Engh talks school spirit, student concerns

The Santa Clara staff sat down with President Michael Engh, S.J., to talk about his plans for the university.

The Santa Clara: What concerns have students brought up the most?

Michael Engh: Finances, a lot of student concern about finances.

Another issue is accessibility, particularly the students wanting to know who the president is and how they can bring their concerns to the president, or how they get heard, in the process of the way the university works. But really, finance dominates.

Certain concerns about school spirit, and I just noticed you happen to address that in this issue (points to newspaper) and I'm glad you're bringing it up. Students have talked to me about it. When you don't have a major sports program, which traditionally a lot of people equate with the source of school spirit, people say, 'We don't have school spirit.' Well, it's more sophisticated than that, a little more nuanced than that.

The whole other area ? which also I'm not prepared to talk about ? is the Greeks off campus. That's the question I got a lot when I first got here. People saying, 'Well, what about the Greeks?' That's something I'll begin to ask questions about.

TSC: What answers have you given about school spirit?

ME: Again, it's talking to people. Are they looking just for big crowds at sports events? Or what are they looking for specifically? What makes up school spirit? Because I've met with different groups like the student body officers, I've met with SCCAP, I've met with folks from campus ministry. There's a lot of dedication to Santa Clara and passion about Santa Clara. I don't find it lacking in those groups. So I'd have to continue to ask people, what do you mean there's no school spirit? How do you define it?

TSC: What answers have you given about accessibility?

ME: I've been working primarily with student body officers, and if I get invitations from different groups, I've tried to accept those as often as I could. Like SCCAP. They asked me to come meet with them, so I spent an evening with them several weeks ago, and I got introduced to SCCAP. They put on a whole series of skits about the history of SCCAP and what it is now and Q and A, and then they had a reception afterwards. It was like two hours with a group of really dynamic students. I just got back from El Salvador and went back to the Casa program and got to see some students who were in that and some of the alumni who are running it now. Extraordinarily impressive.

In terms of others, it's funny the number of students that will write directly to the president when they can't get the class they want. That's not the way you want to meet students. I want to be concerned with their issues, but I've got to refer them back to the proper channels so that the system can work the way it's meant to work ? which is to serve the students.

So it's either been me contacting groups or them contacting me. Like today I had this e-mail from Rachel Manfre. So that's the next step to get back in touch with her.

TSC: Do you see more budget cuts coming in the future?

ME: In terms of future budget cuts, this is something I can't even speculate about because right now we don't know how the economy's going to go. Things are looking better at the moment.

If you talk to Dr. Belotti over in the business school, get his annual economic forecast, it's an interesting perspective there. I sat with him this morning at a breakfast meeting. He's optimistic. I'd like to be optimistic, too.

The big concern of mine here is, in these uncertain economic times, that we keep morale up, because people are worried, people are anxious.

I want to reassure folks that this is a very well-managed place financially. I came on board, and it was very well financed. Strong reserves, good systems in place. Probably the best shape you can be in if you're going to go into an economic storm. So I'm confident that if people can continue to be supportive that we're going to come through this.

TSC: What is Paul Locatelli, S.J.'s role as chancellor?

ME: Chancellor has three major duties. Because he's heading up the Jesuit universities around the world, coordinating all the Jesuit universities and colleges, he's going to be my principle liaison with globalization. What are the opportunities out there that he's aware of? That's number one.

Number two, he's a contact with the civic community because he is well known, and he'll be able to introduce me to those who are in the civic community. So both Santa Clara, San Jose, our congressional representatives in the Bay Area.

Thirdly, he's a liaison with some of the long-time contributors. Again, to help introduce me to some of the foundations and some of the people.

He's also somebody that I've known for a long time, so it's easy to talk to him.

TSC: How long do you think he'll serve in this role as chancellor?

ME: Father Locatelli? I've never thought about that. We don't have a time limit on it.

TSC: What does the phrase "inclusive excellence" mean to you?

ME: Good question. Inclusive excellence is a means to achieve diversity while maintaining quality, to emphasize that the two are not antithetical, to emphasize that the two are linked and that by having a diverse student population and a diverse faculty population you have a better education inherently because you're preparing people for a real-world experience.

So it's another way of coming at the piece of diversity, but by emphasizing that an excellent education is one that brings in a lot of different voices, brings in a lot of different people, brings in a lot of different approaches to education, different ways of teaching. It's to emphasize that.

That's a huge challenge for American society, and I think if a university can model how to do that, then we make a real contribution. Also, then our graduates have an experience of how to live with a diverse population, how to interact, how to deal with conflicts when they come up in ways that are respectful, civil.

TSC: How do you think we're doing with inclusive excellence?

ME: It's hard for me to tell. One thing about, it's because I haven't been here long enough, I haven't talked to enough people and I'm not well enough informed yet, so there's a lot of nuance and subtlety to the way people are included or excluded. And often times people aren't aware that their behaviors are based on a privileged position that others don't have. It takes a long time for people to become aware of that. I don't know the level yet of Santa Clara awareness. My sense is that it's pretty well developed, but I don't know how well the processes around here work and how the processes reinforce or support an inclusive excellence. I don't know well enough yet. So keep asking that question.

TSC: What are your long-term goals?

ME: That's a great question because I'm putting together ideas right now for my speech at the inauguration. Something I've been thinking a lot about is what Santa Clara's achieved in terms of social justice. Bringing together principles of Catholic social justice, concern for the poor, concern for inequitable economic systems and then integrating that into a higher education process that goes on here. So that students are prepared to go into the world with a set of principles that they can evaluate and make ethical decisions, moral decisions.

If we take that model that Santa Clara has achieved over the last 15 years, because it's been a long effort, what would we do if we were to take that into the area of sustainability? What if Santa Clara were to become a leader in efforts of sustainability that had a strong ethical component to it? In terms of, I'm thinking environmental justice. A lot of people are studying the environment, environmentalism, sustainability, but who's looking at the issues in an integrated way about issues of justice, of access to resources?

So I'm thinking a lot about that right now in terms of what can Santa Clara's contribution be. We have the three centers of distinction right now, and we've got some real possibilities in terms of how we can broaden those, strengthen those, more integrate those in the university curriculum and projects here. So I'm thinking along those lines, in terms of an academic institution, what can we do with these great resources? Because we're in the Silicon Valley.

TSC: Are you planning to expand any language programs?

ME: I was thinking about that when I came back from the Casa de la Solidaridad in San Salvador. It's one program in one country. It exposes students to the Spanish language and then to the social and economic realities in that particular country when they go and live there for a quarter. Could this be replicated for another country? Could we set up another residential program in another country with a different language? I don't know. I don't know. There's some people exploring that right now. So what would it take to replicate what we have in Casa? And how would we finance it?

Editors Katie Powers, Sophie Asmar, Richard Nieva, Mary Georgevich, Brian Kernan, Maggie Beidelman and Cecile Nguyen contributed to this report. E-mail news@thesantaclara.com.