What Happened: A collective of disgruntled Bloomsburg students calling themselves “Antemergo” left flyers scattered around campus titled “Common ‘Blexit’ Sense,” days before the Commonwealth University Council of Trustees meeting, which took place last Friday.
Why it Matters: “Antemergo,” which is Latin for pre-merge, lists a set of grievances they have against Commonwealth University, including the school’s deficit, their feelings that Bloomsburg has lost its identity, among other things the school has lost since the integration.
These documents materialized days after another round of flyers released by the Bloomsburg APSCUF Union calling for students and faculty to make an appearance at the recent Council of Trustees meeting.
The Background: Inspired by Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and the Irish revolutionary Michael Collins, the idea behind “Blexit” which is shorthand for Bloomsburg exit, was described as, “The whole idea is that we are describing our grievances.”
Prior to the Council of Trustees meeting, “The Voice” spoke to a student representative for “Antemergo,” who and the rest of their collective wished to remain anonymous, stating, “We don’t think it’s time yet.” When asked what the true size of their collective was, their spokesperson said anywhere from five to thirty students with some faculty on board.
“We think change needs to happen, but we don’t know what it is yet.” Ideas amongst the collective include Bloomsburg breaking away from Commonwealth and working Commonwealth back to the start of the integration when campuses still had their identity, and bringing back removed programs.
Further down in the body of the document, they elaborate on some of their grievances. One of which they listed was the removal and cuts to academic programs; an example they used was the removal of the German major.
They also made claims that lies have been told about enrollment, claiming it has been going down when they are being told it’s going up. No further information was provided on the document but according to recent reporting conducted by “The Voice,” freshmen enrollment numbers have increased by 10.7% since 2022, while enrollment among grad students increased by 47.6% despite an overall -8.1% among all three campuses since 2022.
However, above all else was the issue of Bloomsburg’s identity. Which was focused on heavily throughout the document. Nowhere was that more evident than the accounts of an unnamed member of the Bloomsburg Equestrian Team who had to change their club’s name to match the integration. A section read, “I’m not able to show husky pride because we had to change our name for our team.”
When talking more in-depth about the nature of the flyers, they stated, “Basically, this was supposed to be our radical side. We do not seek any sort of insurrection.” Going further, they said, “As a collective…we understand the intentions and where the state government and where our Board of Trustees are coming from. However, we do not like how it was executed.”
As they reiterated their goal of not seeking a “complete insurrection,” their spokesperson stated, “We might not even be considering a complete break-off. Are there parts of our group that do want that? Yes, and that is a problem we are currently sorting through.” They further elaborated, saying, “We in our group have different ideas of what Bloomsburg is gonna look like on the other side of this document.”
However, “Antemergo” realizes there is little they can do about the integration, believing far too much money has been invested in Commonwealth University. Instead, they turned their hopes to the legislature, which had a hand in creating Commonwealth University.
“We actually want to be a part of the process.” Their spokesperson also expressed the feeling that there has been a lack of representation on campus. “I think the Board of Trustees had amazing intentions, but they were not listening to us.”
“I enrolled in Bloomsburg to be a Husky; I didn’t enroll in Commonwealth.”
