Everyone knows the credo: 'Learn. Lead. Serve.' And most of us can agree that UD students live up to that standard pretty well. But lately, changes on campus have reflected a new focus for the administration: an effort to bring UD to the top of national Catholic university ratings.

UD is unique amongst private universities. Ninety-eight percent of students live on campus, a condition which lends itself to a remarkably close-knit community. We're a school steeped not only in religious values but also in a deep sense of social justice and responsibility. We're one of the most involved and service-oriented campuses in the country, and we still manage to boast several academic programs and extracurricular organizations that are recognized nationally for their excellence. And despite the obvious wealth disparity between our campus and the city in which it is located, we still manage to foster strong and supportive connections between UD and the people who live around it'people who often need our help.

UD has, over the past few years, set the unofficial goal for itself to reach the academic level of the other top-tier Catholic universities in the United States'schools like Notre Dame, Georgetown, and Boston College. And at first glance, it's, 'That's great! Eventually I'll graduate from UD, and I want my degree to be looked upon with respect!' But what does this goal really bode for the UD we all know and love?

Maybe the effects of this struggle will be positive. Stronger academic programs, new and innovative majors and minors, more funding for weaker academic areas on campus, and the end of clusters? As a chemistry major, maybe I could even dream of working in some labs that were built post-1940!

But what are the negative side effects of this goal? UD's average ACT score for accepted students is a 25. For Notre Dame, it's a 32. If UD raised its standards to that level, a whole lot of us wouldn't be here anymore'we'd never have been here at all. To reach that level, UD would have to exclude some of the very students it has always striven hardest to help ' those who come from weaker academic foundations due to lower or inadequate economic backgrounds.

There's our new party policy; apparently top-tier academic institutions aren't rated by the Princeton Review as schools with 'Lots of beer,' so we must change that about UD. I've also heard that to keep us 'safer' on campus, the new campus master plan includes some sort of fence-like installment to surround the campus'effectively cutting us off from the very community we're named for, the community our history of service has been based on for the last 150 years.

New construction on campus has cost UD upwards of $100 million dollars in the past few years. No wonder our tuition continues to go up! Apparently we have to pay as much as, and have a campus that looks like, the top-tier schools to be as good as they are. If UD continues in this manner, it may not be able to accept as many of those students who come from lower economic backgrounds as it used to. And the Marianist spirit of UD is not based on wealth or economic origin.

It seems to me that we, at UD, are always striving to be better. And that's wonderful. UD can and should strive to be better, but why does UD have to strive to be different? Everything about our school is what makes it the UD we love. We didn't come here because we wanted UD to become something else ' we came here for the community, the people, the service, and yes, for the academics. But we knew this would never be Harvard.

UD shouldn't give up on academic excellence. But the two goals'competing with other high-ranking academic institutions while staying true to our Marianist origins'are, in my mind, mutually exclusive. In the future, UD will have to choose between preserving the community it was built on or chasing top-tier universities, schools which pride themselves on academic achievement and elitism rather than on the Marianist values that UD has always espoused. I can't speak for all of you, but my vote is for UD.