Rhetoric holds immense power during times of turmoil. Following Dean of Institutional Equity and Inclusion Rodmon King’s resignation on Monday, Feb. 6, students’ email inboxes have been flooded with messages from Katherine Bergeron, the Board of Trustees (BOT), and academic departments. King resigned after Bergeron ignored his advice not to host a fundraising event at a social club in Florida with a history of racism and antisemitism. While that was the exigence for his resignation, King has made it clear that he resigned to protest against the “toxic administrative culture” that exists at Conn. In her three emails, Bergeron purposefully used rhetoric to avoid accountability for cultivating this environment.
Bergeron’s first email came out on Feb. 7 at 7:25 p.m. She claims, “I was saddened and shocked to hear this news [of Dean King’s immediate resignation].” In expressing these emotions, Bergeron establishes herself as a passive reactor to the situation rather than the active participant that she was. How could she be “shocked” to receive the news when countless staff members and administrators have attested to the “toxic” work environment she has fostered throughout her presidency? Bergeron goes on to call King a “valued colleague and thoughtful contributor.” This directly contrasts King’s letter to the Debo Adegbile ’91 and Karen Quint ’87 (the Chair and Vice Chair of the BOT), in which he notes the “culture of fear and intimidation” that made him and his colleagues afraid to speak up and “trigger Katherine’s anger.” Bergeron then defends the College’s commitment to DEI. She concludes by offering resources for those who need help “processing this news,” including a whopping total of four open office hours with Bergeron herself. This first email completely fails to mention any reason behind King’s sudden resignation and does not even come close to an apology or evidence of self accountability.
After an uproar of anger from students and faculty, Bergeron sent out a second email on Wednesday, Feb. 8 at 1:07 p.m. She recognizes that the news has caused “shock, anger, and grief” and writes, “I want to express again my sorrow at his sudden departure.” Again, Bergeron paints herself as oblivious to the fact that she was the main reason why King resigned. King sent his letter of resignation directly to Bergeron, so she has no reason to be unaware. Bergeron states, “Full participation is a core value at Conn, which is why I regret our decision to schedule an event at a location whose history and reputation suggest otherwise.” Note the shift from “I” to “our.” Who actually made the decision? The general “our” is misleading and attempts to shift the blame away from Bergeron. “We made that decision believing that our values were clear. But the decision to proceed came across differently, and we recognize now that we were wrong,” she continues. Again, who is included in the “we”? The email is only signed by Bergeron.
Evidently, Bergeron asked King and his colleagues to contribute to the College’s statement in defense of the choice of the Everglades Club in preparation for public criticism. She prioritized money over the humanity of Black and Jewish people, hoping a mere statement would cancel out the immorality of her decision. When she writes that “the decision to proceed [with the event]” (not “my decision”) “came across differently,” she once again uses passive language and implies that there was nothing inherently wrong with her choice; it was the reaction that was unwarranted. Why does Bergeron only recognize now that she and the unknown people included in the “we” were wrong? King warned her to cancel the event as soon as he was aware of it. Was his expertise as Dean of Institutional Equity and Inclusion not valued? Bergeron comes closest to an actual apology when she writes, “I want to apologize to all who saw our plans as contrary to Conn’s values or to the inclusive institution we aspire to be.” Wanting to apologize is not the same as apologizing. The phrase “all who saw” places the blame on the Conn. community for interpreting her decision as discriminatory rather than her taking ownership of her mistake. Whether intentional or not, “the inclusive institution we aspire to be” suggests that we are not currently an inclusive institution. This is arguably true.
The President’s formulated narrative persisted on Feb. 16 at 5 p.m. when Bergeron sent an email to all Conn parents/guardians. She once again refers to King’s “sudden departure” as if she was completely uninvolved and unaware. Bergeron states, “[T]he resignation was, in part, a protest of a scheduled fundraising event at a club in Florida that has been associated with discriminatory policies and practices. The resignation also raised questions about the College’s commitment to equity, inclusion, and full participation, and about my leadership.” By writing “the resignation” and not “King’s/his resignation,” Bergeron is unclear and depersonalizes the situation. She passively refers to “a scheduled fundraising event” without owning up to the fact that she was the one who scheduled it. Finally, Bergeron acknowledges the issue of her leadership, but she does it in a defensive way, immediately moving on and saying she canceled the event. Ironically, she cites her past emails as evidence of her “leadership.”
