Creightonian Blog Battle #1
Welcome to the first blog battle between Editor-in-Chief Katie Ryan and Assistant Opinion Editor Peter Della Penna. I'll be the moderator of this week's battle. The topic for this week: Should Creighton name new buildings after community figures and donors or after saints. At the end of the blog you will find a poll, please vote for this week's winner, who will be announced on Sunday.
In this corner we have Katie Ryan representing the community figures and donors:
Although I’m sure she was a valuable woman, St. Theresa has little to do with Creighton.
Sure, The Little Flower, as she is remembered, did numerous small and barely noticeable deeds that built her to a saintly status, but other than her religious preference, she has little to do with the day-to-day activity on this campus today. Campus buildings should be named after a person who is more connected to the school.
When it comes to names, universities should label their buildings after donors, modern icons and local heroes – but leave the saints to the picture books.
Even if for no other reason, Charles “Mike” Harper is a saint because he paid the bills. Indeed, Harper is the patron of the Center for Student Life and Learning - putting saint in his title isn’t even necessary. He already signed the check. Harper will probably have a picture in the building someday too. And even though I will graduate before the Center is complete, I’m thankful for Harper’s sacrifice to the Creighton community.
Saints are important to many Catholics, but no other religion recognizes them as such. Giving residence halls a moniker like St. Thomas More Square will only intimidate students who aren’t Catholic. On a campus that is already lacking in diversity, turning off students who aren’t Catholic will stunt campus growth demographically.
So for those of you anonymous donors out there - you don’t have to be a canonized saint to be remembered as one.
In this corner we have Peter Della Penna representing the saints:
As reported in the Creightonian, Fr. Schlegel took time during his President’s Convocation during Founders Week to inform everyone that some buildings on campus would be renamed. This was met with excitement by mine eyes.
However, such joy came to an abrupt halt when my dream of having a building named after a saint was martyred during the lines that followed. It appears that Fr. Schlegel found it necessary to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Count John A. Creighton by renaming the Admin Building for him; Creighton Hall.
Gee Fr. Schlegel, I thought that naming an entire University after him would suffice. Apparently I was wrong.
Here I am at a Jesuit University founded in 1878, more than 125 years ago, and I can not find a single building outside of the church and the Jesuit Residence named after a saint. Campion House, named after a 16th century Jesuit saint, supposedly exists somewhere near the soccer stadium, but as I said I can not find it.
This is in stark contrast to Boston College founded in 1863. By my unofficial count, they have 17 buildings named after saints on their campus, 26 in all with some sort of religious theme in their title. Heck even Fairfield University in Connecticut which has only been in existence since 1942 managed to name 10 of their 46 buildings along the way after saints.
To be fair Creighton is not the most deficient Jesuit University in terms of leaving saints out of the building name stakes. Five of the 28 Jesuit Universities in America do not honor their inspiration and predecessors with a stenciled set of letters on the brick and mortar edifices that make up their campuses.
But this is Creighton, the so-called top private university in the Midwest. Naming buildings after donors and past presidents is nice, but I think it’s about time we threw Xavier, Claver, Mary, Joseph or Bellarmine a bone.
