Step 1 Preheat the oven to 350 F (175 C). Grease and flour a 9-inch square cake pan.
Step 2 Cream sugar and butter together in a mixing bowl. Add eggs, one at a time, beating briefly after each addition. Stir in vanilla.
Step 3 Combine flour and baking powder in a separate bowl. Add to the wet ingredients and mix well. Add milk and stir until smooth. Pour batter into the prepared cake pan.
Step 4 Bake in the preheated oven until the top springs back when lightly touched, 30 to 40 minutes.
It was announced Monday that the La Salle Explorers men’s basketball team would be undergoing yet another major upheaval with the firing of head coach Ashley Howard. Howard has been with the team for four seasons, and does not have a stellar record to show for his time. La Salle finished with an 11-19 record this season.
As is suggested in an ESPN article by Jeff Borzello, “[coaching] La Salle is considered arguably the most difficult job in the Atlantic 10 due to its resources and facilities.” But Howard is from Philly, was an assistant coach at Villanova for five seasons and was there when they won the national championship in 2016 and 2018 and had worked with La Salle in the past. If anyone was willing, ready and up to the task, seemingly, it was Howard. But, it appears that it just was not meant to be.
To the defense of Howard, he was brought to La Salle with hopes he would copy and paste Villanova’s success here at our humble school. Copy Villanova’s program, a school that has over $1.88 billion in assets… yeah maybe someone here was expecting a little much from Howard, but he was expected to mirror the success, and, to that end, he failed.
Some are speculating that this change comes as La Salle welcomes its new President Daniel Allen, hoping that with a new executive staff, a plan can be forged to bring La Salle into a new financial era, with the basketball team playing a part in that change. Whether this means taking a gamble on a head coach and pouring even more resources into it, or finally letting the giant die in exchange for a different approach to athletic promotion, it is unknown.
“It’s a wonderful game but it’s a difficult business,” Howard said to the Inquirer. Taking a look at the more than $1 billion in revenues generated by March Madness, and all of the money the Big Five in Philly invest into their teams just to get a shot at greatness, we’d agree it is a difficult business, and it’s just that, business. Basketball at a college level is no longer a game, it’s an investment, and it’s about time that La Salle realized they’re making the same bad investments over and over again.
While genuinely do not believe Howard had any ill intent when coming to La Salle, this fact needs to be considered: In exchange for a cut in salary, Howard extended his contract by two years in 2020 and received a buyout upon his termination, and if Giannini’s path is anything to be followed, signing a $500,000 annual contract and then tanking the team seems like a great way to make some quick cash. Just saying.
There is some on-campus controversy surrounds the firing, as it took place one day before La Salle’s annual day of giving and was announced under the radar. Some believe that this action makes the school look bad, as they got rid of a large investment one day before asking for money. Others believe that the timing was perfect, as it showed donors that La Salle carried an attitude that shows that poor performance will no longer be tolerated.
Opinions about Howard
La Salle University Athletics
We asked various students around La Salle what they had to say, and the responses varied from person to person, although their reaction was mostly negative. While some viewed him as a good coach, many others had vastly more biting emotions towards Howard. For the sharpest of all, please check out our Sports section to see what editor Enrique Carrasco had to say about Howard’s firing. (Spoilers: He doesn’t exactly give him a glowing review.)
One student who chose to remain anonymous stated, “It needed to happen. The basketball team only got worse under him.” Another simply said, “He sucked.” Despite these comments, not all thoughts were negative. Some students stated that he was a “great coach.”
Sedin ‘22 also stated,”[Howard] wasn’t the best. Looked like he knew what he talked about, but I doubt he actually did.” Jake ‘22 stated, “I think he expected to be able to work with what La Salle was giving him and didn’t fully understand how much goes into running a team with as little resources as we have. He thought he could think outside the box to help the team succeed, but wasn’t able to.”
Andrew ‘23 had something interesting to say when he stated, “When he was chosen to succeed Giannini in 2018, Coach Howard was definitely the best choice. He played basketball for Drexel and under Jay Wright was instrumental in building two national championship teams at Villanova. However, at La Salle, it seemed like Howard was never genuinely interested. It seemed like every year, we would finish with a frustrating record and then be forced to build a new team due to the high frequency of transfers.”
The opinions on who should replace Howard were some of the most varied we received. A few people stated that they’d like to see La Salle alum Tim Leger take over the reins. Others said that they’d like to see Matt Langel. Overall, though, most people had no idea who should come in to replace him, but most believe it should be a coach new to the system.
What’s next?
Photography Matters
So, if Howard got cut, John Giannini got cut and La Salle has been nowhere near the NCAA March Madness tournament since 2013, in which they were beaten by Wichita State, there aren’t many routes left for La Salle to take.
In exchange for a cut in salary, Howard extended his contract by two years in 2020 and received a buyout upon his termination. Also, if Giannini’s path is anything to be followed, signing a $750,000 annual contract and then tanking the team seems like a great way to make some quick cash. Just saying.
