Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall

After a change of heart and much student-faculty dialogue, Pres. Harris approves renaming of Serra Hall

Celina Tebor / Contributor / The USD Vista

The University of San Diego announced on April 4, 2019 that it will change the name of Serra Hall to Saints Tekakwitha and Serra Hall during the Fall 2019 semester. This name change follows on-campus opposition and pressures to change the name of the building over the past two years, most notably from students in the American Indian Student Organization (AISO).

The building will now have two names: adding the name of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, the first Native American Catholic Saint, and keeping St. Serra’s name, according to USD President James T. Harris III, D.Ed. 

Many of those who advocated for changing the name of Serra Hall argued that St. Junípero Serra’s participation in the California Mission Systems destroyed and negatively impacted indigenous people’s community and culture, and still impacts indigenous students today. With USD’s campus being on native Kumeyaay land, this discussion is especially relevant. 

Senior Patrick Murphy, President of AISO, explained in an interview with The USD Vista in September 2018 why the club took the official stance of wanting to remove Serra’s name from the building.

“We, as a group, see him as a figure who was detrimental to the Native American population here in Southern California,” Murphy said. “(Serra) was being idolized for basically doing wrong things to the community here.”

The university faced a dilemma when deciding whether to change the name of Serra Hall when considering its fundamental values. The two competing narratives between indigenous students’ wants and the university’s Catholic identity were difficult to navigate, and Harris acknowledged that.

“You have these two competing narratives, in some ways, that are taking place on our campus,” Harris said. “I was a proponent for keeping Serra’s name on the building: he is a Catholic saint, this is a Catholic university. But through our conversations, we talked about the possibility of adding something to that building, and so what we came up with is that we would add the only Native American saint in the Catholic Church, and that is a woman by the name of Kateri. It’s a symbol that we were honoring those who were here first, and also those who came later, so that they would be on equal footing.”

In an interview with The USD Vista from December 2017, Jeffrey Burns, Ph.D., professor and faculty member in the Center for Catholic Thought and Culture, expressed why USD was hesitant to strip Serra from the building’s name.

“I know that the university will probably want to keep it as Serra because he was just named a saint (in 2015),” Burns said. “Taking away that title would be a slap to the Catholic Church.”

In an interview with The USD Vista in December 2017, Former Vice President of University Relations Tim O’Malley noted that he believed the building would not change names due to AISO’s criticism.

“I just think it’s unlikely that the name would be changed,” O’Malley said. “We would not easily or similarly take a saint’s name off a building because a group of students object. It would have to be a broader reason than one particular cohort, one particular affinity group, one particular group objecting.”

Harris noted that he originally concurred with the opinion that the university should not change the name of the building, but had a change of heart after discussing the issues with many members of the USD community.

“I had made a statement early in my time here that we were not going to take Serra’s name off the building,” Harris said. “So the solution that many people thought that taking Serra’s name off would solve problems — simply name it something else, and it goes away. Partly, I think it was partly my discernment process. I thought about it, I thought of the students and the faculty and various conversations I had on campus. We need to make this campus as inclusive and as welcoming as possible. Many good ideas came into the conversation, and I think it demonstrates that the campus is listening and having good conversations, and we will continue to listen.”

Harris’ conversations on campus took part mainly through a working group, in which he invited members of the USD community involved or related to the issue to discuss it. Members included Associated Students President Natasha Salgado, AISO President PJ Murphy, USD Tribal Liasion Persephone Lewis, faculty from Mission and Ministry, Student Affairs, University Design, and other areas.

Associated Students President Natasha Salgado and AISO President PJ Murphy declined the request to be interviewed by The USD Vista at this time.

Additionally, Harris offered that having two names on the building would produce a thoughtful dialogue within the USD community that aligns with the institution’s purpose as an academic university.

“A university is where difficult dialogues should take place, and if we take off the name, it goes away,” Harris said. “We’re an academic institution, so difficult dialogues take place here. We don’t shy away from them, and I think it’ll make us a better campus in the long run.”

In 2015, Pope Francis issued a statement apologizing for the grave sins of colonialism against the Native peoples of America: this was at the same time that Harris became President of USD.

The initial dialogue concerning indigenous students and USD’s placement on indigenous land began when the Tecolote Memorial Garden’s name was changed to Kumeyaay Garden in September 2017, after pressure from Associated Students and indigenous students on campus. The garden now contains native plants and a piece of art created by Johnny “Bear” Contreras, a Native American artist.

AISO’s initial public criticism and proposal of a name change of Serra Hall was in Fall 2017, when the club held an event outside of Serra Hall in November to educate USD students about their reasoning behind the criticism. Club members spray painted 300 rocks bright red and placed them on the lawn of the building: each rock symbolized 1,000 native deaths. Members also passed out informational flyers about St. Serra and hung tribal nation flags to represent the different tribes in California.

AISO also sponsored a discussion panel in February 2018 titled, “Should we Re-name Serra Hall?” and featured six speakers including students and professors from USD and neighboring California universities. Additionally, AISO led a “Speak on It!” installment, a UFMC event aimed to foster conversation, in November 2018 about the impact of having a building named after Serra and the possibility of having the building renamed. 

In September 2018, Stanford University made the decision to remove Serra’s name from one of their academic buildings and a dormitory, as well as asked the U.S. Postal Service and Santa Clara County to wipe Serra’s name from its mailing address.

Although USD’s decision to change the name of the building comes after Stanford removed Serra’s name, Harris said that USD’s decision was in no way related to Stanford’s, but acknowledged that recent national dialogues about inclusion and diversity had inspired the university’s decision.

“It did bring more attention to the issue from some people on campus, but Stanford’s decision was completely separate,” Harris said. “They had other reasons for doing that: they’re not a Catholic university. Stanford’s decision came into the conversation, but it certainly was not a part of our decision making. I think ours is particular to our region, who we are as a university and where we’re located, and I think we’re trying to be sensitive to our local realities. There’s a national dialogue that’s been taking place that has been heightened over the past two or three years.”

In late October to early November 2018, Harris established his working group to create dialogue about Serra Hall from different areas on campus. He came to a Board of Trustees meeting in late January to early February 2019 with suggestions of renaming from the working group, and in late February 2019, the Board unanimously voted to approve the decision to add St. Tekakwitha’s name to Serra Hall.

Harris noted that there was doubt, yet support for the decision.

“There were some people who were skeptical, some people who were fearful that we were going to walk away from our Catholic values or legacy,” Harris said. “Basically, they were positive about moving forward so long as the conversation remained within our mission and within our set of values identified as a Catholic university. They were very supportive and thought it was a great solution. They were deeply appreciative of the fact that we had conversations with people on campus.”

Harris acknowledged that he will most likely receive backlash from his decision.

“Any decision that I make that I go public with, I get backlash,” Harris said. “Whenever, as a president, I take a stance and talk about issues in society, there is backlash. My guess is that there will be somebody who is angry, upset by this on both sides of the question. There are people that will say you should have taken Serra’s name off. There are people who will say you should have never changed the building. And those in between. Often, in these days and times, with the political turmoil of the country, someone’s going to be upset.”

Until the official announcement that USD would be changing the name of Serra Hall, the university had not made any official statements on the consideration or changing of the name of the building. 

After two years of silence, USD has  taken its stance on the renaming of Serra Hall. The university will also be renaming Missions Crossroads to “Mata’yuum,” a Kumeyaay word for meeting place, and later, removing the word “Missions” from any structure that bears its name, in acknowledgment of the possible negative connotation of the word concerning Native Americans and colonization.