In a recent campus email, President Jeffrey von Arx, S.J. highlighted a number of different areas in which Fairfield has been reassessing their focus and explained the progress that has been made over the past few months.

“While we may disagree on specific choices and actions that we have taken and that we need to take for Fairfield’s future, it is critical that we are engaged in a constructive and responsible discussion that is focused on systemic solutions.”  Okay, so maybe we haven’t exactly been supportive up to this point, but we’re more than willing to talk about our feelings; in fact, that’s what we’ve been doing in this column for many of our past issues this year.

But we shouldn’t be the only ones speaking up about the situation Fairfield is currently facing. Even in his email, Fr. Von Arx said, “I encourage you to participate actively in this collective process to develop and support strategies that move the University forward.”

All well and good, but how? Although many top administrators have kindly made themselves readily available to a number of campus groups and their leaders, like The Mirror, FUSA and IRHA, does this availability extend to students less involved in the campus community? What about a student not very involved in prominent campus groups? What about a regular student who is simply concerned about where his or her money is going?

It is clear that remedying the financial problem at hand (and the other problems tied to it) requires involvement and input from a variety of sources. While not as educated or experienced as a number of faculty and administration members, students may provide the missing key to this solution.

With so much of their money and their future riding on the reputation of Fairfield, students should all understand the stake they have in the University’s success. As an added bonus, our perceived naiveté might actually be useful to provide outside perspectives for potential solutions.

Because we’re not members of the faculty or the administration, and thus can hold conversations with both groups without bias, we might need to become the mediators. At the rate the faculty and administrators are going now, it looks like students will be the last options to step in to handle the dialogue soon – before University community members can no longer interact successfully or cordially at all.

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