Maybe the solution to La Salle’s woes doesn’t really lie with the coaching staff of the Explorers; maybe it doesn’t lie with the basketball team at all. When the major sports schism occurred in September of 2020, athletic director Brian Baptiste said that “It’s important to note that this is not a cost-cutting decision, but rather a strategic effort to reallocate our investment in a way that better aligns with our student-centered mission.” Well, since then, Gianni’s $700,000+ annual salary and the bountiful wealth “reallocated” from the other sports into men’s basketball has borne a 9-16 losing season, an 11-19 losing season and continually low placements in the Atlantic 10 power rankings.
La Salle parades their men’s basketball team like it’s something to be proud of, and simply put: it’s shameful. All one has to do is look at the women’s basketball team’s 16-12 record and top five ranking in the A10 compared to the men’s 12th place rank. We can go on. Men’s cross country: A10 champions, women’s cross country: we have the Mancini sisters and that’s enough said. Field hockey has a .429 and women’s soccer has a .450 win rate. Not stellar, top ranking scores, but compared to the men’s basketball .278, it just speaks for itself.
For some members of the Editorial Board not particularly interested in sports, but more interested in seeing La Salle stay open, we think that flushing funds and resources into more successful sports and working to engage the student body in those will be more fruitful than the continuous efforts to have students attend a men’s basketball game in which the Explorers will likely lose.
Yes, we are aware that these other sports may not boast as fierce a competition as men’s basketball, arguably the sport with the most talent in the whole NCAA what with recruiting, bracketing and the money that comes with it at an all-time high. But, if La Salle could just allocate a fraction of the funds they put toward the basketball team toward their actually good teams and their academic endeavors, recruitment would go up, the campus experience would be improved and as a result, recruiting for basketball would loosen up and who knows… if La Salle stopped propping itself up on a losing team, maybe they would be able to claw out of this hole the pandemic has left them in.
On Tuesday, March 22, La Salle will be hosting its ninth annual Day of Giving, which is “a day to celebrate the University, its proud history, mission and legacy of service to students,” according to the Day of Giving’s official description. We won’t sugarcoat the idea. It’s a day where La Salle asks for money and everyone from the community opens their wallets to fund them. Many on campus have this perception because it’s the truth. But, it is also a negative connotation that many use as an excuse to not contribute to this incredibly important event.
The Day of Giving is not a cash grab like some believe — a lot of the money that is donated goes directly back into the students in various ways. Money collected on the Day of Giving is partially used to fund student scholarships, including some of the larger ones La Salle offers. “Like many students at La Salle, I receive scholarship support that would not be possible without La Salle’s Day of Giving,” said La Salle ambassador Aaron Srinivasan. “I very much see La Salle’s Day of Giving as a way to support the dreams of many students by making education more accessible, which is something I am extremely grateful for.”
What isn’t apparent from the Day of Giving’s initial marketing push is that those who donate, at least online, are able to put their donation toward a specific fund. Right now, the four listed are the La Salle Fund, which is a general pool of donation money that gets put toward campus improvements, changes in curriculum, events and improvements to La Salle’s education services; the Student Scholarship Fund, which, as the name suggests, provides financial aid for students who may not be in the position financially to attend La Salle; the Explorer Fund, which supports student athletes and their teams; and finally, the Anna “Nush” Allen, ’80, MA ’02, Student Emergency Fund, which is money set aside to support students in the case of an emergency, either to help supplement medical expenses or replacement of lost property due to a disaster, which helps students in a variety of ways outside of their academic involvement.
Explorers Give
Beyond this, money can be even more granularly distributed so that those who donate know their money will go toward an initiative or department they believe in. Some options include the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Initiative; the Honors Program; and the Schools of Arts and Sciences, Business and Nursing and Health Sciences respectively. For those interested or involved in La Salle athletics, donations can be put toward specific teams and sports groups as well. For many current students and alumni, the niche areas of La Salle like unique academic programs, student-run clubs and its small close-knit community are what make La Salle special. Therefore, being able to support specific areas of student life may make donors more inclined to donate towards something that directly impacted their Lasallian experience.
There are many who have been skeptical about the university’s spending in the past and who are concerned with how it has handled its money since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (or before, if we’re being completely honest), but these distribution options should alleviate those concerns, as your money can be put toward places you think need it the most. Many of us on the Collegian’s staff could not attend La Salle without financial aid, and at least a portion of that aid comes from students, alumni and members of the community who donate to the Day of Giving. We aren’t promoting it to our community for any other reason than that we have seen the benefit it has on the lives of students and want those benefits to continue. Last year, the Day of Giving raised over $1 million for various funds and initiatives, and that money really helped a lot of students and faculty advisors thrive as La Salle came out of the pandemic. We look forward to seeing how this year’s Day of Giving ends up supporting current and future Explorers and their endeavors with La Salle.
We think you should try to contribute to the Day of Giving in a way that is meaningful to you and will also be contributing to help current and future Lasallians. Here’s what some of La Salle’s student ambassadors had to say about the Day of Giving:
“Throughout my time here at La Salle, I’ve been blessed to have so many opportunities for academic and personal growth in and out of the classroom. Giving back to the community that has given me so much is really important to me and also to others who have benefitted from the quality education and caring community of La Salle. Please consider donating to help current and future Explorers continue finding their paths here at La Salle University.”
