An Open Letter to the Baylor Class of 2020

Dear the Baylor Freshmen of the class of 2020,

By now, you are a few months into your career at what I previously thought was one of the best universities in the state of Texas, if not the United States. You’re fresh-faced and ready to take on the world, if you’re anything like I was, full of belief and passion and maybe a little indecision and uncertainty.

For your sakes, I hope you have the college experience I did. I hope nothing worse crosses your path than a semester on three hours of sleep, or one episode of drunk cat-calling by frat boys at 2:00 AM the day before DIA.

You should know, though, that the university does not love you back. Your professors might, your mentors might, your librarians and bosses and support staff might, but the university, as personified by the Board of Regents and those who haunt the hallowed halls of power, does not love you back. Approach all you do with this understanding.

If you are a collegiate woman, you have a 27% chance of being touched or violated sexually without your consent, most likely by someone you know. If you are Baylor student (and so many other universities, but I did not attend those universities, and my heart is not breaking at their failure to comply with the law) then you will not be helped by your university, even now. You may find a sympathetic ear in the counseling center, you may have a professor you can confide in, you may tell no one and hope it all goes away. If you go to the university, though, they will not help you.

I had an incredible experience at Baylor University. I learned so much more than what was taught in the classrooms - things like critical thinking, and sisterly bonds, and how to walk on my own two feet without needing to fear failure. These lessons I learned, from my incredible professors and my family of friends, are why I am so absolutely furious to continually learn about another University failing at every single step. I had such a special Baylor experience that it ruins me to know that there are people out there, most of them young women just like me, who had that brutally ripped away from them under the same bell tower that I studied.

“To err is human, only God is divine!” You might reply, if you’re a firm believer the the power of sunshine and giggles, with no human authority questioning instinct at all. We all err, yes. We all sin, yes. To continue to definitely err in the face of such allegations, though, is more than we should be able to bear as a society, much less as a supposedly God-fearing university.

I wish I could tell you, Baylor Freshmen, to buy in. I wish I could tell you to buy in to what you’re reading in emails, what you’re being told in Chapel, what the University wants you to believe.

Don’t, though. Resist the clarion call to sit and do nothing. It’s clear now that nothing with change without full-on shoving, so shove away. You are freshmen, I know, and you feel you are both limitless and ever-so-limited. Work within those limits. You are the change.

Know that I am out here rooting for you to be the beginning of something better.

As long as stars shall shine,

A 2013 graduate.