest. Name one. Actually, I take that back. I have a couple. There was his attempt at a “pivot,” not long after his Khizr Khan debacle, in the second half of August. He began reading from a teleprompter and announced, vaguely, that he had regretted saying “the wrong things” that could have possibly caused “personal pain.” He said he was softening on immigration; he wanted to “accommodate those people who contribute to society.” Then two days later it was back to Build That Wall. There was the first twenty minutes of all three presidential debates, during which he appeared to be struggling against the Valium an aide had snuck into his water cup. But we saw that twenty minutes was just about as far as his patience would take him; by about the halfway point, we were back to “bad hombres” and “nasty woman.” Both comments were thrown out almost gratuitously. He was just getting bored. I held out for the Inaugural Address. I thought he could at least try to sound uplifting. We’ve reached the point where we’re forced to hang on to any little display of moderation, of compassion, of much of anything at all within the normal bounds of political discourse in this country, and say, Wow! He’s really changing! I’ll quote Jonah Goldberg a second time: “Every principle used to defend Trump is subjective, graded on a curve. Trump is like a cat trained to piss in a human toilet. It’s amazing! It’s remarkable! Yes, yes, it is: for a cat. But we don’t judge humans by the same standard.” I liked that one line in the Address about bleeding patriot red. I was happy for a couple seconds. But on the whole, his speech was dark. His vision of the country was necrotic. It just wasn’t that appealing. But that speech showed us what Trump’s America looks like, and it gave us the closest thing we have to a political philosophy of his. When he descended the golden escalator (an occasion he brings up frequently, and which I believe — I think I’m the only one who believes it — echoes the opening of Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will) in the lobby of Trump Tower two Junes ago, did the man fully realize the massive ideological implications that his candidacy would beget? Doubtful. But they’re here nonetheless; he accidentally created something, and now he has to be its inconsistent champion. The Journal of American Greatness was a blogger.com website that put this accidental philosophy together. Redirected from a Peggy Noonan column, I read their credo. Whoever its
author was (it was written under a pseudonym), he was a clear, clean writer with a penchant for sprinkling his sentences with Latin phrases. Donald Trump he was not. But the gist of his message was very similar to that which Trump zig-zagily proposes: the role of the government is to “protect” its citizens, nothing more, nothing less. It doesn’t have to “get out of the way” of the people; statism isn’t an enemy here. If, say, the free market doesn’t immediately bring about “abundance,” the government should intervene — the hell with what the “Davoisie” says about longterm consequences. If, say, free speech doesn’t serve the “interests” of the people, well, that should be remediated, too — perhaps we should “open up our libel laws”; if the public is falling prey to “dishonest” “scumbags,” it’s not being protected. And with the focus solely on the welfare of current Americans, the rest of the world can forget about imperialist America trying to take care of them. This idea is both dovish and not-at-all-humanitarian. There’s a civil war going on in a brutal dictatorship somewhere on the other side of the globe? (There is.) That’s not our problem. We have a duty neither to intervene military-wise nor take in any refugees at all; something bad could theoretically happen to American citizens if we did that — no dice. But Syrian refugees are some of the most thoroughly vetted migrants in the world, you say. But they have no idea which country they’re going to be resettled in. But foreign policy officials pretty widely agree that the “ban” helps us not-at-all — if anything, it gives credence to radicalizers’ claims that America hates all Islam. Irrelevant. We’re concerned only with ourselves. Keep your huddled masses. America First. A sclerotic immigration policy has guaranteed us a large population of illegal migrants living in our country? Get ’em out. Never mind the fairly widely recognized net positive effect they have on the American economy. Never mind who these people actually are. In a dysfunctional way illegal immigrants pass the “is this who we want in America” test with flying colors. They wanted to live in America so bad they broke the law to do it; granted, it was an American law that they broke, but it’s a stretch to say that they broke out of deliberate disrespect for our country. We’ve never really asked those coming into the United States to “share our values” — we didn’t take in people fleeing the Soviet Union because their country had instilled in them a nuanced appreciation of representative democracy — but if we did,