— Communication Sciences and Disorders and Spanish student Michaela Craner, ‘23.
“The Day of Giving is important for La Salle because it allows for its mission to be carried out. I have been lucky enough to attend La Salle for the past three years, and in that short period of time, I’ve come to understand how special of a place La Salle is. La Salle enables its students to grow and evolve into young adults who are curious, creative and concerned with the welfare of not only those close to them but of everyone. The lessons I have learned while at La Salle have shaped me in ways I cannot fully yet describe, but one thing is for certain — my life has been infinitely better because of my time at La Salle, and that would not be possible without the support we get, including donations from the Day of Giving.”
— ISBT and Math student Trevor Martinez, ‘23
Explorers Give
Our sports editor and La Salle ambassador Enrique Carrasco had this to say: “I’m an international student here at La Salle. Without the help from various different scholarships that La Salle has given me, I would’ve never been able to come to the United States to study. Without the help of people’s donations, my dreams of coming to the States to study and pursue a career in law would never be possible.”
While the Day of Giving primarily focuses on funding different academic programs, numerous programs at La Salle that need funding have been ignored. Numerous extracurricular programs have had their funding cut in part due to the inability to receive a proper budget. Perhaps some of the money donated should not only go to academics, but also to some of the programs that make La Salle so wonderful in the first place.
The Day of Giving addresses one of the most important issues every student and faculty member is forced to confront at La Salle: there is simply not enough funding currently to run everything smoothly. With the help of the donors, La Salle is able to help young students pursue a higher level of education, something that many of these students would never have the opportunity to do without this help.
The Collegian took a major step forward this week as a student publication, and while it doesn’t seem like a major change, it has been in the works for a long time, and we as a news outlet are going to continue growing and changing at a rapid pace as a result. We are now hosted on thelasallecollegian.com and are in possession of the domain itself. While a website name change is not a major change, the abilities we now possess as an outlet have increased exponentially. Here’s why it’s important:
The Collegian started as an all-print, all-student newspaper in the ‘30s that would report on everything from hard hitting university politics to school dances. We ran horribly ignorant advertisements in order to stay afloat, with branding for cigarettes and local bars promoting sexist, and even racist stereotypes. But, like any newspaper, we matured, we found our way and we changed the way we presented ourselves. Many, many changes washed over the Collegian since its founding in the ‘30s, including ways in which we were allowed to present information, the addition and removal of major sections, the addition and removal of military participation reporting from the La Salle community and many shocking changes regarding the editorial staff. As a student-run paper, the staff turnover is expectedly sky high. But, it’s the legacy that past editors, editors-in-chief and writers leave behind that keeps the vibe, tradition and customs of the Collegian consistent despite constantly moving in fresh faces.
It could be argued that in 2020, when the Collegian transitioned completely away from printing on news stock to publishing on a database, the paper underwent its most major change to date. Our editorial staff at the time, led by Jacob Garwood, ‘20, worked incredibly hard to make the transition acceptable. The style, software, workflow, design choices and presentation of the paper had to be completely upended, and we needed a way to get the news out to the community. A few members of the staff took on a majority of the formatting work, while the rest of the editors had to adapt to an asynchronous editing style that limited interactivity and creativity. Overall, everyone on the staff was put up against a wall, but we continued to publish, and never missed a beat. The following year, our editorial staff, led by Bianca Abbate, ‘21, had a tough choice to make: When we return to campus, do we print again?
LSUCollegian via Twitter Throwback to when the Collegian frontpage was in yellow.
Well, luckily, the pandemic made that choice for us, as printing costs shot up to unfathomable rates and the students’ activities fee was chopped. So, it looked like we would be staying online for a while. In January 2021, this website went up, and we have had the exact same style, visual look and method of editing/distribution since. That was largely because we have been operating on $0 of spending, and have been using a free-to-use website template to present the news to the community.
Now that we have secured more funding and have been able to acquire thelasallecollegian.com and upgrade our site, we might be going through another one of those major changes. Perhaps the most important aspect of this is that our stories will now be securely archived. Almost every issue of the Collegian as far back as the ‘40s is securely archived both on paper and digitally through the Connelly Library, Learning Commons and held within the Collegian’s office. This was simple enough to do on paper, but now that all of our stories are presented digitally, there was worry that one day this website would lapse or we would expend our data limit and all of our current history would vanish.
Another major development is that we can now customize our presentation with a lot more freedom. Currently, we are working with a student from the digital arts program at La Salle to completely overhaul our branding, and will move into the next academic year touting a new look, and will be able to stand next to the Drexel Triangle and the Temple News for the first time in years, and not seem behind-the-times visually.
