To the Opinion readers of The Hoya,

The last time I thought I was leaving this paper, I also wrote a letter. I wrote about what the Opinion section could do to propel itself forward and become more action-oriented. I suppose my words had an effect: My position was renewed, and I wrote this column for two more semesters, even while serving in student government.

That time has now come to an end. I am tired and Georgetown’s challenges demand fresh energy. But “Institutions and their Ills” is not going anywhere. Its next chapter will be written by Zadie Weaver (CAS ’28), a friend and the current chair of the Georgetown University Student Association’s Policy and Advocacy Committee. She has intelligence and empathy in heaps, sorely needed traits in this era of upheaval. She will take this column to new heights.

Before that renewal begins, though, I hope you can forgive the wistfulness and reflection of a departing writer.

It’s now been three semesters of this column. I’ve been published in The Hoya 15 times, each piece on university policy and how we could change that policy to better the lives of students.

I won’t pretend it was the writing itself that did all the work of advocacy and persuasion. Behind each article were mounds of tedious work and strategizing. But, there is something special about being forced to make a complete, digestible argument in 750 words. That sharpens you, and for me, this column has sharpened very much: investigations, hours of meetings and an ever-so-close campaign.

I am in debt to this paper. But alas! Despite 15 articles, all of Georgetown’s problems have not been solved. Our systems are still sick, our institutions still ill. And that’s what I want to discuss.

It is no secret that things look bleak. It is painful to watch as the structures that made our country great — whether trade, immigration or separation of powers — burn. Maybe they needed to burn, but it is a chilling thing nonetheless.

The Trump administration has set out to reshape and control higher education, wielding the arsenal of the federal government to devastating effect. But the problem runs deeper than that. Whether you believe universities have become diploma factories that have abandoned the search for truth or inaccessible ivory towers that reproduce elite status and systems of oppression, most of us can tell something is more than a little off.

So why try? Why try to make change in the face of a reckoning very far outside of our control? Many would call this the problem of cynicism. I think it is more accurately described as the challenge of impotence and the trap of incrementalism.

One can take an incrementalist view and believe that by taking some action (e.g., phone-banking for political candidates, lobbying members of Congress, introducing a petition, etc.), they can make a small contribution to some more important outcome (e.g., the university substantively standing up to the Trump administration). This can be true.

However, it is also true that such a process is crushing. We protest to a government that won’t listen; we help create momentum for a party whose candidates win in a landslide, then watch in horror as that party kills that optimism a week later. I think the incrementalism which Georgetown pushes you towards — be a cog in the machine, serve your time, etc. — is a large reason so many students come here wanting to change the world and leave as consultants. Most of us can tell something has begun to rot. I don’t know if we can reverse that decay.

So what’s the point? Calls for ‘hope’ fall short. They seem phony and saccharine, detached and out of touch with the gravity of the big picture.

But, even if decline and collapse are inevitable, shouldn’t we try to stem it in any way possible? If I’ve learned anything from this column, it’s that there are always symptoms of decline that you can grasp and individually solve. You can see it as “Fixing the Little Things,” as Sanchez-Sperber did, or “Cracking down on Crackdowns,” as did Wagner-Missaghi. Stemming decline can be bringing back ice cream to Leo’s or maintaining employee status for Georgetown University Transportation Shuttle (GUTS) bus drivers. Indeed, stemming decline can be helping create record turnout for a GUSA election by engaging the student body, even if you lose.

Perhaps we can’t ensure our nation remains a democracy, restore higher education or get the university to respond to our referendums. But especially when an illness is terminal, we have a responsibility not to accelerate it.

There is something in your club, class or friend group you can make better. Seize the chance while you still can.

For Georgetown,

Saahil Rao is a junior in the School of Foreign Service. This is the final installment of his chapter of the column “Institutions and Their Ills.” He is forever in gratitude to his wonderful editors — Peter Sloniewsky, Annikah Mishra, Maya Ristvedt, Thejas Kumar and Ella O’Connor — for improving his writing and giving him this opportunity.