Our college can’t decide if it has values or not. Last week’s emails from the Board and President Chapdelaine prove it.
On February 24th, the Chair of the Board of Trustees, Seth W. Alvord ’93, and the Chair of the Investment Committee, Jessica Archibald ’95, sent an email to the Connecticut College community. They explained how the Board had “reflected on the geopolitical events facing our country and the world” and “whether the College’s endowment has a place in the national conversation about these events.” Attached was a statement “articulating the guiding investment principles for our stewardship of the endowment,” unanimously approved by the Board on February 22nd.
The statement (which I encourage everyone to read in its entirety) begins by identifying the Board’s “legal responsibility to act in the best interests of the College” and how their actions must advance the College’s mission to “make high-quality liberal arts education available and affordable to a diverse population of future leaders.”
The Board asserts their role is “to create an environment where there is space for critical expression, but without the College as an institution taking a side in the debate.” They invest the endowment “to support the College’s educational mission,” with objectives to “preserve its real purchasing power while mitigating risk and to provide a stable stream of annual revenues.” The statement concludes with their position that “the College’s endowment is not a vehicle for expressing views on world affairs or any particular issue” and their commitment to “insulating the endowment from any political or social debate.”
When I received this email, I was confused why the Board would issue such a statement out of the blue. I know it must have seemed strange and unprompted to anybody else who read the message. As I would come to find out, this was not at all random. It was the culmination of year-long negotiations between the Board and Connecticut College Students in Solidarity With Palestine (CCS4P). In exchange for students not engaging in “disruptive” protests, the Board had promised “continued conversations and transparency” about divestment from military weapons manufacturers. The statement delivered a unanimous “no” to these discussions.
Just one day later, on February 25th, President Chapdelaine announced the creation of a new Division of Retention and Success. In her message, she emphasized her commitment to “further advance our fundamental values of diversity, equity and inclusion.” The new division aims to support “student belonging and cultivation of a healthy campus climate” and to “meaningfully contribute to efforts to retain and invest in the success of faculty and staff.” I’d say most significantly, President Chapdelaine declared that “equity and inclusion efforts will be woven into every aspect of the College experience – including departments, personnel, policies, curriculum and operations” and that “this critical work will touch each department and person at Conn and will hold a central place in institutional decision-making.”
The hypocrisy between these two emails is impossible to ignore. While the Board deliberately shields investments from value-based scrutiny, the President simultaneously declares those very values should be infused in every aspect of campus life. President Chapdelaine envisions values of equity and inclusion integrated into “every aspect” of the college experience, touching “each department and person at Conn” and holding “a central place in institutional decision-making.” Yet, somehow at the very same time, the Board unanimously declares that these same values should not influence one of the institution’s most significant expressions of power and priorities, how it invests the college’s endowment.
I don’t understand how the Board of Trustees can claim their role is “to create an environment where there is space for critical expression, but without the College as an institution taking a side in the debate,” while the college clearly takes a side on diversity, equity, and inclusion, one of the most politically charged issues under the current administration.
Connecticut College markets itself to prospective students and their families as a progressive institution that cares about equity, inclusion, social justice, the environment, and shared governance, “in which the perspectives of all groups”, students, faculty, staff, and administration, are supposed to be “considered in the institution’s decision-making process.” However, when push comes to shove, we are told that profiting from the manufacture of weapons being used to commit genocide abroad and gun violence at home is somehow apolitical. How can that be? It can’t.
It’s time for Conn and the Board of Trustees to put their money where their mouth is and align actions with principles. If you attract students with commitments to sustainability, equity, inclusion, and social justice, do us the decency to honor those promises. The Board’s investments should not contradict what the college stands for. As members of this community, we deserve transparency and consistency in how our institution operates at all levels, from curriculum to endowment.
The Board of Trustees claims that actions “taken by the Board must directly relate to the preservation and advancement of the College’s educational mission to continue to make high-quality liberal arts education available and affordable to a diverse population of future leaders.” Yet this high-quality liberal arts education has taught us to identify precisely these kinds of contradictions. Meanwhile, Connecticut College’s comprehensive fee of $85,800 ranks us among the most expensive colleges in the United States, making their claim of “affordability” not just misleading, but laughable.
Yes, Conn offers financial aid to some students like myself, but even with aid, many still graduate with substantial debt. Being financially exclusive doesn’t make us better, it simply ensures that our “diverse population of future leaders” remains far less diverse than our marketing materials suggest.
It’s up to the student body to hold the Board accountable for their actions, and it’s up to the faculty, staff, and administration to support students in championing institutional integrity. The Board claims a “legal responsibility to act in the best interests of the College, both today and for generations to come.” But a college is nothing without its students. When the Board refuses to apply the same values it promotes in classrooms to its investment practices, when it shields its financial decisions from ethical scrutiny while preaching critical thinking, when it charges $85,800 while speaking of affordability, it fails in its responsibility to us. If the Board of Trustees of Connecticut College truly believes in equity, inclusion, sustainability, social justice, and peace, as it advertises, these values must guide not just what the college says, but what it does with every dollar it spends and invests. Conn, it’s time to practice what you preach.
