Community Update – May 28, 2015
Dear Faculty, Staff, and Students,
This year our campus has witnessed some provocative incidents and exchanges—on social media, in print and through angry confrontations at campus events—that have brought tensions in our community to the fore and have reminded us that Carleton is not isolated from broader national discourses about race, gender, class, privilege and identity.
We harm ourselves and harm our academic community when we fail to treat each other with respect or sustain an environment where others do not feel safe or cannot fully participate. Expressions of hatred and intolerance of others’ ideas are antithetical to learning and the spread of knowledge.
Across our community, faculty, staff and students have been working hard to begin to heal these wounds.
We need to understand the deeper, root causes of such troubling discourse, to educate ourselves about its impact and work to prevent it.
Carleton’s most fundamental goals include:
- Untrammeled inquiry and exchange of ideas;
- Free expression;
- Non-discrimination, and;
- The conscious cultivation of an atmosphere of civility, mutual respect and inclusion.
We seek to act in accordance with all of these goals, and turn times of tension into teachable—and ultimately community-enhancing—moments.
The College’s long-standing Statement on Academic Freedom and Statement on Discrimination and Academic Freedom articulate our goals and provide guidance. There are also many directly available resources that students, staff and faculty can draw upon for support and advocacy, such as the Dean of Students, Dean of the College, OIIL, GSC and the Ombudsperson.
The larger aspiration is for all of us to think more carefully about what binds us together in a residential learning community. Doing so ensures that we continue to learn to act and engage with each other in ways that promote exploration, understanding and personal growth.
As the academic year comes to a close, many of us scatter to different locations. But we do not want to lose the focus and energy which these issues demand. So let us identify now some of the work we want to take up, with the understanding that we shall pursue this with greater vigor in the fall when our entire community reassembles:
- Expanding awareness and training for students—especially new students—of how we treat others, react to one another and have hard but needed conversations. The Division of Student Life and the Carleton Student Association (CSA) will take the lead here.
- Better equipping faculty with the tools and knowledge they need to facilitate difficult exchanges in the classroom. The Dean of the College and Faculty President will take the lead here.
- Articulating community values and expectations of behavior—particularly in the student-to-student context. Interpersonal integrity is of paramount importance in a close residential learning environment. There must be room for young people to make mistakes—but we must help students recognize, own up to, and work through these mistakes as well. Student Life and CSA will take the lead here.
It might also be time to reexamine the structure and effectiveness of the formal committees and ad hoc groups we have relied upon to help us maintain a healthy campus climate, such as the Community, Equity and Diversity Initiative. We want and need such groups to be fully empowered and respected in order to achieve their aims.
There is much to think about, and much work we can do—together—over the summer and beyond to ensure that Carleton remains the inclusive, vibrant and intellectually liberating place it sets out to be. With all of our support and involvement, we are more than up to this challenge.
Steve Poskanzer, President
Bev Nagel, Dean of the College
Hudlin Wagner, Dean of Students
Marielle Foster, CSA President
Clara Hardy, President of the Faculty
Jeff Ondich, President of the Faculty (Elect)
Matt Rand, CEDI co-chair
Mary Amy, CEDI co-chair