How compassion and empathy can spark change
The first few weeks of winter on Saint Joseph’s University campus, with its snowfall and gray skies, can seem like a peaceful haven for students. The campus community gives rich meaning to our relationships and vocations, all of which flourish around us, despite the chill. At St. Joe’s, we consistently work to rebuild connections as a community, and this week brought a fresh perspective.
The world outside, however, brought a different story. As of Jan. 30, President Trump had signed four executive orders.
The most controversial is an executive order that bans all refugees from entering the U.S. for 120 days and Syrian refugees indefinitely. The order also bans all people, from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, for 90 days from entering the U.S.
With one foot on the inside of our university community and the other on the outside, we have a complex balancing act. How do we, as a student body embrace our St. Joe’s identity without sacrificing the ideals so beholden to our mission? How do we protect and support those in our community affected by these bans? The answer may be simpler than we think.
The Institute of International Education reported that, for 2016, “the number of international students at U.S. colleges and universities surpassed one million for the first time during the 2015–16 academic year.” At St. Joe’s, in the fall of 2015, five percent of the entire student body was composed of international students. This means that just over 400 students travelled from foreign countries to earn their Jesuit education here on Hawk Hill. No doubt they came here for the academics, the reputation, and—like many students—for our Jesuit values, values that challenge us to consider a world outside our own.
One day soon, we’ll be so much farther from the comfort of Hawk Hill and more vulnerable than ever before. St. Joe’s is our own little world, full of our own successes and failures. We study for exams, join social organizations, and work to build something beautiful during our time here. But as alumni know too well, time pushes us all, at one time or another, beyond our little world. Now and going forward, we must remain, both rooted in our education and empowered by life’s strongest tools: compassion and empathy.
As students of a Jesuit university embedded in the values of Saint Ignatius, we are called, by something much greater than ourselves, to embrace this dual identity: as students and as leaders of positive change. Our university’s ideals of social justice and universal acceptance are ideals we hope to implement over time in larger communities. We have the privilege of education and the duty to apply our Jesuit values to the present and the future.
Being with and for others, as persons of hope and humanity, is not up for discussion. Inclusivity—of refugees, minorities, and all those who searching for safety in our world—is not a choice we make on a caseby-case basis. Opening our hearts to the lost and weary is a significant part of our identity as a Jesuit institution and a part of the faith that binds us to one another, as brothers and sisters. Now, we ask our country’s leaders in the highest government offices, to answer that same call in their positions of power.
In 1961, late President John F. Kennedy, our first Catholic president., memorably once challenged Americans, by asking “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
Our Jesuit mission reminds us that college is a time to answer the call of moral obligation. We must have an opinion, inspired by our Jesuit education, particularly when our world, our country, and our cities are in turmoil. When some individuals in our society face adversity—we must acknowledge that we are heading towards that same future. Our destinies are intertwined.
If we choose to take our education and still ignore the greater issues plaguing our society, we sacrifice our voices in the face of injustice. Silence is an action in and of itself and can appear to be complacency. Be braver than you’ve ever been, and speak up for those whose voices may be silenced. Be brave now because the benefits outweigh the risks. This is our future.
Choose human rights and human dignity
