It all comes down to student voice.
A University simply doesn’t exist without students. It would seem to follow logically that the student voice should be supported, valued and considered.
Apparently, this is not true at Fairfield.
The University should have considered the student’s voice when deciding to build a new residence hall in the middle of a major parking lot right in the midst of a semester.
And again, the University failed to listen to students, and knowledgable faculty members, when it decided to build a new parking lot on top of the most valuable forest on campus.
Even when the combined effort of students, staff and faculty appeal to the administration, the attention given to them remains small.
Take into consideration student leaders on campus. Students vote to elect their FUSA representatives. Residence Life selects RA’s from a competitive pool of active students on campus. These students voices should be taken seriously. Instead, even when students are aware of initiatives on campus, student input is often overlooked or ignored by the administration, Sometimes they do not even voice their opinions over fear of offending administrators.
We understand that students should not have complete say and control over campus issues. However, a group of faculty, with the help of students and staff, are suggesting that removing trees from campus is a bad idea. They are pleading with the same knowledge and expertise that they were hired to share with their students.
We would like the University to simply listen to the voices of the students more often and at least sometimes put the thoughts of current students, not future students in the forefront. While new dorms might be necessary, it would have been beneficial to the students to halt construction until the summer.
As students prepare to go into the real world and nurture their environment, they should not be forced to watch the University they pay for destroy it for them, at least not without a say in the matter.
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