Since my first days on campus as a freshman, I’ve heard Seattle University students passionately and justifiably calling for the administration to act in a way that merits our social justice mission statement.

But sometimes I think we students could use a dose of our own medicine.

In the near three years that I’ve been a student at this school, I’ve seen students impressively organize around issues such as the divestment of fossil fuels, adjunct faculty organization and budget transparency. Being in the unique position of working for the Spectator, I’ve also had the privilege of speaking to a lot of the students involved in any and all of these movements. It heartens me. It makes me proud. It gives me hope.

Still, sometimes I get the feeling that our student body also talks the talk more than we walk the walk. Last week’s forum on budget transparency in the Arts and Sciences College? (You know budget transparency, the thing that students have been demanding for years?) Seven students went to that. Seven. Now I’m not saying this in a holier-than-thou manner—I didn’t go either. But don’t you think that if we’re going to demand something like budget transparency, we should show up when people want to talk about it?

I do, and always have, agreed with a lot of the grievances shared by Seattle U students. I am often proud and honored to be a part of a university where students stand up for what matters—economic and environmental justice and adjunct job security among them. But I don’t want us—myself included—to think that just because our causes are good, we can be careless with our actions. We too must walk the walk.

­—Lena Beck, News & Managing Editor