The ban on extracurricular meetings Thursday from 3:00 to 3:30 to facilitate attendance at Christian Action Team meetings is a well-intentioned but mistaken policy that shackles student organizations.
Although the policy tries to promote service, the effect has been to slash the days when clubs can meet, forcing students to triage their extracurricular involvement at the expense of their personal goals. CAT meetings, vital to our school’s volunteering ethic, should be voluntary. The option to meet on Thursday should be restored.
Student-led clubs serve a dual purpose in that they provide a needed space for self-discovery, and that they are talent incubators in which success demonstrates ability and passion. Colleges pore over extracurricular resumes, looking for leadership, achievement, and commitment.
They want to see students who are curious, dynamic, who act to realize their dreams. A student’s life outside of class is more indicative of his capabilities than how he performs on Scantron sheets and research papers. Blank spaces on the resume turn colleges off, and multi-dimensional CVs indicate students with ability.
Ignoring the importance of clubs would doom a prep school like Ignatius, and the school has not made that mistake before. There are 61 organizations on the website, with recent additions not yet online—ample ways to engage. But with only three days to meet, the reality is that suddenly shrinking clubs will go extinct.
The narrow window between 3:00 and 3:30 is when the vast majority of clubs choose to meet, before rides arrive, sports begin and attendance plummets. Clubs meet on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and-—historically—-Thursday. Meeting Friday, just like meeting after 3:30, is impractical, given the insurmountable desire of faculty moderators and students to return home for the weekend.
And because of the ban, managing extracurricular commitments has become impractical as well, especially for the type of high-achieving, highly-involved student who suffers most without the Thursday meeting slot.
Mondays are for Vista, Green Team, Debate, Support Our Troops, and more. Tuesdays are for Junior Council on World Affairs, Aeronautics Club, History Club—the list is endless, a tribute to the diversity and enthusiasm of the student body.
Crammed into three days, students must select the clubs they guess might be fulfilling for them. The Grad at Grad states that a Jesuit high school alumnus will be Open to Growth. Ignatius students now must grow within the shrunken ceiling of three meeting days.
CAT was given priority for understandable reasons. The school values service. That ethic is infused into the student experience here, from the CAT programs to Sophomore Service to the many clubs that incorporate service outside of CAT, such as Green Team, Heroes Club, Support Our Troops, Relay for Life, and S.A.D.D. In preventing other clubs from occupying the half-hour Thursday slot, the motivation was to promote service in CAT programs, in itself a noble goal.
But that policy overlooks the fact that the selfless ethic of service is deeply ingrained into the multihued spectrum of Saint Ignatius clubs. Students serve how they choose, through their own free will, whether they voluntarily go to CAT meetings, or whether they dedicate themselves to recycling, donating blood or Science Olympiad. The school should restore the status quo before the ban. Students come from different backgrounds, with different goals and different means of serving, and Saint Ignatius must recognize that reality.
