Saint Mary's University releases revised Veterans Memorial design

Saint Mary's University has released the revised design of the proposed Veterans Memorial, pictured at left. You can read a complete description of the revised design at the Saint Mary's University website.

Veterans Memorial project update

The following e-mail was sent on Tuesday, Feb. 12 by diane leutgeb munson to
some of the people who have been involved in the effort to establish a
moratorium on the SMU Veterans Memorial. Following her e-mail is an
announcement sent to the Saint Mary's University campus by Michael Meagher,
Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and Brother Louis DeThomasis, Chancellor.

Friends,

For those who haven't heard, there is news from the Board of Trustees regarding the Veterans Memorial project. I will let you read the official email sent out (below), but did want to also let you know how things went with the Board. The group that represented us included: Mary Gleich, Glenna I-have-too-many-consanants-in-my-last-name, Mike Leutgeb Munson, Joe Morse, and Eileen Daily. The report from the group was that the presentation went well, was fairly well received, though quite emotional and full of anxiety (for all but Mary Gleich who could keep her cool with a house burning down around her!). The group seemed confident and well prepared and walked into an incredibly difficult situation with their heads high! Their message was a reflection of the months of discussions, letters, polls, and prayers we have all had together and alone about this project. They chose as a group to not offer any concrete ideas to the Board about what the memorial should look like, stating as their reason that one of the main problems with the project is that it was decided and designed by a select few people and thus does not encompass the desires of the majority- they did not feel that as five people they could fairly represent the diverse ideas of faculty, staff, students and alums regarding this project.

On a personal note, I would like to personally thank and congratulate all of you (and please share this email with those not on the list that have been a part of this!). In my mind, we have already been successful, whatever the final outcome. Our success, in my mind at least, has nothing to do with the decision of the Board of Trustees or the concessions of the Board of Alumni, but instead in embodied in the dialogue that we have engaged in with one another and with the university. The process that we have been a part of as a group has been a beautiful lesson in non-violence and conflict resolution for me, and I have learned a great deal from each of you. Thank you for contributing your strengths to the work that we have done together and for taking risks for the sake of your conscience.

I believe that we are meeting again after SMU gets back from break (the 22nd??). I look forward to seeing you all then, enjoy the rest of your break!

in peace,
diane leutgeb munson

February 12, 2008

Faculty, staff and students of Saint Mary's University,

The Veterans Memorial project at the Winona campus was reviewed and discussed at the February 9 meeting of the Saint Mary's University Board of Trustees. We thank the faculty, students and alumni who joined us at our Executive Session, and who so eloquently conveyed their support for or concerns about the project's design and intention. It is gratifying to note that even though there are strong differences of opinion about this project, everyone has treated each other with respect.

We are realistic and fully realize that no decision will be totally agreeable to all of the community. However, we are confident that most will be understanding of a memorial to Saint Mary's veterans, with an appreciation of our history, and with "service" and "peace" as key messages.

Therefore, the Board of Trustees requested that the Alumni Board of Directors consider a redesign of the memorial to more clearly and better reflect the intention of the project. We authorized the revised project to proceed in a timely manner toward its original dedication date.

The Alumni Board of Directors, which also met on February 9, supported the Board of Trustees' request. A new design will be developed and placed on the university website, and the community will be notified when it is available for viewing.

In addition, both the Board of Trustees and the Alumni Board of Directors indicated support for scholarship aid for veterans and their families. Both boards will discuss the topic at future meetings.

We want to publicly thank the Alumni Board of Directors for the time, energy and good intentions it has invested in the Veterans Memorial project. We also thank the Alumni Board for showing great flexibility in reconsidering an initiative that is now more than three years in process.

Be assured that the thoughtful comments we have received and the discussions we have had will result in a final design of the memorial that is appropriate and complementary to the campus of a Catholic, Lasallian university.

Michael Meagher, Chairman, Board of Trustees
Brother Louis DeThomasis, Chancellor

The Memorial and Lasallian Service

From: Dorothy Diehl Wednesday, January 30, 2008

To: The SMU community

I am writing this in response to the email sent to us in November by Meg Richtman, Director of Alumni Relations, in which she announced the administration's decision to begin building a veterans memorial here on campus. In that email she encouraged a sharing of viewpoints and discussion on the project. I have been involved in just such a discussion since first learning about the project in the fall of 2005. At that time, I and two other faculty members composed a letter expressing our concerns about such a memorial. We addressed three main issues in our letter: whether the campus should be home to a second memorial honoring students who have died, whether this memorial should honor only those who have died in military service, and whether there could be a better way to honor SMU veterans that would be more in keeping with our Lasallian mission. This letter was then signed by 30 some other concerned faculty and staff and sent to the Alumni board in March of 2006. In response to that letter, three of us were invited to attend the meeting of the alumni board in June, at which time we presented our concerns and expressed our hopes that we might find an alternative to the currently proposed memorial. The members of the alumni board listened to our concerns but refused to consider changing the project.

