Lawrence Biondi, S.J.
Simple, frank . . . and maybe just like us
Patrick Ishmael
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Last year I wrote an article about Saint Louis University President Lawrence Biondi, S.J., commending him for what I saw to be his ceaseless dedication to making SLU the greatest Catholic school in the United States.
A year has since passed, and I was recently asked to give my thoughts on the man, now that I've spent a year under his reign.
So here goes.
Halfway through my third semester at SLU, I have learned many things about this university. Some things I have associated with our president--some I have not.
Yet over the past semesters, my perception of Fr. Biondi has been refined and restructured, and I have yet another adjective to add to the myriad of descriptions--kind and otherwise--that students have for our president.
Simple.
It's a very unusual thing to say, I know. For one, it's easy to think that the Big Kahuna of a multi-million dollar institution would be anything but uncomplicated. The job of president is not an easy one, and any business major knows that managing something as large and unwieldy as a university is a daunting task, to say the least.
In fact, I think the nature of his job lends itself easily to the notion that he is a calculating, sardonic wheeler-and-dealer: a businessman first who, if you're not wise enough to follow his metaphorical golf cart, is more than happy to pull a U-turn and run you over.
Yet, having spoken with him before and seeing him at a number of SLU events leads me to believe that we don't give him enough credit for being as plain-spoken and straightforward as he really is.
With Fr. Biondi, what you see is what you get: in a world where phonies greet us at every turn, it's nice to know that someone is being upfront with us, however much we may disagree with him. Maybe I'm wrong (it's been known to happen from time to time).
And then again, maybe I'm absolutely on target. Not to digress, but I am one-half Italian, and one thing that sometimes gets overlooked is that Italians are pretty transparent in their dealings. (No mob jokes, please.)
The moral of the story is that Fr. Biondi, in my experience, fits this Italian paradigm. Personally, I think that the goomba-detecting radar I inherited from my mom is accurate in this case.
And, to quote Fr. Biondi out of context, "I hope this doesn't sound like pap, because it's not bullshit."
The interview he gave to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch a few weeks ago was amusing and refreshing to me because it really hammered home this fact: Fr. Biondi is, at his core, a pretty simple guy. From talking about his 96-year-old mother to why he chooses to dot SLU's campus with statues of practicing nudists, he showed a side that we usually do not get to see--a confident, frank man who, contrary to popular belief, does have a sense of humor and genuinely cares about this university.
And really, I think that for as distant as he seems, Fr. Biondi may be more like us than some of us may care to admit.
After all, it is a lot easier to assign all our university complaints to some mismanagement on his part than to try and make things better ourselves.
It's easy to have a beef with this man. As someone who wrote about why SLU should allow American flags to be hung from balconies, and as one of the co-authors of the SGA bill that allowed for all national flags to be flown, it would be easy for me to condemn Fr. Biondi's public support of the previous flag policy as short-sighted or unpatriotic.
But after thinking about it, I believe what makes what he said commendable on some level is that it seems that, if he had to choose between repudiating some of SLU's own, dedicated employees for following orders or coming off as an ogre to the general population, he would choose the latter.
It should be noted that, within a week of the Post-Dispatch article about the situation, SLU recanted its position, and thank goodness for that.
Yet, if Fr. Biondi wanted to keep that policy, I'm sure he could have. But he didn't intervene, even though his acquiescence meant that the University would be performing a very public about-face.
I think his intent all along was to do what was best for the University, whether that meant changing the policy or protecting his employees. The great part is that his concern for this institution seems very genuine.
It is heartwarming to read what he has said about SLU.
"I love the University," he said at one point in the Post-Dispatch interview. "I love the environment here and I don't like people to think ill of us.
"I don't have a kingdom. I have a campus, and in my campus, I know from (Interstate) 44 to Lindell and from Compton to Vandeventer [and] I will do everything I can to improve that, to protect that, to make it safe, secure and attractive, like you would want your home," Biondi said.
If not a "simple man," Fr. Biondi is at least passionate--whether he shows it outwardly or not.
Has my perception of Fr. Biondi changed in the last year? Certainly. Has Fr. Biondi changed? Certainly not.
As I'm sure he 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.
And that's as simple as it gets.
Patrick Ishmael is a junior studying finance and accounting.