The Pilgrim’s Protest

It was a surprise to me when Gina Russo, our editor-emeritus, mentioned to me a few weeks ago that our next issue would be our 2-year anniversary issue. As I thought about how to commemorate this milestone, I thought perhaps it was time to offer some musings about my role in the whole enterprise.

For those who do not know, The Pilgrim’s Protest was born in a Hebrew language class in the spring of 2005. One day, after a particularly passionate class discussion, I challenged the class to discuss their ideas about campus, church, and world issues in a printed format, a student newspaper. To my surprise, they took up the challenge, and The Pilgrim’s Protest was born. From the beginning, I have felt that my role was one of directing and channeling the energy flow of students into constructive, honest conversation. (Please read our original manifesto reprinted in this anniversary issue.)

I have not always been successful, and we have certainly made our share of mistakes. From the very start, the way we went about launching the paper was wrong. Dean Rick Swift, however, was quite tolerant of our ignorance of how a student organization gets started, and though we did not follow the proper procedure, he was willing to overlook some of our missteps instead of applying some restrictions stringently. He must have been convinced that a provocative student publication was not a totally bad idea. Another mistake was the way we presented ourselves in our first few issues. For example, we unnecessarily insulted The White Napkin and its faculty advisor, Steve Baarendse. I had to ask Steve’s forgiveness and apologize for some of those comments, and in typical Baarendse fashion, Steve graciously accepted my mea culpa and since then (and even before) has supported our work enthusiastically.

Despite stumbling early out of the gate, we continued to make progress in our coverage of campus, church and world issues. In terms of faculty, we have enjoyed strong support and encouragement, especially, but not exclusively, from the undergraduate faculty. The positive, constructive comments have far, far outweighed the voices of criticism.

We are certainly imperfect, and therefore, let me issue a sincere apology to anyone who was unnecessarily offended by something that was said in The Pilgrim’s Protest. We are trying hard to be a mainstream, fair, and balanced, but also a challenging university editorial newspaper.

As faculty advisor, I receive pressure from two directions: the students and the administration. Students want free expression; they want to be heard, they want to be taken seriously and they want to challenge the status quo. Students are idealistic, and they want change to be instantaneous. A school administration wants decorum, positive student experiences, and respect for authority. An administration sees the bigger, historical perspective. Achieving a balance between these two perspectives has not always been easy, and if fact, for me it has been emotionally draining, so much so that I have written several letters of resignation from faculty advisor to The Pilgrim’s Protest. But I believe very strongly in what this school stands for, and as a product of this institution I embrace its core values as my own. What has kept me going is the conviction that honest, open dialogue, even contentious dialogue, brings growth and maturity, not only at the personal level but at the institutional level as well. My core conviction is that as a Christian community, we benefit from open and honest, even confrontational, discussion of who we are and how we are doing things. I certainly do not believe in trashing the school, and it hurts me when I hear students do that; but I also do not believe in hiding our problems either.
Ultimately, I think The Pilgrim’s Protest accomplishes something very important at CIU. Some universities have publications that are too tame, some are intentionally offensive and divisive; some are humorous distractions; some are too driven by campus issues, like a student newsletter; others serve different needs altogether. The Pilgrim’s Protest attempts to “speak the truth in love” to the CIU community, by soliciting, accepting, and publishing articles by anyone in the community on any issue. We need to continue striving for that balance of truth and love. We need to increase the number of student contributions, especially letters to the editor. This important task cannot be achieved without university participation. And so, my final comment in this column is to issue a challenge to the CIU community to participate in our student newspaper.