To The President of Sacred Heart University

To Dr. Petillo:

As a student, I am deeply disappointed, dismayed, and angered by the decision to permit Donald Trump to use the Pitt Center at Sacred Heart for a political rally. While I understand this was technically not a University sponsored event or an endorsement, the public association between the Trump campaign and Sacred Heart University has now been made and cannot be undone. Inviting or permitting figures to appear on campus who may be controversial in order to promote lively discussion and debate is indeed a noble endeavor and one which challenges those of us in the University community to examine our individual beliefs and continue to form our individual consciences. But at the same time, every speaker, every event held on campus is a statement about our collective University conscience. It reveals a part of who we are as a community.

We have dorms on this campus named after Pope John XXIII and Pope Francis. Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council with high hopes of promoting Christian unity, fostering ecumenism, and deepening the respect for the dignity of the human person. Pope Francis has called us to embrace, welcome, and protect the poor, the marginalized, the refugees, the immigrants and the disabled. These are great men who by their words and example showed us how to be people of deep compassion, people who build Christian unity, who uphold human dignity and who foster understanding amongst all religions. This speaks to core beliefs that Sacred Heart University was founded upon.

Mr. Trump, by contrast, would ban an entire segment of our student body from even entering this country based solely on their Islamic religion, which is not only practiced by my fellow students, faculty and staff, but studied in our classrooms. To permit Mr. Trump to hold a rally on campus is a slap in the face of Islamic students and faculty advisors who have worked so very hard to promote interreligious dialogue and build understanding on this campus.

And what about our Latino and Hispanic population? Or those with disabilities? Or any of the other groups Mr. Trump has deemed worthy of his seemingly endless contempt? Mr. Trump’s outrageous statements are not isolated incidents of sarcasm or political missteps. He has, since the start of his campaign, been quite plain about who he is and what he stands for. He is more than controversial, he is divisive even within his own political party. He has shown himself to be unwilling or unable to take part in healthy, respectful dialogue and, as such, he has shown himself to be the anti-thesis of core values of this community.

Ultimately whether people choose to vote for him or not based on their individual beliefs about what would be best for this nation is immaterial when it comes to the University. We are not responsible for each individual’s conscience. We should be responsible, must be responsible, for defining who we are and what we stand for as a University community. Is our Catholic identity a deeply held conviction or a convenient slogan? Is Catholic social justice our calling and our mission or merely a marketing ploy? Is our prized Catholic Intellectual Tradition a tradition we hold sacred or a just good branding?

As Christians and Catholics we are called by Christ to be ‘in the world but not of the world.’ This decision and the lackluster explanation of it are most decidedly an example of being ‘of the world.’ The leadership of Sacred Heart University needs to do some serious soul searching and decide what matters most to this community. Are we willing to sell out all that we proclaim to be for an event fee? And if we are, do we really deserve to be called a Catholic institution?

Respectfully,

Christine J. Pelfrey, Class of 2019, Theology and Religious Studies Major

 

Confession of a Perfectionist

When I made the decision to take summer classes, it was a pragmatic one. I have to finish my studies within six years since I will need student loans and grants to do so. I expected during my first summer course to deepen my knowledge and understanding of the Gospel of Luke and The Acts of the Apostles. What I didn’t expect was what it would teach me about myself.

Going back to Sacred Heart University has been one hell of wild ride from the beginning. I still haven’t quite wrapped my head around the fact that one day my RA was in full-blown flare and the next, through the power of prayer and God’s grace, it was in remission and has remained so. I still haven’t quite wrapped my head around the fact that I was able to talk my way back into the school at all. But it happened. I excelled where my teenage self once failed so miserably. I earned my way off academic probation and onto the Dean’s List and even managed the somewhat dubious honor of being on both at once. So after being granted academic forgiveness and being freed from near impossible expectations, I should be celebrating and I did, for however brief a time.

I started my online course and that took some getting used to. I argue online all the time but I’m not used to doing it for actual points. But what really got to me was the midterm. The test was true/false and multiple choice, open books but very detailed. I had three days to complete it. I sat down and did it all in one five-hour marathon. I couldn’t stand having it hang over my head. Once complete, I submitted it and my grade was available instantly. 96. A 96?! That’s it?! What I did I miss? How did I miss those two questions? I spent another forty minutes looking up what I got wrong. Then I looked at my overall grade in the course: 94.32 and the feeling that welled up inside was a deep disappointment.

I have an A in a difficult, super-compressed summer course at a university that wasn’t even going to let me back in and all that after a chronic illness that had stripped away so much of my life miraculously went into remission and the feeling I have is disappointment? Yeah, something is seriously wrong with that picture. I recognized it immediately. Well almost immediately. “Immediately” being defined as the moment in which I put down the three books and the lecture notes I had frantically read through to see what I got wrong. Upon realizing that this was not okay, my initial reaction was to crack jokes, always my best defense. So I posted on Twitter:

If you score a 96 on a difficult midterm & are disappointed, you’re:

A) perfectionist

B) honor student

C) taught by nuns

D) all of the above

Ha ha ha – yeah it’s not funny. It’s sad. When I first went back to Sacred Heart, there was a legitimate use for my perfectionist tendencies. Nothing less than perfect was going to cut it. But that’s no longer the case. I’m free to do reasonably well without any external demand for perfection and yet I’m still pushing myself for it. Why?

I’ve been asking myself that for a week. It’s been an emotional week for the nation and for me. But time waits for no one and I took two more quizzes this week. I posted my arguments and should be writing a paper as I type this. My quiz grades were perfect and my overall grade is now 95.43. I had told myself I would be happy with a 95. Now that I have it, I want a 98. Why?

How good is good enough? And why can’t I accept that what I’ve done is good enough? I don’t know. But I know where to start.

My name is Christine Pelfrey and I am a perfectionist.