Aurora Magazine 2018

son “I’m not mad, i’m just dissapointed.” I understand tradi- tions and value in continuing one that is 175-years old, but it doesn’t help. There’s no explanation a white supremacist can give to African Americans to reason their hate. I mean, what would they say, “It’s not you, personally, it’s just your race.”? I sit hunched at my desk in the dark, ignoring the reminders on my phone that implore me to start on my homework. I don’t comment, just reading and reading and reading the comments attached to my classmates who furiously make their case to no one about why I shouldn’t be here. I know I’ll see their disin- geniuous smiles the next day and respond to their boilerplate “How are you?” like some kind of cruel joke. I do everything in my power to avoid retreating into myself, but the discon- nect from campus life and my self-serving prophecy that no one would want to make friends with “dad” only fuels my retreat. It’s not entirely my fault, my Munchausen Syndrome always seems to act up right when someone wants to hang out. I knew it was tradition being defended, a tradition of seclusion and solitary. An opportunity to be disconnected from the traditions of the world and create a haven. A place to argue for inclusion and equal treatment between genders, but where exclusion was masked behind the extrememly thin veil of tradition. Saint Mary-of-the-Woods as an all-female insti- tution was a failing project. The rest of the world was moving beyond the single-gender philosophy, either willingly or not. The College had to decide which tradition to break, remaining women’s only or staying open. For anyone who’s had the op- F O S T E R

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