If Paul Pastorek thought he knew campus before, he knows it a lot better now.

Hours of being grilled by faculty, students and The Maroon editorial board will do that.

It’s the tale of Pastorek’s first week on campus — going around and getting input from organizations, in much the same way that endeared former Interim Provost David Borofsky to many.

But Pastorek’s got more of a challenge than Borofsky did. That challenge: fixing “the hysteria,” as one student at Wednesday’s student town hall meeting called it, that Loyola is losing accreditation or even shutting down completely.

“We’re not going to lose accreditation. Period. It’s not a possibility,” Pastorek responded.

It was one of many issues Pastorek faced from frustrated campus community members, with questions by faculty, staff and students showing that they are concerned to the point of being cynical. And at this point, who can blame them?

They have seen a continued budget shortfall gut many jobs on campus, with the one man — David Borofsky — who seemed to have the university on a path to stability leave under sudden and unclear circumstances.

In stepped Pastorek, a man who went to Loyola, whose family for multiple generations has gone to Loyola and a man who headed the board of trustees.

With the state the university’s in, that pedigree brings a lot of baggage. Pastorek is, whether fair to him or not, the epitome of the Loyola establishment — a far cry from the mercenary outsider attitude Borofsky brought, which often sees him stay at a university for a year or two before moving on.

But though Loyola is in his blood, it’s not fair to blame Pastorek for past university failures. He’s only been on the board of trustees for a few years and has only gotten hands-on with the university in the past few months.

So Pastorek deserves a clean slate. We must be open to what he has to offer, and the good news is, so far, he looks to keep us on much the same track as Borofsky had us on. And, most importantly, he has vowed to all the groups he’s met with to erase the university’s budget deficit by July 2019.

He said he will do this by restructuring administration, and, in a move he let students know in the town hall meeting, there will likely be additional faculty layoffs.

“There will be some people who lose their jobs. That’s a fact,” Pastorek said.

In the spirit of giving him a clean slate and keeping an open mind, we’ll assume that something changed between when he met for the faculty town hall and the student one six days later, because when faculty — the one’s whose livelihoods are on the line — asked him that question directly, he declined to say one way or the other.

In any case, if Pastorek is as committed to transparency as he claims to be, he will offer an explanation for the difference in answers. Faculty deserves it.

And with Loyola community members in as frustrated of a state as they are, Pastorek must know that every statement he makes will be taken to heart.

But meetings like the ones he’s had are a start, because the only way for Pastorek to ease the concerned mood over campus is to keep an open dialogue.

And in that dialogue, he too needs to have an open mind. He needs to learn from these meetings. He preaches transparency, but now it’s time to prove it.

In the coming weeks, Pastorek said he and Interim Provost Maria Calzada will release the restructuring plan for the university.

Let us hope this is the final restructuring plan for a long time. And let us hope that “restructuring” will finally give faculty, staff and students what they’re begging for — a future with real, actual “structure.”

Borofsky may have had us on that path, but he’s gone. It is time to move on. The ball’s in Pastorek’s court now. We must give him a chance to succeed.