I continue to have serious reservations about these issues. More recently I have become concerned, as well, about the size and scope of the current project. What began as a "memorial to Saint Mary's alumni veterans" has now become a memorial to "everyone who has ever served--or who are serving--our nation," according to the chairperson for the Veterans' Memorial Project, Captain Timothy Tyre. This memorial, it would seem then, would honor not only those alumni who have honorably served their country but would also include those soldiers who participated in the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, those who participated in the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and those who taught at the School of the Americas, whose graduates have been cited for the assassination of 6 Jesuit priests and 2 co-workers, the assassination of Archbishop Romero, and the murder of 4 U.S. church women.

Perhaps an even greater concern is Captain Tyre's assertion that military service reflects "the Catholic, Lasallian tradition of service to others" and that the memorial "promises to be a thoughtful and appropriate addition to the Lasallian tradition." I would agree with him that "Those who have chosen service in the military branches as nurses, chaplains" exemplify the vision statement of Saint Mary's as a Catholic and Lasallian university to "transform society, one learner at a time, so that faith, zeal, service and leadership – all directed toward the common good – become society's defining hallmarks". However, the service represented by those who actively engage in warfare seems to me to be less in keeping with Catholic social teaching and Lasallian service. Throughout the years, both Lasallian leaders and Catholic bishops and popes have advocated for the creation of a culture of peace rather than one of war.

My greatest concern, however, is with children, whom Br. Alvaro in his address to the 2006 International Assembly placed "at the very heart of the Lasallian mission." I refer here not only to our own students but also to children all over the world. Every year I teach an LCT course to juniors on Children's issues in our Lasallian Core Traditions program. At the beginning of each course we look at the impact of war on children. I ask my students to name as many movies, books, courses, and monuments to war as they can--an exercise that they find quite easy. Then I ask them to name as many movies, books, courses, and monuments to peace as they can. Their difficulty is palpable. They finally mention something about Gandhi, Mother Theresa or Martin Luther King, Jr. Only once has a student mentioned that we have a monument to peace right here on campus, the peace pole erected after September 11, 2001. This, however, is not surprising given the fact that it is small and hasn't been a focus of university activities since its dedication. Neither the pole nor its dedication can be found in a search of the University web site although a search for "memorial" yields six references to the Veteran's Memorial with an additional link under both "war" and "veteran," despite the fact that this memorial has not even been built yet.

We, currently, have only a relatively small statue of St. John Baptist de la Salle in the Cascio Family Court. Across from that we already have a much larger memorial to students who have died. Behind this, the planned Veterans Memorial will dominate the landscape, making it by far the most visible structure on campus, aside from buildings.

One aspect of the proposed memorial is that "Each gift of more than $250 [...] will be recognized with an engraved paving brick. [...] Every brick represents an individual tied to the Saint Mary's University family." Perhaps a more appropriate memorial to honor our alumni veterans would be one of Jesus surrounded by children. Some of the bricks could then be dedicated to the 2 million children who have died in wars over just the last decade and who, according to our Lasallian vocation and the teachings of Jesus, are those to whom we should dedicate our lives and our service. We cannot forget that these children along with the additional 1 million orphaned, 6 million injured or disabled, 12 million left homeless and 10 million psychologically traumatized by war also are intimately tied to our Saint Mary's family.

In the book, Touching the Hearts of Students: Characteristics of Lasallian Schools, there is a Catholic Lasallian Assessment Process included in the Appendix for schools to "identify strengths and target areas for growth. The focus of the assessment process is to build on the strengths within the school, affirming and encouraging efforts to live out the Catholic and Lasallian character in all aspects of the school's life." The first of the six qualities assessed is: Lasallian schools are committed to living their Catholic and Lasallian heritage. Listed under "Things to Look For" are the following:

• visible signs, symbols, and practices of Catholic identity on campus

• visible signs, artwork, symbols, and practices of the Lasallian heritage on campus

I hope that, before proceeding with the construction of the proposed memorial, we will consider seriously the statement that this memorial will make to all current, past, and prospective students and their families when they come onto our campus. I also hope that we will reflect deeply on what it means to be called to serve as Lasallians.

