I remember the first time I was asked to describe CSB/SJU by someone outside of the community. I also remember opening and closing my mouth in confusion like a St. Thomas student confronted by a three-syllable word. It’s not a question of where to start; it’s a question of how to start.
Our daily experience here, whether as students, faculty or community members, is perhaps the world’s best-kept secret. Stop any ten Bennies or Johnnies around campus and ask them “why is this place so special?” and the only answer most will pluck from the chilly air is “it just is.” And there is nothing wrong about that.
Prospective students who visit CSB/SJU often ask similar unanswerable questions. People and memories bubble forth in a stumbling attempt to give this person what this experience means to each and every one of us %u2014 often resulting in a campus that appears to suffer terrible speech impediments. Yet again, we don’t need to be quiet.
The easiest way to gauge this feeling is to casually glance at a bit of CSB/SJU signage – perhaps a logo peeking out of your tattered notebooks – and bask in the wave of pride and contentment it brings. The ability to put that feeling into words is as difficult as accurately describing Lady Gaga’s wardrobe.
When all I see is the people around me. The onus of describing our experience here is that the people around campus seem intent to defy description in the best of ways.
If CSB/SJU must be something, then it is the people – our people. It is the student next to you on the Link, the professor working long after class is dismissed, the staff member laboring without thanks to ensure we have clean dorms to wake up in each morning.
To describe this place is not to speak of Sexton or Gorecki, but to articulate the powerful connection between our brothers and sisters. That is no small task.
We are not the St. John’s University in New York City or some all-female secondary school. We do not have a Division I basketball team, a metropolitan campus or an endowment that could rival the change in Donald Trump’s couch. Instead we have John Gagliardi, campuses of breathtaking beauty, a nod, a smile, a hello and helping hand when you need it most – people who make a difference in the world, and more than enough family love to go around.
We are not students first; we’re Bennies and Johnnies first.
The Admissions Department does a fantastic job at immersing prospective students into the community from the moment they step on campus. You can tell a student what CSB/SJU is, how prestigious the education or how modern the facilities are – giving them one or two small gems before sending them packing. Or. you can show them what this experience is, and why and how we all do what we do. In doing so, we hand over a pickaxe and welcome them into this rich mine – so that they might find the gems for themselves.
That is just who we are.