For the time being, we are staying in a completely online format, which we know might upset some of our longtime readers, particularly those who were at one point members of the Collegian staff. While having a print paper is nostalgic and stylish, being able to publish online regularly means we can reach the La Salle community far beyond 20th and Olney. We have readers from multiple states, even multiple countries, who are able to read on a weekly basis. We also have the ability to incorporate multimedia elements like videos, the podcast and graphics in ways that previous Collegian staff never could. Now that we have our own web address and upgraded customization options, the quality of this multimedia will continue to rise, and we will continue to add new and fresh elements to our stories that make the lack of printing worthwhile. We hope that is a reasonable compromise.
As well as a number of managerial and editing changes — which we will not bore you with — on a top level, this site upgrade means we are easier to market and advertise, both in terms of audience, but also with writers and potential editors. Because of that mass turnover mentioned earlier, the Collegian is constantly fighting a battle on two fronts: making sure that content is excellent while we are here, and also trying to find the best the La Salle’s student body has to offer to continue that excellence after we graduate. Now that we have a secure footing, a real website and far more potential for creativity, we will be able to bring in many more students to our staff to hopefully continue our legacy.
In the coming weeks, we will begin experimenting with dynamic changes on the thelasallecollegian.com, as well as start the recruiting process for current and future staff. We ask that, in this time of change, if you know anyone in the Lasallian community that might be interested in writing for any of our sections, or on any topic we don’t currently boast, that you send them our way. Now is the perfect time to begin working with us. We are currently looking to expand our staff into different programs such as those within the schools of nursing and business to better represent the full breadth of the school community, and always, are inviting alumni, graduate students, faculty and staff to write or submit letters to the editor. We are starting the next chapter now, and we can use all the help we can get to ensure our success. Thank you for sticking with us.
Last Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022, the La Salle community received an announcement that the Board of Trustees, with cooperation from the Presidential Search Committee (PSC), had chosen La Salle’s 30th president to be Dr. Daniel J. Allen of DePaul University. For full details on Allen’s announcement and career, please see last week’s editorial and news sections.
As last week’s issue of the Collegian was coming together, the announcement was still fresh, and the Editorial Board had just come off of a short discussion with Allen regarding his intentions at La Salle and reactions to the announcement, but now that a week has passed, many more students, faculty and members of the university community have gotten a chance to share their reactions and thoughts on the subject.
Students
Before we share some official statements and comments from students on social media and La Salle’s forums, allow a member of the Editorial Board to share some anecdotes that are somewhat telling of how the current La Salle student body has reacted to the announcement:
“I was seated in a classroom filled with honors seniors, and when the topic of President-elect Allen came up, I was shocked that more than a handful of students responded with ‘Who?’ or ‘We have a new president?’ It seems like some of the students in the room were out of the loop with the announcement, which shocked me as someone who had spent the whole last week reporting on it and discussing it with fellow students. Beyond this, though, many students who were aware of the announcement were either indifferent or were unaware of many details of Allen’s career and reasons for being chosen. To be honest, a majority of people in the room didn’t even know his name. Of the few who were dialed in, the general consensus was that we were all cautiously optimistic about Allen’s abilities, and hope to see some improvements over former President Dr. Colleen Hanycz’s previous plans and initiatives. I wish this was the consensus with everyone on campus, but even at lunch in the Union or in classes with people I don’t know that well, many, many students appear to be unaware that we have a new president incoming, or are only familiar with the fact that we do, but none of the details about him.” – Jakob Eiseman, Editor-in-Chief for the Editorial Board.
We have seen some mixed reactions online, with some positive comments about Allen being publicized by the university, including one from a student member of the PSC, senior Aaron Srinivasan, who said, “I envision that Dr. Allen will work closely with the student body, amplifying our voices. He is someone who will inspire enthusiasm from students and faculty alike with a collaborative and bold vision for the future of La Salle that sticks to its historic roots.”
Senior Isabelle Pope, president of La Salle’s Student Government Association, said, “his overall values and vision align with what La Salle is and is striving to be. Though I will be graduating in May, I am looking forward to seeing positive changes that Dr. Allen brings to our community.”
The Collegian’s News Editor Kylie McGovern said “I think that Dr. Allen is a good fit for La Salle and I am looking forward to him hopefully bettering the school.”
Generally, student opinion of Allen seems to us to be somewhere between indifferent and very high. While many students might not be closely following the situation, even those that are only tangentially aware of Allen seem to be hopeful. Perhaps this is a product of the dramatic periods of change the student body had to go to as Hanycz left and under Interim President Tim O’Shaughnessy, or perhaps students are that trusting of the Board of Trustees. We hope to see opinion on Allen rise as time goes on, and will continue to see student opinion on him fluctuate, particularly as he comes to La Salle in April 2022.
Faculty and Staff
Br. Robert Schaefer, FSC, said, “Dr. Allen’s understanding of our Lasallian identity was forged during his time at Lewis University, and his years at the Vincentian-inspired DePaul University has deepened his passion for the transformative power of Catholic higher education. I look forward to working with Dr. Allen to ensure a vibrant future for La Salle University.” Schaefer is not only a lifelong Lasallian, having studied at La Salle College High School and La Salle University, but serving as the principal of Pittsburgh Central Catholic and currently serving in the Christian Brothers’ elected position of Provincial or Brother Visitor for DENA. Schaefer’s comments about Allen’s commitment to mission and optimism for Allen’s role is reassuring, as this is someone who has committed their life to the Lasallian mission and who can be trusted on the subject.
