Campus Climate – June 2016

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,                      

Last Spring, the College launched a series of programmatic initiatives and focused self-studies to help us better understand what makes for a healthy academic community, and how Carleton both meets and falls short of its aims. Ignorance and callousness about race, gender, class, privilege, and other aspects of identity can seriously impede teaching and learning. We had grown increasingly concerned that events and discourses occurring both on- and off-campus were exacerbating potential fault lines among students, faculty, and staff.

As part of this effort to improve Carleton, over the course of the 2016 Winter and early Spring terms_, the College held small-group “Community Conversations” to discuss areas of tension for our campus, with a particular emphasis on understanding our personal and communal relationships. We promised to provide, by the end of Spring term, an update on these Conversations and next steps resulting from what we learned.

The Conversations have helped us learn about each other and our community in important ways. They allowed us to think more carefully about our common bonds and what can prevent us from joining together in pursuit of learning. We realized our goal of engaging respectfully with each other, and promoting exploration, understanding, and personal growth. Post-Conversation evaluations indicate that participants affirmed their belief that Carleton is a special place, and that learning is at the core of the Carleton experience. Participants also learned that students value the curiosity and kindness of each other and of others in our community.

And yet, while many members of our community consistently experience Carleton in these positive ways, others do not. Some students have had challenging moments at Carleton, and it is incumbent on everyone to ensure that all members of our community are valued, respected, and provided with opportunities to thrive here.

The Community Conversations 2016 Themes and Action Steps document summarizes central themes that emerged from the Community Conversations and priorities that require our attention. In many instances, the College has already begun to take necessary next steps, including hiring additional support staff and creating new programs to meet pressing needs.

Because the Community Conversations to some extent operated as an informal campus climate survey, we intend to make the survey feedback on the Conversations available to the campus community. A detailed analysis will be posted on the College’s website in early summer.

Further, the Campus Conversations are themselves part of a larger set of ongoing dialogues. Significant progress has also been made along many important fronts through the work of task forces and Working Groups empaneled by the Dean of Students Office and the Community, Equity and Diversity Initiative (CEDI). We shall share an update on these initiatives in a separate communication this summer.

We believe that, through the Community Conversations and other efforts this past year, Carleton now has a deeper and more nuanced understanding of how fragile our community can be, of how hard it is to do the work of building true understanding and acceptance across entrenched social barriers, and of how unevenly distributed the burden of doing this far-from-finished work can be. There is more to be done to listen to the concerns of the community. But at the same time, we are heartened that our faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends are willing to draw upon the reservoirs of trust, decency, honesty, and good will that characterize this College to take on such pressing challenges. This is how—together—we can and will build a more nurturing community and an even better College.

Sincerely,

Steve Poskanzer, President
Bev Nagel, Dean of the College
Carolyn H. Livingston, Vice President for Student Life and Dean of Students
Tiffany Thet ’17, CSA President
Jeff Ondich, President of the Faculty
Mary Amy, CEDI co-chair
Adriana Estill, CEDI co-chair