As I near the end of my four years at Connecticut College I have observed a predictable pattern when incidents occur. Something happens of campus concern, the administration responds with a virtue signaling email, SGA hosts hearings and Q & As, we get lofty unkept promises of policy changes, long overdue maintenance solutions, band-aid solutions, or straight up implementation of police surveillance.
The administrative pattern under Katherine Bergeron’s leadership has been talking a big game. However, what is achieved is not reflective of her stated values or priorities. A pivotal example of this is the College’s priority of community engagement and experiential learning. Last year, our hilltop college decided to collaborate in a new venture; upperclassmen living off campus in a college leased apartment building. In the fallout of the pandemic, the College was faced with a financial question: how do we enroll more students without having to spend money to renovate the dorms? Meanwhile, the city of New London has been rapidly experiencing gentrification, reflected in revitalization projects, new luxury apartment developments and cultural district funding. Gentrification posed a now or never opportunity for the college, the ability to sign a lease for the next five years, allowing students to live off campus while still paying the college for housing.
Having more Conn students spending time downtown has been long overdue. As reported in the Day on June 4, 2022, the city has been waiting for the college to be more present in the community. Students living downtown expands upon the City’s vision of revitalization: more people participating in the local economy. The possibility is great, but the question is how Conn students are inhabiting the space.
The College’s stated goals of experiential learning, local engagement, equity,inclusion and anti-racism should be reflected in this new living opportunity. We must be intentional about who represents the college living downtown. To achieve this I argue that the Manwaring Building should be implemented as specialty housing through the Holleran Center.
This year, REAL had one goal: renovating and filling the Manwaring building. This meant little to no intentionality around who would live in downtown New London, nor supportive programming around how to be an attentive, ethical, engaged community member and neighbor. The result is 62 students in a cloistered college building right in the middle of downtown. Important to note is this building was formerly the only brick and mortar location of Black-owned and operated organization CulturedAF until they were finally forced to leave after ramped landlord neglect and raises in rent. Histories of urban renewal in New London add to an interventionist and savior reputation of the College, separated from the rest of the city community, antithetical to stated college values of civic engagement, equity and antiracism. The Holleran Center, among other programs such as the Sprout Garden, have strived to bridge this gap between students and the New London community, with success in recent years with programs such as Civic Leaders and collaborative partnerships with the New London Homeless Hospitality Center.
The Holleran Center’s mission is:
to cultivate responsible civic engagement and leadership for social justice through engaged scholarship and reciprocal community collaborations.
Reciprocal community collaborations involve intentional, meaningful connections and partnerships that go both ways, beyond the surface level. Reciprocity and engaged scholarship cannot mean acting from savior assumptions of what the community needs, but rather fostering intentional relationships with community members. Responsible civic engagement and leadership for social justice means collaborating with community members to solve problems, to co-create sustainable systems that tackle challenges within the community by the community, rather than outside entities inserting external band-aid solutions. Having Connecticut College students living downtown but not engaging intentionally within the community is completely antithetical to this mission.
The College website clearly states:
The Manwaring Building project will help the College meet immediate student housing needs prompted by the largest incoming class in Conn’s history; offer a new dimension to student life; provide expanded opportunities for community engagement and academic programming downtown; strengthen Conn’s relationship with its host city; and contribute to the economic revitalization of New London’s historic center.
The goals of the Manwaring include a commitment to community engagement. Without any follow through of actions that uphold, live out or reflect said goal, Manwaring follows the performative pattern of Katherine Bergeron’s presidency. Why state such priorities if intentional programming is not present to reflect them?
One of the priorities of the College’s Institutional Equity and Inclusion Action Plan similarly reflects this lofty promise of engagement around campus life and the student experience. This priority states:
Connecticut College promotes experiential learning to help students develop the necessary skills for life beyond graduation. Through experiential learning, students can build solid foundations in identity development, cultural competence, and social justice awareness—foundations that will, ultimately, prepare them for their lives as leaders within their professions and as responsible members of their various communities. This plan prioritizes the enhancement of campus life and the student experience to maximize learning and improve the climate.
These words must be followed by action. Students and New London residents alike deserve more than empty promises and some woke performance of values. Making something a priority means that it is important to the community and requires active attention, effort and funding. Manwaring has the opportunity to present actual metrics for tangible steps of how the college can reflect our stated priorities. As it stands however, Manwaring is just a performance — value signaling of community engagement at best.
Experiential learning means learning by doing. Living in downtown New London provides students a tangible landscape for learning cultural competency in real time. Proximity is not enough to develop an intimate understanding of social justice, however. By having no intentionality around which students are granted off campus housing in Manwaring, the College is minimizing the possible learning potential of this experience. Students who are committed to social justice oriented community engagement should be who live off-campus. Students should enter this city dynamic with at least an entry level understanding of social justice issues so they are able to more fully and respectfully live out the College’s stated values of honor and equity.
Civic engagement and leadership for social justice should be doable.
Why not make the Manwaring community engagement speciality housing? We have Earth House on campus where students have to apply through the Office of Sustainability to live there. Let’s create a similar model through the Holleran Center for off campus living. Plant was an attempt at community engagement housing in the past, but this hasn’t been realized since my first year in 2019 – a model highly reliant on student REAL staffers.
Students who work with the Holleran Center either in PICA or as volunteers are more adequately prepared to live in New London. This is not to mention what a great service living downtown would do for these students’ experiential learning. Imagine being able to walk to your community placement, living as neighbors with the folks you are volunteering with, running into them at the grocery store, or learning in real time the struggles of unhoused neighbors. Manwaring provides the perfect stage for a living and learning experience; why aren’t we pushing this to its fullest potential?
The Connecticut College community is a size fit to make this happen. We could be a role model for how to integrate a student population into the local community. There is so much possibility in this new off-campus venture to actually live out our stated values of Honor, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, and local/global engagement. So let’s do it Camels. •