OP ED: Truimph of the Shill, Part II where’s the evidence that our amigos from south of the border don’t? These are men here to support their families, or they’re just plain families. These are Christians. These are people who, on the whole, commit less crime in this country than its own citizens do. These are the people with the audacity to literally cross a desert in pursuit of a better life. Again, immigration doesn’t work the way it ideally should right now. But anyone can fill out some paperwork; it takes some chutzpah to risk your life in search of the American Dream. Trump, in his Inaugural Address, stressed the “right of all nations to put their own interests first,” America being one of those nations — “America First.” I don’t think there’s a better way of explaining the enormity of this idea than the way Michael Gerson does in this Washington Post article: Trump’s version of the United States is a normal nation, like the Netherlands or Ghana, concerned with its own borders and business, and generally indifferent to the “way of life” chosen by others. Our national identity — as for other nations — is ethnic and cultural. Trump’s America is vaguely Christian. Vaguely 1950s. Vividly white. A number of policies emerge from these convictions: a walled country, a closed economy and highly restricted immigration. Traditional U.S. commitments — to the special relationship with Britain, to a strong and growing NATO and European Union, to the United States’ Pacific security umbrella — seem up for grabs. The trumpet always calls retreat. Every U.S. president since World War II has disagreed with the stunted and self-defeating view of the country now held by Trump. Over the past century — in some ways from the beginning — the United States has been a cheerfully abnormal nation. American identity (in this view) is not based mainly on blood or soil, but rather on the patriotic acceptance of a unifying creed. American leaders, Democratic and Republican, have believed that a world where the realm of freedom is growing is more prosperous and secure; a world where freedom is retreating is more dangerous. The reason is not mystical. Dictators tend to be belligerent. Governments accountable to their people are generally more peaceful. Yup. The ticklish thing about Donald Trump is the fact that many of the problems he brings up do have kernels of truth to them. Our European allies could work harder to carry their own weight in NATO. Our trade
agreements with China aren’t perfect. NAFTA did send a lot of the factories in the heartland packing. Our immigration laws aren’t working. The job-starved “white working class” voters with which the media has taken up an almost anthropological interest are seriously struggling, and the exhortation by the Bay Area to “check your privilege” (see “The End of Identity Liberalism” in the New York Times on how the cultural left overplayed its hand) comes off as inane to the heroin-addict food-stamper in South Charleston, W.Va. Meryl Streep’s hysterical proclamation that she belongs to one of the “most vilified segments in American society” is almost surreal. Trump picked up on real problems. But he responded with “bring everything crashing down” (Bannon’s words) melodrama. The country has issues. The solution is not to “destroy all of today’s establishment” (Bannon, same quote). On the whole, things are not that bad. We continue to live in the richest, most powerful country humankind has ever seen. The world order we lead continues to be the most effective since at least the Roman Empire, likely ever. We’re not in a war. The economy could be better, but it could be a hell of a lot worse. Want to live in the happy days of the 1950s? Feel free. It’d be incredibly cheap to live by midcentury standards of living today. What is our excuse for the giant overreaction that is Donald Trump? What is our excuse the embrace of his hypochondriacal worldview? Donald Trump’s weltanschauung (“to use the original German”), and the philosophy it begets, is new. It’s new for the party Trump attached himself to, significantly different from any outlook it has promoted since at least the mid-twentieth century. The oddity of American small-government conservatism is something we don’t often see put into perspective. Our closest allies in Europe don’t really “get” the very strong American resistance to programs they take for granted as the government’s “job”: healthcare, welfare, social security. Liberals have spent decades grousing about the unique staying power of the American conservative movement. But if the Bannon/Miller faction of the right wing proves viable, they will miss Reaganism dearly. The modern conservative movement — Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley’s synthesis of economic conservatism, social traditionalism, and foreign policy hawkery — is essentially reactionary. But the period in the past it most looks back to