“I was impressed by his ability to thoughtfully and analytically evaluate potential strategies and opportunities with a keen business acumen, while maintaining his prioritized focus on students,” said TiRease Holmes, director of La Salle Residence Life. “His shared insight spoke to the current state of La Salle and the need to lead with bold ambition to tackle the critical work of taking this great institution’s trajectory toward perpetual growth. I look forward to his leadership,” continued Holmes. This expresses the same focus that we had previously mentioned in our previous two editorial columns: that La Salle needs money, badly, but that does not mean we need a president who is focused only on creating revenue plans but cares little for their students and little for the mission of the school. Holmes’ comments, coming from someone who is highly dialed into student affairs, are reason for us to believe that Allen might be the person we were describing.
One quote that was specifically unique and interesting is from Vice Chair AmyLynn Flood of La Salle University’s Board of Trustees. Flood has this to say on Allen’s selection: “In his service to DePaul’s student body, which is strikingly similar to ours, as well as his familiarity with the Lasallian mission and demonstrated commitment to cultivating principles of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, we concluded that Dr. Allen was an ideal candidate to lead La Salle University into its important next chapter.” Flood, although a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the world’s largest accounting firms, did not make a single mention of money, fundraising or growth when she described Allen’s selection. She specifically highlighted that Allen was chosen because his work at DePaul demonstrated the Lasallian mission, and then lists specific fields which it did, including diversity, justice and equity, which are three key points that we have been looking for in a new president and that are vitally important to his success as a Lasallian leader.
Hopefully, as Allen makes visits to the university in the ramp-up to his coming to office in April, and as the university continues to circulate messaging regarding Allen’s goals and plans, students will gain a deeper understanding and general appreciation for the fact that a new president is coming and that means big changes will likely follow. Faculty have been unexpectedly positive about the announcement, but it doesn’t take a super sleuth to find members of the staff that were decidedly against the Hanycz agenda and want to see changes from it. Public criticism toward Allen from professors and staff, while definitely there, is not at a mass degree, which shows that Allen may share a lot of the La Salle community’s positive mindshare. That will make his transition to power much easier.
On Tuesday morning, the university announced to the La Salle community that the 30th president of La Salle University had been decided, voted on unanimously by the La Salle Board of Trustees. Dr. Daniel J. Allen of DePaul University in Chicago has been chosen to take up the mantle. Allen is an Illinois native who has spent most of his life in Cathlolic education, most recently serving as vice president of DePaul University, the largest Catholic university in the United States. Allen is known for his fundraising talent and the work he has done to raise money through the COVID-19 pandemic, which is one of the reasons he was chosen for La Salle.
This decision comes after months of deliberation and process conducted by the Presidential Search Committee and Board of Trustees. After the announcement of Allen as president-elect of La Salle University, the Editorial Board combed through the previously published position profile from the Presidential Search Committee, which is now unavailable to the public, and has determined that based on Allen’s history, he fits the profile very well. One of the key requirements listed on the profile was a leader who can hit various metrics in revenue and enrollment, and also a person who follows the Lasallian mission.
Last week, our editorial was a plea to the Presidential Search Committee to focus on diversity, mission and social justice, but a majority of the highlights cited by major outlets and releases so far have been about Allen’s commitment to revenue and fundraising. However, Allen is highly qualified academically, having studied higher education and postsecondary education for low-income students.
In a conversation with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Allen said “I’m a big fan of what happens in cities.” He continued, “that really stirs my blood, what happens in urban communities and universities… that are so tightly knit within those communities.” Our current Interim President Tim O’Shaughnessy said that Allen shows “commitment to our Lasallian values and principles,” and that he is “confident in [Allen’s] ability to lead La Salle into the future.”
What is clear from this decision is that La Salle University is likely in even more dire straits than was believed. Several members of the Board of Trustees have highlighted Allen’s skills in fundraising as a major choice in his selection, with William Matthews, a member of the Board, stating in the Inquirer piece, “we recognize that one of the pieces of the puzzle that allows La Salle University to flourish is to be able to raise capital that allows you to fund the operations of the school.” Additionally, the first of Allen’s skills listed on his official president page on lasalle.edu are “fundraising, alumni relations and advancement communications strategies.”
La Salle’s co-chair of marketing, Swee-Lim Chia, said in a release from La Salle, “I can’t wait for the larger community at La Salle, especially my faculty and staff colleagues, to meet him and to hear his plans to bring the necessary resources to support our mission and academic priorities in continuing our legacy for delivering a transformative education for our students and their families.”
In addition, Allen himself has even hinted at his financial goals, saying to the Inquirer, “the message was if we don’t raise as much as we did last year, it sure as hell isn’t going to be because we didn’t try.” We believe Allen is branding himself as a fighter and a city coordinator who is trying to pull the university out of the pandemic slump in terms of finances and enrollment.