Then, Bergeron spins the situation and focuses on the recent student activism. She claims that she shares our commitment to make Conn “a place where all people thrive and experience a sense of belonging.” Her actions say otherwise. “As your students work through the issues in their own ways, I wanted to write to you today to let you know that the wellbeing of your student is our highest priority,” Bergeron writes. This statement blames the students for seeing issues and does not acknowledge Bergeron/administration’s role. Bergeron once again lists the resources available for students to deal with the vague “issues” to which she refers.
She finishes the email, “One of the hallmarks of a liberal arts education is the ability to grapple with complexity in the pursuit of knowledge, truth, and justice.” If we did not have prior reason to believe that Bergeron prioritizes finance and the College’s appearance at the expense of people’s humanity, this sentence is proof. Everything always comes down to our college slogans. Was Bergeron’s racist and antisemitic decision a mere “complexity” that we must “grapple with” in order to “put the liberal arts into action”? •
Glad the event was cancelled. Great life lesson for students.
Since 59% of student receive some type of financial aid, fundraising is a necessity. Thank you Pres. Bergeron for being responsive. Back to learning.
Fundraising is optional. Ideology is mandatory.
Fifty-nine percent of Conn students receive need-based aid. Therefore, if Bergeron had been able to attend the fundraiser, the money collected would have been used to provide financial aid to low and middle class Conn Coll students, thereby increasing economic and racial diversity at the college.
In other words, she was literally trying to take money from rich people and reuse that money to help low income people and people of color. For that, she is now being called a racist.
But isn’t taking money from historically privileged places and using it to help disadvantaged people actually the opposite of racism? Isn’t that what the modern day anti-racist movement should *actually* be about?
This is cancel culture at it’s worst. The protesters’ hearts are in the right place, but they are misguided. By creating unnecessary obstacles to fundraising, their actions are effectively hurting people of color. If they want to fight for social justice, there are better actions they could be taking.
You would think the money would go towards financial aid, as that would actually be prioritizing the students, but that’s not the case. One of the problems we are trying to address with this movement (by demanding her resignation) is the lack of financial aid despite the roughly 350 million dollars in donations the school has acquired. Even my own need-based aid has been significantly decreasing despite no financial changes in my household. A disproportionate amount of money has been put towards beautification of the tour-visible parts of the school. They have planned a huge reconstruction of Cro and the space between the plex and cro, as well as removing green space outside of Hillel House to make up for the parking that will be lost on central campus. As for parts of tours that are not visible, our dorms, bathrooms, and living spaces are practically falling apart, and our common rooms have been taken away to create huge dorm rooms for the over-acceptance of students in the past two years. We have voiced our opinions on the unfair prioritization of financial distribution but have been ignored, as always. The students have been asking for years to prioritize current students in financial decisions, but every choice is made to uphold the facade for prospective (white & rich) students. We need to fund DIEI so that the school is actually welcoming to BIPOC students. We need to make the buildings accessible because currently, the only dorm buildings that someone who is physically disabled can live in are the plex dorms, and countless academic buildings are not physically accessible either- that’s something that should have been done years ago, but has been ignored. And yes, we need to actually put more money towards financial aid, but KB has put all of these on the back burner for years. While yes, an integral part of a college president’s job is to fundraise, she has not been prioritizing the students in any part of that. Money is put towards her own salary (~$700,000) yet so many faculty are struggling with their barely livable wages and toxic work environment, hence the amount of staff members who have left the college in the past year. I understand your frustration, but the environment at this school is not fit for an equitable learning experience at this time, and the students are fed up with how the school treats marginalized students and faculty.
Except none of SVE’s demands will actually improve the financial obligations for a single student. “More” funding for Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity sinecures (how much more? no answer) will have to come out of students’, faculty’s, and/or staff’s pockets somehow.
I would be happy to take Kathy’s place as President, for the low, low price of just $200k per year plus benefits. In fact, I’ll do it for $150k! What a deal! I can also promise to greatly increase need-based aid for low-and-middle income students, as well as reduce costs. I will enthusiastically cut unnecessary “beautification” projects. However, I don’t think you or SVE (or the faculty, or the Trustees) would agree with a lot of the policies doing so would require.
Even as a middle class 18 year old white man (who started as a freshman in 2000), I often felt uncomfortable at Connecticut College because there were so many people there who came from extreme wealth. I struggled to relate to other students and to the place as a whole. So I can imagine how a person of color who also doesn’t come from wealth could feel even more uncomfortable than I did.
However, the sad truth is that Connecticut College needs rich, white money in order to compete against other elite liberal arts colleges. Because of America’s history, the vast majority of money in this country is controlled by rich white people. The less of their money the school gets, the less it will have to give to lower income students like you and me. There are not alternative places to get money.