was one of the most radical in human history. The strong focus on personal liberty and selfreliance and totally free markets and getting the government out of the way that the American left calls atavistic is really sort of neo-Enlightenment: these are all ideas that are rooted in the 18th century, and in the fabric of our country’s founding. Trump, on the other hand, is more Friedrich Nietzsche than John Locke. He’d like to fancy himself übermensch: “‘stomp, stomp, stomp’ — recognition from the outside, bigger, more.” His role is almost messianic: he “alone can fix it.” He’s descended his golden escalator to save us from the “coastal elites.” What does that mean? Who cares, people believe it. The Father-Führer (conservative writer Kevin D. Williamson’s term) is home to give you your factory back. He’s gonna rescue you, Akron, Ohio! How? He will! And now we’re getting dramatic. Donald Trump thrives on the weak spots of the American psyche, has capitalized on the darkest flaws on our national character that we’ve spent the past few centuries trying to get a grip on — the persistent racial hysteria, the elevation of the virtue of self-reliance into an easily warpable near-deification of wealth, the faint residue of fire-and-brimstone Puritan terror behind our default-idealistic high rhetoric. (I actually first found these national flaws laid out roughly this way in an essay I once read about MobyDick, but I think they’re largely valid.) Whether or not he consciously realizes what he’s doing — and it’s very possible he doesn’t — Donald Trump has proven able to whip around and direct the American people’s darkest impulses like Aang in The Last Airbender. V. After the Address ended I wandered around a lot. I went down a completely empty street. There were probably fifteen gross-looking food trucks lined up there and no one around to buy any food. I stopped in a CVS. I bought a Mexican Coke, not with Mexico in mind but because I like Mexican Coke. It had a bottle cap, and it wasn’t a twist cap, but I didn’t realize until after I had bought it that there was no bottle opener in the CVS. So I carried the Mexican Coke around as a symbol of protest. I walked some more. I was now at another clustering of the unintelligent. One of the people with a megaphone this time was wearing a shirt likening specific groups of people to animals. Charming. Another was making the following comment with his megaphone: “Get the men out of the women’s bathrooms, and the women back to the kitchen!” followed by, “Make me some
biscuits, Hillary Clinton!” Behind them were some Jews for Jesus. One Jew for Jesus was trying to yell over them, as one of them indulged in some anti-“jihadist” ranting, “Jesus loved everyone!” She repeated this several times. Behind the Jews for Jesus was a big beautiful door in the first fence. I went through it. There were probably three hundred people lined up in between the first fence and the second fence. It was unclear what they waiting for. The line appeared to be moving in two separate directions. Some people in the line held anti-Trump signs. Others wore “Trump That %@#$^” t-shirts. There were some more churchy Joes around. One was getting in a pretty heated argument with someone who clearly, and possibly correctly, thought he was deranged. They were arguing about the Book of Ecclesiastes and American consumerism. At one point, one of them said, “Adidas makes worldly backpacks! Why are you wearing a worldly backpack?” followed by, “You lie! You lie!” And so on and so forth. Somehow I got to the Mall. It was near-empty at this point. A sea of white space. It was still overcast. The Capitol was in the distance. Also empty now. Not blown up. After a couple minutes a small crowd formed, maybe ten feet from where I was sitting. They were arguing about something. There was a black teenage girl, two black twentysomething-year-old boys, a gray-haired white guy on the fatter side, and college-aged dude wearing a halo of flowers on his head and a rainbowstriped robe. Joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat. The girl came over to me and pointed her finger right in my face. “This is some important *%@$ right here,” she announced. “Y’all better be listenin’.” I assumed she was talking about their fight. I obliged. For the life of me I could not tell you what they were talking about. It started out having something to do with the slave trade, then about welfare, then things got a little fuzzy. It was clear from the onset they were talking past each other maybe half the time. They were trying to listen, though. The marketplace of ideas did a little bit of its magic, albeit in miniature. Dumber thoughts were tossed out, smarter ones survived. It rained a little harder. I was still sitting on the ground. I looked at the Capitol. Twisted my head the other way. The N.M.A.A.H.C. in the distance, the Washington Monument beyond. Everything dedicated to an ultimate faith in people.
