For the past year, all we have heard about is returning to our traditions. I could cite email after email telling the student body to follow the COVID phase rules, in order to bring our lives back. After last year’s loss of every campus tradition, finally things like the Gingerbread contest, Christmas feast, and the ability to go sledding with the Dave trays is back and possible. Not everything has come back as promised, however. The Class of 2022 has recently been told that we will not be having a Senior week like we have spent the past four years looking towards. Instead, our senior activities will be spread out throughout the entire year, and we will be asked to vacate campus after finals week, only to come back for Graduation and the other on campus traditions, like the champagne toast or senior sunrise. While it’s generally understood that the “senior week” as we know it was newer, doesn’t the Class of 2022 deserve that time to spend together, when so much of our time on the Hilltop has been taken away?

I understand that having the seniors on campus during the days before graduation may be an administrative and logistical nightmare, however, for our time at Saint A’s that has always been part of our senior year experience. We have looked forward to those final nights together, as a class, at the place we have so fondly and proudly called home for the past four years. Quite frankly, the fact that we are being asked to rent out hotel rooms or commute to campus during those last days is ridiculous. 

On behalf of the entire Class of 2022, I implore administration, faculty, staff, even President Favazza, to think back to your final days of college. Did you spend those last days with your friends, whom you have lived with for the past four years, on campus? Were you able to celebrate your accomplishment together, and have a few final days of carefree freedom before the real world started? Imagine now that you were kicked off campus in the spring of your Sophomore year, and during your Junior year, you weren’t allowed to see anyone outside of your roommates, your “family unit”, until the last days of the spring semester? How would you feel after going through all that, only to be kicked off campus one last time, before you leave forever? I’m sure that your college aged self would have felt outraged and devastated. I’m sure your class would have put up a fight to stay on campus for a few more days, considering months were lost. I know ours will. The Class of 2022 has endured so much already. Don’t make us lose out on one more tradition, just because it’s easier to get rid of because it’s newer. We are not taking this easily, and we will fight for our ability to stay. 

Seniors: don’t give up, and don’t let this go. Talk to every member of SGA that you know, bring it to the Office of Student Affairs. Let it be known that we want to stay, and we want a say in it. I have looked forward to watching the sunrise on Graduation day, after a sleepless night, with you all since my Freshman year, and I am not willing to give up on that dream. To anyone in administration reading this, hear us out and take us into consideration. Let us have a few extra days on campus. Let your Seniors stay, rather than kick them off campus for a third and final time. Show us that you care.