Georgetown lacks a good quantitative measurement. When compared to similarly competitive academic schools, our relatively new endowment so inadequately reflects our prestige. But there are measurements of our university even more substantial than the monetary standard.

We know that the values which we inherit as Georgetown students — cura personalis, the ability to think and the urge to act for others — are significant. In fact, they transcend rankings or tangible measurements. Factors like endowment size may be meaningful for a quantitative way that others perceive us, but through the ineffable measurements of community, we foster a much more real personal identity. Occupying a new spot in a national ranking would do little to change our internal relationships.

It’s easy to quantify everyday life: We measure intelligence through grades, but we hardly ever consider the importance of less quantifiable qualities like insight, critical thought and academic risk taking.

Similarly, these empirical tendencies affect our ability to truly recognize the character of the university beneath the cold facts. But we still can’t shake the fact that that our endowment size matters, and we have been working to enhance it since it was first created in 1989.

Despite the crescendo of efforts to bolster the endowment, the $1.5 billion dollar challenge still comes as a shock. It is a monumental goal not eased into a tradition of giving but dropped into a scene that only until recently held a stigma against the very idea of campaigning.

The campaign is full of promise. Its slogan, “For Generations to Come,” looks to further the tradition of Georgetown through extending academic opportunity to those in need, developing new cutting-edge programs, advancing our faculties and bolstering infrastructure. Yet even President DeGioia’s words on the front page of the campaign website reveal the double edged sword: “Now it is up to us … to secure Georgetown’s place in the first rank of the world’s universities.”

If we place these empirical measurements above measurements of character, we run the risk of letting facts dictate our relationships, when they should merely be following from the values and bonds of the community.

I was 10 years old when I received my first allowance, a king’s ransom of $5 per week. My mother awarded it on Sunday, a day that always feels more like the end of the week than the beginning. The practice came to define my state of being; live a week, collect five dollars. Being able to measure my existence in terms of the five-dollar bill gave me some delight.

Yet, Georgetown is not taking another trip past “Go” and collecting for its efforts. The campaign is an investment in the future, one made on the basis of past merit but nevertheless forward-looking. On a student level, we should have an acute sense of the fact that the campaign is more than some monumental paycheck; after all the campaign is not meant to retrospectively validate a job well-done.

As we stand on the threshold between an old and new model for Georgetown, we need to exercise extreme precision in how we perceive the campaign. We can either deem it the end of the old era or the beginning of the new. If $1.5 billion came to define the university to this point, we would fall into complacency or feel satisfied with our work, but if we recognize that the investment reflects our values while looking ahead, we will keep Georgetown on the frontier of progress.

Maybe this is an idealistic sentiment. As DeGioia’s words suggest, the campaign will commemorate our achievements in as much as it will extend into the future. But the fact remains that when the initiatives this campaign begets eventually become obsolete, the enduring values of Georgetown will continue to guide us toward success because they transcend a price tag.

Those leading the campaign have positioned it on the front end of Georgetown’s future. But such a grand proposal may cloud our ability to see that fact. As students, we need to remind ourselves that while a successful campaign might reflect the worthiness of our mission and virtues, it does not by any means bring closure to our achievements thus far. The campaign may have publicaly begun on Friday, but we should have the prudence to see it as the beginning of things to come.

Andrew Toporoff is a sophomore in the College. MULTUMQUE UNUM appears every other Friday.