One of the things that our college prides themselves in is in shared governance. To quote the website: “Connecticut College students, faculty, staff and administrators are committed to a system of governance in which the perspectives of all groups are considered in the institution’s decision-making process.”
Contrary to popular belief, I do not believe in the illusion of shared governance. More specifically, I do not believe the college exercises shared governance to its full potential. I think it merely uses it as a marketing tool as well as a elusive device to trick students into believing we have more power than we actually do. A quick example is the numerous committees that exist in the college, in which some students are involved. Ben Halvorsen, the 2016 class president, emailed the Class of 2016 to ask for nominations for the commencement speaker: “The 2016 Commencement Speaker Committee has assembled a list of possible commencement speakers for our graduation next year. This is not the definitive list of what candidates we will submit for President Bergeron to choose from, but President Bergeron will take the results into account when she does make her selection[…] This is an opportunity for all of our opinions to be heard and for any last minute nominations to be taken into account.”
While this email is written in a way to make us think we are important and that our opinions matter, who is really making the decision? President Bergeron. Which makes me think why should I even bother to choose and nominate a speaker when the decision does not really fall onto me, or onto the junior class for that matter?
I know that status matters, it comes with social capital and credibility, and there are certain assumptions people make about one’s status or experience. People are less likely to pay attention to you if you are a student than if you were, say the Dean of Faculty. So yes, while we can argue that students are technically a part of certain conversations, it is still a small percentage of the entire student body and does not hold as much influence as faculty or others who hold more power due to their title. Subtlety is what allows the College to fool students into thinking their voice counts and is heard when in reality all decision-making power, all control, still falls under the ever-unstable senior administration.
If we look at the President’s report on staff it mentions the change of senior leadership. From July to December alone we have had four new hires, and a resignation from the Dean of the College (which will now be split into two separate positions). This does not include the fact that it is only President Bergeron’s first year. Senior leadership seems to be playing musical chairs, makes you wonder who will be the next to go? These are all new hires, people who have little or no understanding of the College’s culture and history as well as our values and goals. We know little about these administrators and their goals and how they will be received on this campus. We also do not know how well this new group of people will work together or how effective they will be. This instability from the senior administrations will not bode well as the College is also undergoing a massive General Education reform.
Going back to President Bergeron’s report, I would quickly like to highlight her last priority for the college’s future: “Affirming our institutional commitment to access, equity, and inclusion. An elite college education is inherently expensive. In the next decade we will need to expand our financial resources in order to make a Connecticut College education available to an even broader range of talented students.”
It is important to note two things about this powerful yet vague statement. One, President Bergeron’s biggest focus in affirming the college’s commitment to access is falling solely on admission rates and practices. It is important to note, however that these concerns have been raised for a long time, most notably by the students involved in the Fanning Takeover 1 (1971) and 2 (1986). The Fanning takeovers were two moments in history were student of color organizations mobilized and occupied Fanning; refusing to leave until their demands for a more equitable college environment were promised and met.
Students from the 1971-Fanning takeover demanded and were promised a full-time black admissions officer and 71 black students by the 1971-1972 academic year. 44 years later and we only have 61 (36 men and 25 women) black students today.This amounts to 3.2% of the College’s population, as compared to the national average of 14.1% black students enrolled in undergraduate programs. Clearly, the students’ demands have not been met.
More recently, students have petitioned SGA and the administration to address and solve campus problems, but have unfortunately been ignored. In 2014 when the administration announced that Knowlton Dining Hall would be closed and replaced with a computer lab during the renovation of the Shain Library, the residents and supporters of Knowlton were quick to respond. More than half of Knowlton residents emailed SGA (and the house senator at the time Ramzi Kaiss’17) to petition this change. A resolution was passed and further discussions were undertaken with the administration about where to put this computer lab.
Unfortunately, as with most bureaucratic processes, no student who raised this issue to SGA was contacted to be included in any potential discussions or informed of any further updates as to what was going to happen (nor were we informed by the administration that Knowlton Dining was going to close to begin with), but found out that although a resolution had passed to keep the Knowlton Dining Hall, there was to be no consideration of moving the computer lab elsewhere. This was a rare instance where members of a community on campus actually came together, petitioned and voiced their reasonable concerns on a campus policy and issue, but were not taken into consideration when the decision was made.
The second point I would like to raise is President Bergeron’s belief in rethinking education programs to foster an inclusive community. This is important. If at one point you thought “I wish I could do this…or I wish I could say that… or I wish things were like this” but then felt discouraged because (a) you felt unqualified to say or do anything, (b) felt like your opinion didn’t matter, (c) were frustrated by the bureaucratic chain of command one has to often deal with to address a problem (d) have tried but then were told by someone “that’s the way it is” or “there’s nothing we can do about it.” I have felt this way too. It is not only discouraging but internalizes this belief that students are meant to be passive and are not allowed to have control over some aspect of campus life they want to fix. I’m here to say you should, and you can. Solidarity is key. Mobilize and communicate in numbers. The administration might not necessarily make the changes we want, but we as a student body owe it to ourselves to try. •
