The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Issue date: 10/17/02 Section: Undefined Section

When University President Lawrence Biondi, S.J., arrived in 1987, Saint Louis University was a big nada at the national level.

Financially strapped and nationally undistinguished, the Frost Campus was effectively iced-over as a competitive post-secondary school. The U.S. News and World Report top 50? We were lucky to beat out Bob's College of Technical Thingies and Doohickeys.

Now, 15 years later, the story is different. The ACT scores of incoming freshmen are up, the once $140 million endowment has tripled to more than $600 million, we've been recognized as a leading research institution, and the campus, quite simply, looks beautiful.

Now in the midst of a $300 million fund-raising campaign, it looks as though the University will soon have an on-campus arena and a reserve of money for future scholarships.

Ah-hem. Wow.

Unfortunately, the good that Biondi has done over the years is often overlooked and played down in favor of the little barbs and ill-founded buzz we sometimes trade about him before class or during meals. Quite frankly, anyone in a place of power is fair game for ridicule, founded or otherwise, and Biondi is the big kahuna on our academic island.

The Jesuit president of my high school was also unfairly demonized in much the same way. The fact is that whenever you have a church leader in a place of secular authority, and access to that person is limited, there will be gossip. But let's be honest here. When do any of us really need to talk to Biondi himself?

Let's review. SLU has about 11,000 students with roughly 1,500 employees. If Biondi worked 365 days a year, he could listen to all of us whine about the cinnamon content of our daily toast and the stench that's coming from that room down the hall for about 40 minutes apiece.

Of course, this assumes that Biondi doesn't sleep or eat during that time.

And it's not that we don't have a right to complain about the inadequacy of our breakfast, the fragrance of the dorms or, as a serious example, the safety of the campus at night.

We all pay to go here, and the University has a duty to attend to the needs of its student population.

We just don't have to go to the president to get most of those problems solved. It's not his job.

I truly hope that we don't use the small stuff as a way to chip away at the good things Biondi has done and buttress those short-lived views by both off- and on-campus commentaries. The recent cutting remarks The Riverfront Times made about Biondi were entertaining ... until I remembered that they were talking about another human being.

Few people deserve the type of innuendo and trash that that paper dishes out, and especially not someone who has done so much for the SLU and St. Louis communities as Biondi has.

Thank you, Biondi, for your tireless work in improving the learning experience at SLU to the point that I would make this my first choice in universities. As I'm sure you would admit, there is always room for improvement, but in my opinion, I'm already attending one of the greatest Catholic universities in the country.

Patrick J. Ishmael is a freshman studying business.

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