Editorial: Villanova, we can handle the truth

“The University community.” It’s a phrase that has been used countless times by various members of the university to convey the idea that we are bound together by the common thread of service, achievement and caring. The school’s mission statement states, “The University is a community of persons of diverse professional, academic and personal interests who, in a spirit of collegiality, cooperate to achieve their common goals and objectives in the transmission, the pursuit and the discovery of knowledge.”

In other words, we are taught to work together for the greater good and make a conscious effort to incorporate everyone into our community, while simultaneously stressing the importance of each individual in this schema.

So how do these ideals of community and cooperation fit in when we as a community are consistently kept in the dark regarding important events that have had a major impact on the entire community? Since the summer, we have vaguely heard about a scandal involving former Rev. Arthur B. Chappell, O.S.A., mainly through the Philadelphia Inquirer. When Dr. Mine A. Ener tragically took her life and the life of her infant child at the end of the summer, we were left wondering what was happening with only the national news to inform us. The latest event in the Bursar’s Office is not even current, considering Donna Engle illegally took $90,000 from the University from 1999-2001. As tuition-paying students, we have a right to know what is happening with the money we invest in our education.

It is the University’s obligation to inform its members of important happenings here. These events have directly impacted the entire community in various ways, and for the most part, we have dealt with these events without official information from the University, which is unacceptable.

A community is, in essence, a cooperative. In order for Villanova to flourish and grow as a single, unified group, each member must cooperate with one another, which allows each person to be informed about the events that surround him or her on a daily basis. With the various means of communication that we have at our disposal, there is no excuse for an uninformed student body, which clearly would be affected by such events. Without such a system, people will begin to lose faith in the administration’s ability to keep us functioning as a community-oriented entity. This lack of communication decreases the degree of campus connectedness and unity, directly defying the values which are held in such high regard at Villanova.