Another Concerned Voice

January 28, 2008

Brother Louis DeThomasis, FSC, PHD
Chancellor
St Mary¹s University of Minnesota
700 Terrace heights #30
Winona, MN 55987

Dear Brother Louis:

I heard recently heard of the plan of the SMU Alumni Board to build a veteran¹s memorial. As a former seminarian at IHM Seminary and a graduate of the IPM program in 1989, I am deeply concerned about having such a monument on a Catholic University campus.

A tribute to the military and to militarism is contrary to what is central to what makes us Catholic. Jesus is the prince of peace. The heroes among Catholic faithful are those who have died for their faith, or those who led heroic lives helping the poor and suffering and being people of prayer. If a monument is to be erected, it should be for people who brought Christ to others by how they lived their lives.

We already have a veteran¹s memorial at the Lake Park. Please reconsider this project, or at least wait until you have received more input from others who are affiliated with St Mary¹s University.

Yours in Christ,

Thomas Parlin
853 West Mark St.
Winona, MN 55987

CC OFFICE OF ALUMNI RELATIONS

Imagining Peace

Brother Louis DeThomasis, FSC, Ph.D.
Chancellor
Saint Mary's University of Minnesota
700 Terrace Heights #30
Winona, MN 55987-1399

Dear Brother Louis,

I am blessed because of the education, direction, and opportunities Saint Mary's has given me and I am grateful for the leadership and gifts you have brought to Saint Mary's University and our larger Lasallian community. I am writing to you because of the challenge the proposed veterans' memorial project presents to the Lasallain vision of faith and service to the poor and youth of our world.

It is not the goal of this letter to foment division but instead to present one social and theological analysis of the Saint Mary's community's conflicting desires, on the one hand to remember the lives of friends and family, and on the other honor the reality of war and the Catholic teachings on it. Through that analysis I hope to call a community to have difference without division while being honest with history and to inspire hope for the future Lasallian vision. I will try to offer a number of constructive paths toward a concrete historical project that remembers our friends and family, restores us to a union with God in a repentant history, and envisions a world where violence is not the only recourse to conflict.

A memorial such as the one proposed is not simply a monument or specific place to remember Saint Mary's lives lost. As a cultural artifact, it will tell a story as long as it stands. It is with this lens that I challenge the administration to consider the past history such a memorial tells and the futures it will influence. The collective memory of a community can be a powerful force for change. Currently, the proposed veteran's memorial project obscures our history and fails to recognize the dignity of persons in our world. As followers of De La Salle's prophetic path of justice for the poor and powerless in the world, we too must bear that commitment of transformative justice. A university community whose mission claims dedication to social justice should reflect that.

Transformative justice demands that histories be told so that those hearing the story understand injustice as contrary to the will of God and the future of humanity, but also that stories be told of hope and change for a yet-to-be-written history free from violence and war. A veterans' war memorial that can remember and tell the history of sacrifice and service of our community, but that is also sorrowfully honest with the reality of the horror and injustice of that history is the only way that we can respond to the call for transformative justice.

Participation in violence, no matter what "justification," always reflects the broken covenant of a community with God. [1] A memorial that simply honors the SMU war dead explicitly tells the story of their heroism but implicitly tells viewers that the violence, collateral damage, and failure to achieve peace are of no import. Can we have instead a memorial that honors their heroism but also addresses what is necessary to be free from violence, to restore communion with God, and remember such covenantal brokenness with historical accuracy and mourning?

Some of the wars the United States has entered or started since the founding of Saint Mary's University have been "unjust" wars according to Catholic social teaching. If this part of the story is hidden from public consideration in the memorial, we lie to the future students of Saint Mary's University about the depth and difficulty of the discernment required before committing to military service. Such a lie would directly result in the loss of other Saint Mary's lives.

The proposed memorial also fails to acknowledge the many other lives that were lost in those wars, the lives of our brothers and sisters in the global Lasallian community and the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We are called by God to act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with our God, a communion we share with the earthly community. This call does not end; we must strive for ongoing conversion to more justice, more love, and more humility. I am asking you to put a moratorium on this project while you bring all the Saint Mary's community, alumni, faculty, staff and students, together for conversation in a spirit of openness to conversion.

I propose the following suggestions to make such a conversation more likely to succeed in creating a new historical project that honors our Catholic, Lasallian heritage and mission:

• Honoring the reality of the violence suffered by the veterans and others in any war.
• Rooting the personal services and sacrifices of the veterans within the social contexts of the wars in which they served: what are the larger, historical, theological, and moral considerations of each context?
• Considering how a memorial project embodies the SMU mission to help students live ethical lives of service and leadership, especially the poor (who traditionally serve as cannon fodder).
• Asking the questions "what kind of future do we want to believe in" and "how is what we are doing embody or disembody that reality, both in the process and product of the memorial project?"
• Using language that is honest, acknowledging the violence and suffering in war and the demands and struggles nonviolent peacemakers face.
• Allowing for wider community input in a project that affects so many people. Encourage and stimulate discussion about our differences, but do so without division.