President-elect Allen sat down with members of the Collegian’s editorial board shortly after the announcement and answered some of our questions about his plans for, and feelings on, La Salle. For more information on Allen and some of the answers from this interview, please check out this week’s news section.
When asked about his commitment to the Lasallian mission, diversity and community service in the university community, Allen was quick to point out that he has been a member of the Lasallian community before at Lewis University, a Lasallian university in Romeoville, Illinois. Allen served as Vice President of Advancement at Lewis, and worked on his doctoral dissertation on “access to higher education for first-generation students, students of color and low-income students,” according to a release from La Salle.
He stated in our discussion that “the work we did at Lewis helped me select my doctoral dissertation’s focus.” “[It was] a special part of my personal journey,” stated Allen. He clearly knows the mission of community service laid out by John Baptiste De La Salle, but his answer of diversity largely leaned on his doctoral work.
His background in Lasallian values and academics certainly make him the right man for the presidential position. However, it may take more than that for him to prove himself. Allen does have a strong background academically and is personally connected to the Lasallian mission through his past, and he certainly seems to be the man to save the school on paper, but only a naive optimist would believe that a good resume is “enough to bring La Salle out of the proverbially gutter.”
What was reassuring during our talk with Allen was his commitment to hearing student voices, and voices from various parts of the La Salle community, both from the student body, but also from specific faculty groups. Allen said that a priority of his will be to take time to meet with students both formally, in meetings and forums, and informally, through grabbing a cup of coffee in the Union and seeing how clubs and sports teams are operated from the inside. We hope that through this process, he will evaluate what student organizations need to be expanded to help improve student life.
While Allen could not commit to any immediate plan for the school, he certainly demonstrates a great deal of promise. Allen said that he wants La Salle to feel “as robust and as challenging” as it can be, and he wants “students to feel like their time at La Salle was vibrant.” While these goals can be achieved without student feedback, Allen was adamant about his commitment to hearing student voices and is looking forward to visiting the campus community soon to get to know some of the students.
While Allen’s idea of making the University “the best La Salle University it can be” could be put forward by any person taking up the role of president, Allen appears to have been selected both for his ability in the financial sector of higher education but also his dedication to access of education and importance of community.
Much of the information Allen could give us at this time was reasonably vague, as he will have to meet with the university’s governing bodies before formal plans and changes are developed, but, going off the sum of his releases and interviews on the subject thus far, hopes that Allen will be able to pull us out of that aforementioned financial trouble should be high. While we should be very cautiously optimistic about his intentions regarding community and diversity, the Presidential Search Committee and Board of Trustees appear to be very hopeful. Based on Allen’s resume and experience with the Lasallian mission, we’d say that we are also hopeful, and look forward to seeing how he fits in with our university and what changes he can make to better this historic institution.
What we have seen of Dr. Allen so far is very impressive. He may certainly be the man to save La Salle from crumbling, however, it is hard to make a true assessment of him before the rubber hits the road and he proves himself as the president La Salle needs in its time of crisis. We will look toward his early actions as president when he formally takes up the position in April, and will continue to report on university changes and developments as this time comes.
As the selection deadline approaches, let’s take a look at what we actually know about the future university leader.
Header Image: Christian Brothers Conference
If you have been following the Collegian at least for a few months now, you know that this board is not one to often speculate on what the university is planning and how they plan to act. As far as we are concerned as the staff of this publication, which is first and foremost for and by the student body, if the university wanted us to have information, we would have it, and digging into the internal politics of the Board and university leadership groups will only lead to further speculation and frustration on certain issues.
This, though, is a different case.
It has only been about eight months since the Lasallian community received word that Tim O’Shaughnessy, ’85, would be taking over as interim president when Dr. Colleen Hanycz booked her one way trip out of dodge.
This publication has been clear in the past that we respect Dr. Hanycz efforts during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic and also respect her decision to leave the university, even at such a turbulent time. But, the fact still stands that La Salle was in a shaky place before she left, and since Hanycz, and a surprisingly large number of her supporters within the university, left without a trace, students have been left with a shell of an administration that lacks in both transparency and focus.
Momentum 2022 is coming to a close, and the main tenets of the plan — mission, branding, affordability and leaps in enrollment — have all but fizzled out, and plans have already been drawn up for the next Momentum plan, but no significant updates or statistics have been provided on the conclusion of the 2022 plan or the steps toward the next plan since Hanycz’s departure. Not to mention Project Compass has been all but buried under layers of talk since March 2020.
All of these events have led to wild speculation in the student body. Why did so much of the administration jump ship at the same time? Why did we decide to cut so many sports programs, and what alternatives were ignored? What is going on behind the scenes and is it something to be worried about? Only time will answer these questions, but, what we can answer now is that the next president of this university will have to be the one to re-orient the Lasallian community, provide transparency as to the happenings of the school’s administration and point the managerial compass toward a reachable goal.
