Photo courtesy of Unsplash.
To the Connecticut College Administration:
It is safe to say that a large majority of students at Conn have become extremely frustrated with the current state of life on campus. As the pandemic slows down, we are facing a growing number of obstacles. As the college moves forward, we are demanding greater say and transparency in the everyday operations of the college.
At a time when the College is undergoing tremendous shifts, not all changes have been welcome. When the pandemic started, the College quickly adapted to a remote learning environment, consistent with colleges across the country. Last fall, the College attempted on-campus learning, and succeeded at keeping overall Covid-19 rates low on an unvaccinated campus. This past spring was even better. As vaccines rolled out, it was assumed that much of our lives would slowly but surely return to normal. Then the Delta variant hit.
The school’s response to the rising demand in mental and physical health services has been horrendous. Sending out a newsletter twice per semester saying that there are mental health services available on campus and that we should ‘walk around the Arboretum’ when students were isolated from their peers and forced to communicate through screens was virtually a band-aid solution. It is those same students who are earning grant funding through Davis Projects for Peace, winning Watson Fellowships, getting drafted to the MLS, and receiving Fulbright scholarships.
If the administration is trying to craft the elite school it so desperately wants to be, then it must recognize when it is succeeding. The College is seeing amazing milestones under unprecedented political and economic situations despite tight financial constraints. But it is holding itself back. By limiting students’ social interactions, stifling students’ academic performance, and neglecting many of both our and the faculty’s basic needs to function properly, the College is holding itself back on its quest to build on strength and defy boundaries.
In addition to our mental health, our physical health remains a major issue in our residential spaces. It is inconceivable to tell students they cannot gather with large groups of friends out of fear of a virus, yet maintain student residences in the River Ridge apartments. Not a single student was hospitalized in the COVID outbreak of Sept. 6-12. Yet, after a student is hospitalized from exposure to black mold, it took several weeks for mitigation efforts to be taken. This isn’t the only time an issue like this has happened. In 2018, Johnson students were forced to leave their dorm after dozens of rooms were discovered to have mold growing inside. Johnson flooded again this semester in early October, as did the Ridges this September. In Olin Laboratory, there seems to be a bucket that picks up water leaking that lives there permanently.
These facts expose two truths. First, despite requiring all students, faculty and staff to be vaccinated with arguably the most advanced vaccines created in human history, social gathering rules remain far too strict for this point in the pandemic for a relatively isolated campus of young adults. Second, it exposes the desperate need for new residential buildings on this campus. It is unethical for the school to continue the prioritization of any new construction project at Connecticut College until the very homes we live in are adequate for all students. It is no longer acceptable for the school to think that installing dehumidifiers in its residence halls is an adequate solution to the high humidity that is consistently present in our homes. If this isn’t a sign of significant water damage, I’m not sure what is.
The college seems to be in the red, meanwhile, President Katherine Bergeron’s salary was increased by 66.43% ($418,304 to $629,728) from 2019-2020 following a large donation last year. Campus Safety has a new fleet of Ford Explorers, which seem to only be used to give out a quick $75 ticket for students parking in the wrong section, but dropped the cable bill out of the budget in the name of speeding up the wifi.
The big reason that I, along with many others, chose Conn was because of the premise that we would feel like more than just a number, unlike at larger universities; and from that sense, we weren’t wrong. The number we are to the school is far more degrading. Rather than being 1 in 30000+, it is safe to say that we are all looked at as one number to the administration: $77,575.
Although I might just be one angry camel in a large herd, I know that there is a wide and deep sea of students who feel the same apathy and indignation that I do in our four-year trek across the desert. I, along with others, are asking for the student body as a whole to be able to find easily accessible ways to voice our opinions and concerns about what the school can be doing better and what we would like to see the school do in the future. Although I’m not quite sure what a good final solution might look like, I’m sure that we as the camel community can come together to come up with one that can help students, faculty, and the Conn as a whole become the elite institution we have the potential of being.
Very well written. Conn’s COVID response is one of the many reasons I ended my employment with the College. I hope things improve for the Camel community.
It’s been several years since most CC staff have received even a basic cost of living adjustment to their salaries, so to see the increase in the president’s salary is deeply concerning. The legacy of health hazards in the dorms only continues and so does the lack of mental health supports for the campus community. It is disappointing to see inequities at Conn continue to grow. Kudos to students using your power on campus to advocate for positive changes.
Completely agree, all students are too quiet about it.
I hardly think that the student government organizing an open forum to discuss issues of sexual harassment, open letters and reports about COVID policies, and student-organized protests on the lack of safety precautions based on race and gender are examples of students being “too quiet”. Maybe the college is just experienced in silencing student voices before they leave the campus. Maybe the focus shouldn’t be on the volume students even have, but rather on the fact that the college administration can easily control the volume level by obscuring the eyes of the donors with fancy new buildings and enrolling “the biggest and most diverse class year” each fall to impress other colleges. How can we be loud when Conn is drowning us out?
I have been experiencing allergy symptoms since I arrived here and assumed it was just seasonal allergies. Then I went home for Thanksgiving and my allergies cleared up overnight, and I realized that my reaction was not to the flora growing outside my window, but to the flora growing inside my residence hall. As I have allergy-induced asthma, the amount of mold I’m being exposed to in my own room is dangerous and unacceptable. I normally rarely have to use my rescue inhaler but just this semester I’ve gone through an entire canister. There have been ant and earwig infestations inside the building, although they’re being dealt with now by the centipedes that have moved in. Not a single member of the administration should be receiving a raise until we’ve ensured that the campus is livable, which means hiring more staff and paying them better, and devoting some of the $10 million of housing funds we got last year to repairing the housing.
I literally make pennies over minimum wage and my department heads have been trying to get the college to deservingly raise my salary but with no progress. Then I read this: “The college seems to be in the red, meanwhile, President Katherine Bergeron’s salary was increased by 66.43% ($418,304 to $629,728) from 2019-2020 following a large donation last year. Campus Safety has a new fleet of Ford Explorers…” But the campus push on sustainability does not include paying staff like me a sustainable living wage. I welcome the students majoring in Women’s Studies to come interview me and write a paper about the problems of our society underpaying women with my example, right here on their campus. Also my department gets grants and part of those grants are suppose to go towards salaries. I never see any of this money. SMH.