The Aquilian 7
The Mall. The city. A Republic. “Naive,” they said. “Mob rule.” Lots of hiccups, sure. Darker days. But a hell of a lot of light. The president said he’s giving the power back to these people. Let’s assume he means it. You might have to give them some time. But we have no choice but to believe that they’ll know what to do. There is hope yet for the American experiment. Postscript. Well that wasn’t particularly prescient. I suppose a good deal of the soteriological expectations some of Donald Trump’s fans had for his presidency resulted from the fact that he contradicted himself often enough that it was possible to interpret the bird entrails however one saw fit. It seems I fell into a similar trap when writing this last January, but with the idea that the coming Trump presidency would be apocalyptic rather than deliverant. I was, clearly, incorrect: We have not, in these first hundredodd days, experienced what a Breitbartian, ethno-nationalist administration would look like. I somehow underestimated the shallowness of the president’s brain; a coherent political philosophy with derivate policy goals is not something that Trump seems to be even interested in, so long as the most superficial form of “winning” is taking place — aides, it’s been leaked, explain to him choices he has to make in terms of how they will play out in that day’s news cycle. Disinterest in policy has generally meant offloading it to conventional Republicans in his administration and on Capitol Hill who already had a plan of action teed up, and the beginning of the Trump presidency has, for the most part, resembled that of a particularly inept Reaganite conservative. This is suboptimal but not wildly terrifying; the (world’s least dangerous) “Resistance” should probably, at this point, put some mufflers on the air raid sirens they’ve been sounding for the past four months. So, where to, from here? Will Mr. Trump remain the more purely proboscidean creature he’s morphed into currently? Will Jared Kushner and Gary Cohn push him to actually capitalize on some of the heterodoxies he campaigned on? Will he show the way to the more reform-minded G.O.P. that I dream of? Will he start an affair with the Freedom Caucus? Will he start cutting deals with the Democrats? Will he become a Democrat? Will he learn to embrace Chomskyan anarcho-syndicalism? Will he get a lobotomy? Will he transition to a woman? Can you prove this won’t happen? Where are we going? Good question! Say your prayers.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Review By: Thomas Koenig ‘17 & Will Larroca ‘17 Senior Contributors Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2 has been the most pleasant surprise I have experienced at the movie theater this year. The sheer amount of humor, peril, action, and joy the movie provides not only outmatches that of the original Guardians movie, but, in my opinion, that of any of the other films in cannon of Marvel movies. I think this is due to one thing in particular, the level of emotional engagement they created. I think this is the trend that superhero movies needed to go in order to stay relevant and to keep audiences ready, and with Guardians and Logan this year I think that studios and directors are finally beginning to understand this. There is only so much we can care about when we are constantly seeing the world in peril and the same bland
heroes assembling to save it. However, when we care about the characters, villains, and the people involved in the story it resonates more with us. This makes the humor more effective, the action more exciting, and the ending more rewarding. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 has employed this the best of any superhero movie since Spider Man 2, making it one of the most effective of the genre at being what it is all about, having fun. 4.5/5 -Thomas I agree with you Thomas, but I would argue that the biggest improvement I’ve seen studios make is that they are giving directors room to be directors. Comic book films and blockbusters are now being infused with actual artistic vision. Let’s just say we are moving out of the era of 20 executives pushing for scripts with broad appeal. With Guard-
ians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Logan, we have seen directors with distinct voices take existing properties and make them their own, Furthermore, Thor: Ragnarok is directed by Taika Waititi, who has mainlined in comedy, and his fingerprints are all over the trailer. The rewards of this trend are on full display in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. James Gunn, the clever and exuberant director behind the first film, spins an elegant space opera with smart themes out of pure pulp. The most obvious benefit of having Gunn behind the camera is his keen eye for visuals, which are often breathtaking. Unlike the first G u a rd i a n s ,
which I am admittedly a fan of, not a frame is wasted on cookie cutter action. Whether it be a forest showdown or a wild breakout involving a flying arrow, Gunn imbues every set piece with a dizzying mix of music, color, wit, and character dynamics. He is not one to let a special effect simply be a special effect. The result is thrilling, eye popping, and in keeping with Gunn’s sly subversion of the superhero genre. This
is not your average superhero flick. The movie begins with a dancing tree in the middle of a battle with a space slug and ends with a closeup shot of a crying racoon. While some of these elements were visible in the first film, such as the eclectic characters and the 70s soundtrack, it is clear that the studio let James Gunn’s freak flag fly and in return, he gave them a perfect sequel. I am Groot. 5/5 -Will
Class of 2017 Exit interviews
By: Peter Brown ‘17 Editor-in-chief
