St. Ignatius's The Eye: Volume LXXIX Number II

Led by moderators Tim Grady ‘95 and theology legend Jim Skerl, the 2004 Christian Action Team is back to work, using controversial new methods to get students involved. If you’re looking to join SCIP (gone with Pat Klus), the Service Leadership Team, or even the Community Action Team, you won’t find it. In each of the last four years, service has used a different name and has had different headquarters on campus, unable to maintain real consistency.
    Change (one might call it tweaking) has been a four-year theme for service at Ignatius. This newest tweaking, however, has some hard-core C.A.T. members outraged and confused. There are a number of students here who have built their entire Ignatius careers around doing service, and never cared for a minute how many hours it took out of their week, or how it would boost their college applications (although many have.) The new “C.A.T. Card” has these students confused and almost intimidated. “What happened to laboring and not asking for reward?” asks junior Brett Gigliotti, Labre goer for many straight outings.
   I myself side with active C.A.T. members like Giggles. I’ve never counted the hours I’ve spent in November and December planning the Christmas Food Drive, and honestly I’d rather not, because it would probably be depressing. “Who’s counting anyway, and why bother?” say the Fisch Brothers, leaders of the Saint Benedict Joseph Labre Project.
   On the other side, it would be a shame not to win the newly instituted Clavier Award, promised to any student who fulfills 50 hours of service by the end of the year. In fair defense of the change, service participation has more than tripled over three years, having Mr. Grady and Mr. Skerl worried that the good deeds of students will be over looked, unacknowledged, and under appreciated. The purpose of the card is to give an incentive to the student who has regularly shown up for service to keep it up. He’ll have something to show for it, that when it comes down to it he’s done just as many hours as the other guy who may even be the leader of that project. I myself don’t particularly care for this idea of a CAT Card, but something had to be done to ensure that students won’t show up for a month’s worth of Thursday meetings, start participating in a project, only to eventually become discouraged about maybe being lost amidst the hustle and bustle of the organization.
    We’re known as a pillar of service in this community, and in my opinion C.A.T. is the best example of student leadership and teamwork Ignatius has to show for itself. If C.A.T. cards offer a way to secure the growth and prosperity of C.A.T., then so be it.