7/23 Family Letter

July 23, 2020

Dear Sr. Joan, Sr. Joanie, Sr. Lynn, Dean Macrina, Ms. Metzger, and Ms. Fitzgerald, 
We pray this finds you in good spirits.
We are writing to share the attached letter, signed by more than 850 additional donors, family, alumni, and Phoenix community members, earnestly asking you to take action on the concerns outlined in our original petition, which garnered more than 1,600 signatures from alumni and current students.
We are asking you - once more - to consider our plea for reflection, dialogue, and commitment to action, based on the five recommendations included on the second page. These are rooted in not only extensive research, conducted by experts in education, but in the real, lived experiences of former students from all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. We are inspired by the diversity of experiences reflected in our work, and hope that you may be too.

To the signatories BCC’ed on this email, we encourage you to send an email to administration on this thread as well with your reason for signing, and what you might hope to see from them. 
We are confident that we share the same goal: to ensure Xavier best prepares young women of faith with the knowledge, skills, and integrity necessary to meet the challenges of our society - in a way that honors our diversity.
Change takes time and patience; change can be frightening when we all too often seek solace in the familiarity of the status quo. Father Bryan Massingale of Fordham University, the author of Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, said this in a recent interview in June:
“Thomas Aquinas taught us that courage is the precondition of all virtue. Without courage, we’re not able to be prudent. We’re not able to be just, because courage is that virtue that allows us to surmount the fear that comes with the following of the Gospel. If we’re going to do anything that is difficult, there is going to be hesitation; there are going obstacles and opposition, and the fear that those obstacles engender in us. Courage is that virtue that enables us to not be afraid. We still feel afraid, but it’s a virtue that enables us to not let fear keep us from doing the right, actualizing the good.”
We remain eager and available to work with you on this, however long it may take. We have gathered feedback from alumni and students on what could be improved, and our group brings necessary experience from education, law, and justice to implement these changes alongside the institutional expertise from you all at Xavier. We recognize the great strides XCP has already made over the past several decades, and we only hope to build on that, to make this school an enriching, inclusive educational experience for all our students. 

We hope to hear from you directly about an initial meeting by Tuesday, July 28.  You may reach out to this email directly to schedule a meeting with XCP Alumni for Change; we plan to bring 2-3 alumni, along with an expert with extensive experience in equity and education - who is also an alumnus - prepared and willing to engage in this important dialogue with key administrators and faculty. 

Respectfully, 
XCP Alumni for Change