In the eight months that the Presidential Search Committee has been publicly active, the student body has received 11 updates, with the most recent being published on Jan. 11, 2022. The first was quite important, as it laid out the plans to form the committee and what would be done by them, the second listed many members of the committee, one announced the committee’s partnerships, one asked for student feedback, one discussed the committee’s commitment to diversity in short order and all the rest were vague messages that did not benefit anyone outside of the committee except to say “we’re still working on it.”
In the position profile, which is publicly available, most objectives laid out in the leadership opportunity section are entirely based on enrollment, financial enrichment and making the university more appealing. Just two small sections even mention the Lasallian mission and social justice. Word salad and public relations language are used to disguise it, and while we don’t believe the committee is acting maliciously or shadily by hiding their true intent, the position profile is a coded attempt at letting those interested know: “we need a president who will make us money.” That is their main focus.
Private institutions are businesses in and outside of capitalist societies, and no more true is this than in America, but when earning money, spending money wisely and increasing revenue streams is the bulk of a plan laid out by those determining the future of a long, historied university known for its mission, community, service to others and helping the marginalized and those in need, have we fallen off the path laid out by the founder? It appears that explorers might sometimes be lost, and that this university community may be entering into a dreary, money-desperate future.
We say all this not to muckrake or demean any members of the Presidential Search Committee, nor any presidential candidates, but rather to grab their attention and make a final appeal to those who determine the future of this great institution to please not lose sight of what makes La Salle what it is: its mission, commitment to service, inclusion and the support of diversity. We know that commitment to these pillars is written in your plans, we can see it on public documents and several of your members have expressed this at listening sessions and in private conversations with our staff. But words don’t mean anything without action.
Please, keep diversity in mind when selecting La Salle’s 30th president. We need to maintain a solid dedication to making students of all ethnicities, genders and cultures feel welcome. We need a president who will actually help La Salle take the place in the community they always claim to be in: one that helps and supports those around us and abroad through financial and educational support, and one that lives out John Baptiste de La Salle’s mission of supporting the needy. Please, if only for a moment when voting or determining candidates, try to see a future for the university that provides us wealth: both in culture as well as finance, not just the latter.
We look forward to hearing your decision in the coming months.
News went out to the student body yesterday afternoon that residential students can now “host enrolled non-residential (commuter) students” in their on-campus housing. Is this a great idea immediately following La Salle Halloweekend? Updated COVID numbers next week will have to answer that. But is it a breath of fresh air for much of the community? Absolutely.
Over 1,400 students in the La Salle community live at home or off campus, and finally being able to sit down to connect with their peers is a major get for the commuter community, but this is a sign of something bigger.
According to La Salle’s COVID-19 Dashboard, the La Salle community, including on-campus students, off-campus students and employees, has had less than 10 cases of COVID-19 identified weekly for the entire month of October. At the time of writing, there are nine confirmed cases of COVID-19 at La Salle with 100 percent of quarantine housing available. We are doing extremely well.
There have been no significant outbreaks or case spikes in the La Salle community since the first weeks of in-person instruction, which was effectively controlled and mitigated by the transition to online learning for one week. In fact, since said outbreak, the largest spike in cases has been 10 cases that popped between Sept. 9 and Sept. 14. We think the La Salle University COVID Response Team, Contact Tracing Team and other student health and wellness groups that have been collaborating to keep us safe deserve a pat on the back, and want to thank them for allowing us a return to some form of normalcy.
A full return to how things used to be pre-pandemic is still incredibly far away, make no mistake about that, but things are trending in a good direction.
With that said…
We cannot begin to lapse in our care of pandemic-related protocols. We have seen an increased number of students, faculty and professors playing fast and loose with the rules regarding mask wearing and social distancing in the classrooms and we have seen people attending large, maskless social gatherings with strangers that may or may not be COVID safe.
The La Salle community is around 94 percent in terms of full vaccination, but as is known all too well now from outbreaks all around Philadelphia, a vaccination card does not double as a get out of jail free card. While the Halloween Reminders for Students video published by the university to help mitigate Halloween spread was attempting to appeal to the general campus audience, those who were already planning to wear a mask and social distance did not need to hear it again.
While it is important to reinforce safe practices in the Lasallians that care about the health and wellbeing of others, we need even more importantly to change the attitudes and behaviors of those that might not care so much. Most important of these: professors. If a student who may feel negatively about mask-wearing sees their professor wearing their mask below their nose or not at all, that is all the go ahead they need to stop caring completely.
Make sure to maintain your convictions on keeping the community healthy. If you see someone, even a professor or faculty member, breaking COVID regulations that make you feel unsafe, make sure to tell them, or tell someone else. As Lasallians we are meant to have respect for all persons, and simply asking someone to put their mask on is not a sign of disrespect, but refusing to acknowledge the discomfort of others in this stressful time is absolutely unacceptable.
We all see the milestones ahead of us: non-student visitors coming in, St. Basil’s opening back up for housing, Treetops Cafe reopening, fully in-person instruction, and eventually, saying goodbye to masks. We all know that it will take a long time to finally reach these milestones, but the fact that we are where we are now fills us at the Collegian with hope that if we all keep up our efforts and keep these goals in mind, we will get there with ease.
