An open letter to the incoming president

By Editorial

To Incoming President Michael Engh, S.J.:

Congratulations on your new position, and welcome to Santa Clara.

Our school is a lot like other Jesuit universities around the country, but at the same time, as every school must be, it is unique in its students and resources.

As you begin to acquaint yourself to the fine-tuning of the Santa Clara lifestyle, we thought we should express our wishes for the future of our university.

First of all, we invite you to become an active part of the student community. Have coffee in Benson. Drop by the MCC or SCCAP office. Check out student art shows and concerts. We understand that university presidency is a busy job, but as students we value your presence in our community. We welcome you to get to know us.

At Santa Clara we pride ourselves on being an open, inclusive environment, but in order for us to fulfill our ideals, we hope that you will take more active steps to diversify our community. We hope you will join us in this mission with continued funds for student programs like LEAD and steps to hire more diverse faculty. And perhaps you could sit down in open, frank discussions about issues that affect students like race, gender and sexuality.

We hope that you will focus on making a Santa Clara education more affordable. Universities are changing. With excellent private schools around the country implementing more affordable tuition policies, a lofty, ever-increasing tuition like ours will become less desirable.

As students, we pride ourselves on the excellence of the student body. Keep investing our resources and funds into recruiting the best students. Creating scholarships and funds for students will attract a broader range of applicants.

Everyone, no matter what their financial background, should be able to attend Santa Clara if he or she is qualified.

For those students enrolled now, we hope that the university becomes more active in distributing financial aid and loans, making our transitions into the real world easier.

Not only do we hope to invest in recruiting the best students, but the best faculty as well. We appreciate challenging, engaging professors, and most importantly the ones who really push us to excel.

We hope that in the midst of thriving business and engineering programs, the refined desire for the liberal arts will not be lost as an integral asset to Santa Clara. Defending our solid reputation as a small, competitive liberal arts school demands a more focused attention on our humanities.

We support continued -- if not increased -- funding for all of the departments in the College of Arts and Sciences. It's important to see increasing funds going toward growing programs such as environmental science and communication.

We should also pursue more variety in degree choices by making changes, such as creating an ethnic studies major.

Lastly, let us not be bound by past conventions and keep an open mind for the future.

We know that these goals, as lofty as there are, will not be determined by your efforts alone. As students we must actively ensure our needs be met. However, as the leader of our school, we wish for you to vocalize your ideals for our school openly, in spite of potential criticism from the outside.

Though we only call Santa Clara home for four years, we want to see it progress in the right direction. We have faith that you'll see us there.