The Student Newspaper of Saint Joseph’s University
Volume XCVI | Est. 1929 | www.sjuhawknews.com
Nov. 8, 2017
Barnes partnership CHARLEY REKSTIS ’20 News Editor
The St. Joe’s field hockey team celebrates their 3-2 double overtime victory over the University of Massachusetts in the Atlantic 10 Field Hockey Championship. For the first time in program history, the team received a bid to the NCAA Division I Field Hockey Championship (Photo by Amy Sayre). SEE PG. 12
Imbalance in financial aid for St. Joe’s students ALEX KARPINKSI ’20 Hawk Staff
Based on data regarding the income of St. Joe’s student’s families, it has become clear the university has much to do in improving socio-economic diversity on campus. Seventy-four percent of St. Joe’s students come from the top 20 percent of median family income, meaning their families earn $110,000 or more per year. In contrast, only 1.10 percent of students are from the bottom 20 percent, those families who earn $20,000 or less per year. This imbalance is in conflict with Ignatian values. The Jesuit vision supports not only an openness to, but a desire to foster diversity, said Dan Ruff, S.J., campus minister for Ignatian
spirituality and chaplaincy outreach. “It is obviously not an ideal situation, particularly given historically, our founder St. Ignatius, wanted Jesuit education to be free,” Ruff said. “Anyone who had the ability, could go to a Jesuit school and get a free education. The economic reality is that obviously that doesn’t work anymore.” The lack of economic diversity poses a problem for the university, explained Monica Nixon Ed.D., assistant provost for Inclusion and Diversity. “People’s ability to understand and be exposed to different perspectives, would be different and probably be better and enhanced if
the socio-economic diversity of our student body looked different,” Nixon said. “Do we as an institution need to be more socio economically diverse in our student body? The answer is yes. The questions are how to accomplish that.” Robert McBride, assistant provost of enrollment management, said this is a problem the university is aware of, and is currently looking to correct. “We have a generous amount of financial aid, and today, a lot of students are receiving aid,” McBride said. “I think 96 percent of the freshman class received some type of St. Joe’s assistance.” CONTINUED ON PG. 3
Diversity issues on Hawk Hill MARISSA PURNELL ’18 Special to The Hawk
The front cover of the summer 2017 issue of the Saint Joseph’s University Magazine features a photo of nine recent university graduates. Based on the students who appear in the photo, Hawk Hill appears to be a diverse place filled with Asian American, African American, Hispanic, Caucasian and East Asian Americans students. The fall 2017 census data gathered by Bob McBride, associate provost for Enrollment Management, tells a different story about the reality of diversity on campus. According to this data, this academic year, the new class of freshmen is 80.4 percent white leaving 19.6 percent of the class to be divided up amongst other race/ ethnic groups. At 3.7 percent, the number of African American students this year has decreased from last year’s freshman class, which included 5.8 percent.
Monica Nixon, Ed.D, assistant provost for Inclusion and Diversity, said what’s even more important than these numbers is how students feel about their implications. “Do we have a critical mass of students so that when you’re living in a residence hall, you don’t feel like you’re the only one in your hall? Or when you’re in your classes, you’re not the only one in your classes?” she asked. “I think that those are deeper questions that get to what the numbers actually feel like.” However, minority students’ actual experience with diversity numbers is a complicated subject. “When I first came to St. Joe’s, I was like a fish in a pond ready to explore my horizons,” said Claudine Andre ’18. “But then I started to recognize that I was aware of a certain aspect of me that I was never quite aware of until stepping into
class. I didn’t realize how much of a huge impact it would have in my experience here, which it vastly did.” Like Andre, Jai Williams ’18 had to adjust after arriving at St. Joe’s. “When I was in high school, my school was a very diverse inner city school as opposed to St. Joe’s,” he said. “It’s different dealing with students here on a daily basis than it was dealing with my high school classmates.” Alex Cruz ’18 found that at St. Joe’s, people have trouble seeing beyond race. “Here you are just black or Hispanic,” he said. “People don’t really understand that you could be more than one thing.” Recruiting students like Andre, Williams and Cruz is one of the responsibilities of James Jackson, an admissions counselor in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions who specializes in multicultural recruitment. CONTINUED ON PG. 3
The Barnes Foundation filed a petition to the Philadelphia Orphans’ Court on Oct. 3 requesting court approval to create an educational affiliation with St. Joe’s. The mission of the Barnes Foundation is to encourage “the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts and horticulture.” The university feels a partnership with this foundation would help further the educational opportunities for St. Joe’s students. “The proposed affiliation between the Barnes and SJU would further the common educational missions of both institutions, allow the use of the Gallery building by SJU for its fine arts program, enhance the Barnes’ existing horticulture education program with SJU’s educational resources, and broaden the educational experience for Barnes and SJU students,” Mark C. Reed Ed.D., university president, said in an email correspondance. The Barnes Foundation is named after its founder, Dr. Albert C. Barnes, who collected paintings. His collection grew to include, Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse, Van Gogh and Picasso. His collection was opened to the public in 1961, 10 years after his death. However, zoning laws began to interfere with keeping up funds to take care of the collection and the property it was on. Based on this, Philadelphia courts allowed the collection to move to a museum in the city, where it remains today. Nancy Herman, an artist and member of the former Friends of the Barnes group, was a strong advocate for keeping The Barnes in Merion. “I thought it was such a magical place,” Herman said. “There is no comparing the difference between getting off the train at Merion station or the bus, walking up the street with the big old trees and the houses and walking into the beautiful gardens; you’re already in the mood to appreciate art, you’re in a state of awe to a certain extent. Then you got there and the paintings were just magnificent and they were all in somebody’s house.” The Barnes building that is in Merion now functions the institution’s archives along with itsarboretum and home of the horticulture program. “This was a total thing, the arboretum reflected the paintings, the painting reflected the arboretum,” Herman said. “And it was a treasure, the biggest treasure that we had certainly in Merion.” The horticulture certificate program is a three year certificate program where students learn about the art of cultivating and managing a garden. This program is something St. Joe’s will add as a minor if the petition filed at the Orphans’ Court is approved and the university and the Barnes Foundation are able to become partners. This decision could be a good opportunity for the university and The Barnes to become affiliated with one another if used the right way, explained Herman. “If they use the Barnes as a resource, it should be a wonderful thing for St. Joe’s,” Herman said. “I’m hoping the building would be used — it should be used. It shouldn’t be just sitting there empty, that’s a shame. If there were students that would appreciate the arboretum, that would be great.”