The preservation of peace falls on the shoulders of war-makers and politicians of nation-states and by extension, the veterans of Saint Mary's. The building of peace falls on the shoulders of peace-makers and believers of a nonviolent Spirit of God. Please help us take a step toward being peace-makers by reconsidering and reworking what this War Veterans' Memorial Project means to all those committed to Lasallian service.

Live Jesus in Our Hearts,

Jake Olzen, '07

411 Mensching
Roselle, IL 60172

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[1] The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, No. 488 says, "Peace is founded on the primary relationship that exists between human beings and God himself, a relationship marked by righteousness (cf. Gen 17:1). […] Violence made its appearance in interpersonal relationships (cf. Gen 4:1-16) and in social relationships (cf. 11:1-9). Peace and violence cannot dwell together, and where there is violence, God cannot be present (cf. 1 Chr 22:8-9)."

Letter Sent To The Cardinal

January 18, 2008

Dear Editor,

Memorials are loaded structures. I grew up in the South, a land laden in Civil War memorials. Every county seat has some memorial to Confederate soldiers who died in battle. It's a difficult thing to deal with when, 150 years later, the prominent sentiment is no longer 1866's “we want this statue to remember lost friends”, but instead 2008's “we want to live in a community that reconciles old racial divides and not be bound by tragedies and evils of our past”. That's hard to do with that piece of Confederate patriotism staring you in the face. Yet the memorials are even harder to tear down. They perpetuate division.

There is a movement by the Alumni association to create a large memorial on our campus to honor all military veterans connected to SMU. There are many reasons why I think that is misguided: if we should honor veterans, do so through scholarships. Set up a simple historical marker (there is a historical connection to WWII involved). But this memorial, as promoted and planned with huge, sweeping arches signifying the five branches of U.S. Military, makes a very divisive statement: that all military service is a sacrifice in keeping with Catholic teaching. And that statement simply is not true. Some wars may be just, and people may engage in wars according to informed conscience. But many wars have not met the criteria of just war. Just war theory is a complex teaching that seems dismissed by the grandeur of the memorial's proposed structure, which seems to elevate the U.S. military to transcendental status. Yet transcendence belongs to God alone.

I’m not against people in the military. Members of my family have served (one is in Iraq now), and I respect their decisions of conscience; if you are a student in the Reserves or National Guard, I respect your decisions as well. I'm not necessarily against all memorials, either. The Vietnam Memorial is a memorial which brings people together, and the thousands of names speak well to the scale of casualties, tragedy, loss, and some kind of peace with history. But that memorial is on federal land in the nation’s capital. Why is Saint Mary's considering such a sweeping memorial that makes a theologically questionable statement on private land, at a school run by an order that primarily educates the poor?

And if this memorial is divisive now, won't it likely be more so 100 years from now?

Sincerely,

Dr. Susan Windley-Daoust
Assistant Professor of Theology

Lack of Communication

To: Br. Louis, Dr. John Ferrotte, Mr. William Herzog, and Mr. Timothy Tyre

My name is Jeff Austin, and I am a senior at St. Mary's Winona campus. I would like to share some concerns I have about the proposed Veterans Memorial Project. My first concern is the absence of publications of this memorial to the general campus. As a student enrolled since fall of 2005, I have not heard anything of this project until November of this past year. It seems to me that this would be an exciting undertaking for the Alumni and they would want to get the future alumni excited about it as well. My second concern is to the nature of this memorial. I would like to know more about the structure and reasoning beyond the brochure information. Our Catholic faith holds war to be unjust and unnecessary, and a memorial to the military seems to be contrary to our faith values. If this is to be a gift to the campus community, I feel that there are other ways to honor the lives of those who have served beyond simply honoring the military in general. From what I know of this project, the Alumni borard is under the impression that the students are aware of this project and supportive of it. To my knowledge, the students are unaware of this project and should be informed before they return next semester and find another structure on campus. It would be appropriate for the Alumni Board to present this memorial to the campus in order to explain the reasoning behind it, and be open to feedback from the student body. As LaSallian learners, it is important to be informed and involved in our community because SMU is our (alumni, students, and faculty) Home. Thank you for taking the time to read my concerns. As a future alumnus, I look forward to working with my fellow alumni to building up Saint Mary's University as a Catholic and LaSallian Institution.

In Christ,

May Christ's love bring you Joy!