The interesting thing about archival research was that I had to make sense of what I found and draw my own conclusions. Instead of proving a theory using research as a tool, I had to make something out of the material I found randomly. So these are my conclusions on my research about the Center for the Studies of Contemporary Values.

1) What were the values the CSCV exposes as a program on campus, especially around religion?

Through closely examining the content and considering when it was written, I found a inner conflict for the school at the time: modernization and religion. SCU was already liberal and becoming modern. They enrolled non-Catholic schools and was accepting of different identities. At the same time, Santa Clara wanted to make sure the Jesuit Mission remained. That’s why by implementing the CSCV, they tried to bring up the role of religion back into the center of conversation on campus. It was their statement to bring back the school’s religious identity into the educational curriculum in a democratic way.

The Mission is still SCU’s symbol.

2) Why are there no information public about the CSCV?

When would you hide information? For me, it seemed like the university was hiding this program. Why wouldn’t you keep the legacy of a once prominent center out of the school’s history? Maybe there was a reason it closed, or maybe it just didn’t do well in terms of publicity or finance. Anyhow, there may have been a deliberate force preventing the spread of information about this program. I could be completely wrong about this, and it may be just the natural order of things coming and going. However, it is still weird that there is absolutely no information about this. My guess is that there is a reason that I will never be able to figure out.

Making sense of a dead end…

At the end, my findings led me to one point: be active and vocal on campus! If there was something I found, it was that how we participate in these programs matter. The school created the CSCV to affect students, and although I do not know how they responded, it surely had a role in the documents ending up in the archives. And maybe if students took different actions, its legacy would have been more known to everyone now, not just hid in the back of the archives. We are a part of history now, so we are the ones creating it!!!!