Just before Easter Break, I sat down one-on-one with Ms. Pane, the guidance counselor for the graduating senior class, for my senior exit interview. We went over my experience as a Gonzaga student and what I’m going to be taking away from the school. I reflected afterwards on our conversation looking back on these four years on Eye Street, when the thought occurred to me that while I know well about my own stories of growth and change at Gonzaga, that I did not really know the stories of many of my classmates here as well. So, I took the time to interview many members of the Class of 2017 and ask them about their four years on Eye Street. I asked many of them about some of the defining characteristics that they show today at graduation that really separate themselves from who they were when they walked in as freshmen. Below are a collection of quotes from the senior class that I believe have valuable insight: “I guess the most important lesson I learned is that you are never the best person at something in the room,” said Will Valentine. “But that’s OK. Gonzaga taught me how to be humble. There are a lot of really talented guys here. It taught me that if you are gonna do something, you gotta understand that there may be people who are better than you
at it, but that also you don’t just give up at that point. Keep going. It’s not about if someone is better than you at something, it’s about how you respond to that. The hardest part of Gonzaga is keeping up with everything. You mix in the hour long commute both ways, all the sporting events you want to go to, all the really cool kids you want to hang out with, it’s all a lot.” “I can be myself, I don’t have to be anybody else, because of what a diverse place this is, “ said Dela Adedze. “You don’t have to conform to anyone else or anything else. You can be whoever you want to be. It’s hard staying consistent. Like if you get a bad grade or something, or like it’s finals week and a part of you really wants to sit back and chill. But you gotta stay consistent through that. Make sure you do everything. I know so many other people say that as well, but like branching out provided some of the best experiences at Gonzaga. Don’t just stay in your own little circle where it’s comfortable.” “Gonzaga works you a lot, but it’s rewarding. It’s nothing you can’t handle,” said Ignacio Mata Cordero. “I feel like I’m more selfaware. I know better now how to keep myself in check. And with that comes a new openness to people. Shout out to Mr. Duffy’s Art Basics and Independent Art” “My most difficult challenge at Gonzaga was Mr. Cannon’s third period English class during junior year,” said Matt Feller. “My biggest area of growth is that my favorite color changed from orange to purple.” “There aren’t many oth-
er schools that have homeless centers in their basement, and they expose us to actual social justice issues,” said Charlie Workmaster. “Gonzaga prepares you academically but also prepares you to work with people in the world. I’m never gonna forget Brother Jon’s World Cultures class during freshmen year. Definitely Doc’s classes, too. Those were really special.” I also took the time to relay some questions to Ms. Pane, and below are some comments that I think help show how the Class of 2017 has changed over their time at Gonzaga: Gonzaga has provided a multitude of challenges from within the classroom, in extra circulars, on service trips, and on the sports field. What were many of the challenges shared by the Senior class and how did they overcome them? Junior year was a common response! The workload is tough. But many also struggled as sophomores after skating by freshman year with ill-fitting friends and work habits carried over from 8th grade. Finding a new activity after getting cut from your old one, making new friendships when the earlier ones no longer fit, adapting to identity revelations and changes, all while managing increasingly difficult academic tasks and long commutes...it’s a heavy load for sophomores! I’ve asked many Seniors about characteristics that define them today at Grad-
uation that separate them from who they were when they were Freshmen. On the whole, what are some ways that you’ve seen the Class of 2017 change and grow over their four years at Gonzaga? We all know freshman can be awkward! They hardly know themselves yet, let alone how to be in those unique selves. By senior year many guys have grown to “like themselves”, to come to terms with the ways they differ from their peers and to be ok with those differences. During freshman year counselors hear a lot of excuses- why I can’t do my homework, why my teacher is wrong, why I can’t get involved or do service; this year I’ve heard much less of that and, instead, have seen much more personal responsibility, initiation, campus involvement, and emotional insight, as well as the onset of spiritual maturity- moving from book knowledge of religion to a personal relationship with God. What have you learned in terms of working with teenagers and young adults through your time with the Senior class? How has your experience with them differed from your other counseling experience prior to coming to Gonzaga? Just prior to coming to Gonzaga I worked with 1723 year olds at Loyola University Maryland, so I encountered many (startling!) differences with the Class of 2017. The age and gender differences required me to adjust quickly to the gap in
emotional maturity. 13 year olds aren’t capable of thinking, feeling, and behaving like college students. So my method of counseling had to adapt to their stage of development. And that was a humbling experience...my patience back then for new freshman neediness was probably not exceptional! The other big difference I’ve observed is in risk-taking-- older students risk more of themselves to experience more of the world ... for both good and evil! They are more likely to take a class that interests them, even if they won’t get an A; to try a new activity, even if they might fail; to be open about their identity, even if they’ll be rejected. However, they’ll also risk more of their safety and the safety of others with the use of substances and their sexuality. So, my advice to the Class of 2017 is to take risks...but only those you’d be proud to put on your resume and in the hearts of your parents! I think that there is a simple way that we can sum this all up: We’ve all worked a lot, we’ve all changed a lot, and we’ve all grown a lot. We are different people now, much different than who we were when we first walked on campus for the first time in 2013. Yet despite all that, I can safely say that it has all been for the better. We all have a whole lot of work to do down the road, so let’s get to it. It’s gonna be one great ride.