Pages flip silently through a weathered yearbook, the faces of a different century smiling cheerily through the antique sepia gild. We see Saint Louis University in its seminal years when DuBourg Hall housed both students and professors in the style of old Victorian boarding schools.

Gliding through the volumes of years, we arrive back home to the present day. This progress, especially in our physical make-up, that SLU has seen is staggering. The addition of whole blocks of a city street, a multitude of buildings, and a series of renovations and additions have burgeoned into a modern University.

After Student Government Association’s successful presentation to the President’s Coordinating Council and the Board of Trustees, new additions to Pius XII Memorial Library have been heartily approved. A powerful moment of student-administration collaboration has helped to bridge what is usually a tense gap between student interests and administrative interests. In cultural media, the administration is usually portrayed as the villain, placing the rule of law and political interests above student initiatives and needs.

The fight against bureaucratic forces is an archetypal conflict that literature, movies, stories and history have created into a quintessential drama. In our microcosmic SLU bubble, we are no different in our daily quibbles and larger conflicts between student groups and various administrative policies. When we see the steps that SLU undertook throughout the years to bring enhancements to campus, we wonder at how much toil and strain students and administrators alike must have undergone to enact said changes.

SGA took a student need, polled the student body for feedback and data, and communicated this need to the administration using logic and research to warrant arguments.

The administration responded with an exciting affirmation. The harmony of this process is a rare gem. We will now see our library with new, state-of-the-art additions that will make Pius a true place of study.  We need to see more such collaboration between students and those in power.

Our campus can only improve, as it has done throughout the ages, if student needs are interpreted correctly and taken seriously by administrators. We exalt the results of the Pius initiative not only because we will now have a library comparable to those of other sister universities, but also because we see that students are a real priority for those individuals who hold the highest positions in the SLU hierarchy of power.

We applaud SGA in the strong leadership  it showed in bringing this important point to the attention of administrators. We all have added another page to the history of our University; we can proudly look upon our efforts, and we hope to welcome future collaborative successes that will bring progress and modernity to our education.