Halloween is the best time to be a student: everything on campus gets decked out in spooky vibes, the whole month is an excuse to watch scary movies with your friends (COVID safe of course), even if you don’t normally have much time to sit down for a film, the changing leaves make for a relaxing environment for studying and planning college costumes is the one time a year you can be applauded for being cheap and creative. Halloweekend is one of the biggest times of the year for blowing off steam and relaxing, and sure, that might be motivated by simply having an excuse to get together for a few days and have a good time, but there is a deeper, much more sinister reason for the annual Halloweekend blowout: crunch.
It is no surprise that college students are among the most stressed populations in the United States. We are being trained to be workaholics before we even step foot into the workforce. But, what people don’t realize is that universities themselves enter into a massive crunch period starting with midterm exams that lasts until the semester ends. The stress for students peaks during the exam period, but from then on, the stress and anxiety level does not decline linearly, and that is because the university structure and those that operate it, similar to the miasmic and mysterious villain of your favorite horror movie, are always looming over students, but infrequently break their tension.
Cutting the Halloween metaphor, what we mean is that universities like La Salle simply do not have enough mental bandwidth to go around, and the midterm crunch pits all students in an uphill battle for time and attention that the faculty, staff and administration simply cannot provide.
Professors and instructors, the lifeblood of the university and students’ main way on interfacing with La Salle, are placed far behind the starting line of the second half of the semester as a result of the extra grading they have to do and the constant requests by students at this stage to check in, reconsider grades, offer extra credit or provide support external to the course after students get a look at their midterm grades. Beyond this, many courses at La Salle are bottom-heavy, meaning projects and major final preparations will begin in mid-October, increasing the number of emails, meetings and files coming in and out that professors have to deal with.
For organizations and clubs, October signals the beginning of fundraising and event season which, admittedly, is being dampened by the pandemic, but the sentiment still stands. Every student organization has about three to four outlets for communication with the university, many of which are already overworked and are understaffed. Whether it be discussing budgets, which still haven’t gone out to some clubs like the Collegian, upcoming events like the Masque’s annual performance or major fundraisers like Explorathon, communication with the powers that be at La Salle slow to a crawl. If these people who are our main sources of communication with La Salle will not respond to our emails because they have too many obligations put on them by the administration, student organizations are suffering and students are missing out on the much-needed relief these events can provide.
Finally, perhaps the most pressing and frightening effect of this situation is the impossibility of contacting the many offices of La Salle that are vital for our on-campus or financial endeavors. For many students, the lack of staffing in these offices equates to a direct trade-off of grades and comfortable living, a choice which every university should strive to avoid placing on their students at all costs. For the sake of explanation here is an example fully grounded in the reality of several of our staff members:
There are 24 hours in a day. On a day when a student has three classes, that’s nearly four hours of class time, around two hours of work, and between one and two hours of reading. Assuming that the student should strive for the CDC recommended seven hours of sleep and 1.5 hours of mealtime per day, that leaves seven hours a day for free time, chores and actually being social. That’s all well and good, and while plenty of people will say that this is more than enough time to squeeze in a trip to the parking office, financial aid office or counseling center, it isn’t when those offices have strict schedules and the workload is magnified. Toward the second half of the semester, fall break and Thanksgiving break notwithstanding, that amount of free time is reduced to nearly five hours or less per day, and that’s assuming the student is still getting enough sleep, which is unlikely. These are not unsubstantiated numbers, these are based on real schedules.
After factoring in time sinks like clubs, office meetings with professors, time to commute to and from campus and other such factors, as well as understanding that some of these hours will take place after campus services have already closed for the evening, asynchronous communication with these services becomes the best — and only — option. As so many students could attest, especially toward this time of the semester, emails become a lifeline, and emails are not returned. Again, this situation is not a result of the workers of campus services ignoring students, but there is not enough staff to handle all of the needs of the students, especially after the pandemic era dwindled the staff overall.
While it is true that stress inspires motivation, it is also directly tied to burnout. We do not take a “students first” approach to this problem, and acknowledge that this stress epidemic affects us all: students, professors, staff, advisors and all of us that keep this academic wonder rolling.
Some say never to highlight a problem without providing a solid solution, and while it would be simple for us to say the solution to releasing this bottleneck would be to hire more workers, we also understand that that is completely unreasonable and vague for a university of our size. However, we are expressing this concern to the university population in an effort to help people take a step back and realize that this crunch we are experiencing is not unique to any one person in particular, and it is not something to blame an office worker for; it is something we all need to acknowledge as a reality, and simply work through as a side effect of the university structure.
Perhaps this situation is a symptom of an error at La Salle, likely, it is a symptom of expectations put on colleges by Americans and perhaps it is something far too ingrained to change, but just like any problem we find paramount, hundreds have dealt with the same in the past and came out successful on the other side. So keep your head up this Halloween, continue to practice self-care and try not to get spooked by all that is stacked against you.
The La Salle Collegian 