If these protests were mainly about how money is spent rather than where it is collected, I would be more sympathetic to the cause. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the main focus of these protests. The protests are mainly against the idea that we took money from a place that 50 years ago engaged in discrimination. That makes their position unreasonable and untenable. If one goes back 50 years, every dollar in this country can be connected to some form of discrimination. Thus, fundraising would be rendered completely impossible if we were to abide by the philosophical underpinnings of the protesters.
I’m open to your ideas of spending money differently. However, I must also remain open to the idea that campus beautification may be one of the best strategies for attracting the children of wealthy, elitist parents.
Rather than calling people racist and creating obstacles to fundraising, I wish the protestors would consider all the other ways our nation could be helping people in need. We could end the War on Drugs, we could build more affordable housing, we could improve public schools, we could offer more vocational training as an alternative to college, we could make it easier for ex-convicts to get jobs, we could teach financial literacy, we could volunteer at local schools. These are things would actually make a difference.
First of all, her salary is not $700,000 a year, just stop. Connecticut College is not different from any other college and students don’t get to decide how to spend fundraising dollars.
I don’t disagree that DIEI should be funded with more full time positions nor do not disagree some of the dorms could use refurbished, but is students being locked inside a building and canceling classes the best way to bring about financial change?
Propublica reports that Conn’s filing dated May 14, 2021 states that KBs compensation was $629,728. (Yes, salary is not the same as compensation. But close enough for argument’s sake). And it’s reasonable to assume the compensation has risen in the ensuing two years. So, probably close enough.
I’m a Conn College alum (2015), and I’m conflicted. I’m not a complete old fart, but I’m starting to feel like it. For some background, after graduation I continued to work at a non profit I joined during college for two additional years. I left feeling burned up and disenchanted due to the performative nature of my colleagues (battle of egos and who was “most”- most committed, most ideologically pure, etc) and the summoning to martyrdom that I couldn’t sustain (aka 20k salary). Call this an elegy of an activist, or perhaps simply an idealist confronted with “real world” out of the incubator pragmatism. I’m currently a social studies teacher, so take that degree of pragmatic inculcation with a grain of salt…(teaching is my attempt at sustainable activism….ahem.)
My head’s been swirling because I remember students’ perception of KB as a campus hero following the campus trial of a Jewish philosophy professor who wrote a truly racist and harmful statement on his publicly accessible FB page regarding “Palestine as a rabid pit bull needed to be kept in a cage; its owner (Israel) occasionally letting it out only to be bitten.” A similar wave of protest ensued, and I remember feeling conflicted. He was in a position of power as an institutionally promoted educator, and such comments only continued dangerous rhetoric about Palestinians. However, another dangerous rhetoric ensued that felt more about winning than furthering understanding. Although there were many conversations held, I did not necessarily feel that dialogue was held. There was an animation that felt… witch-hunty. The professors’ comments aside (which I do not deny are awful), the conversation went to a surface level investigation of the Israel-Palestine conflict to have students pick a side – pro-Palestine or pro-Israel? I felt it was not within my wheelhouse to address this eternal conflict, and I remember antagonism directed to members of Hillel House as personalities and cultures clashed. Granted, this is only a reflection of my own encounters with people discussing this– perhaps better dialogues occured in different circles. I do remember however, individuals claiming a stake to participate, and I remember questioning how thorough their understanding was.
I read an article (oh my, claps for me) on the dwindling of Humanities majors (tRAGIc) and this stood out to me “Some scholars observe that, in classrooms today, the initial gesture of criticism can seem to carry more prestige than the long pursuit of understanding. One literature professor and critic at Harvard—not old or white or male—noticed that it had become more publicly rewarding for students to critique something as “problematic” than to grapple with what the problems might be; they seemed to have found that merely naming concerns had more value, in today’s cultural marketplace, than curiosity about what underlay them. This clay-pigeon approach to inquiry struck her as a devaluation of all that criticism—and art—can do.” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/03/06/the-end-of-the-english-major/amp
I guess my purpose in writing this is not to dismiss the students’ concerns but to question where and how their activism will go and what is the actual goal? I challenge them to understand moments of humility in the attacked, understand that erasure may not heal, and question what activism truly is about. Is a situation as clear as the good vs the bad? Are movements based on the grand actions of individuals, or on the sustained, deliberate actions of the many in many different shapes and forms? What does an activist actually do? What are the different shapes activism can take? Does present day culture promote a single “acceptable” form of activism? Why or why not? It is far easier to critique than to be correct, and to assume that there is a “correct” way to approach such a nefarious problem may be the quickest way to kill your aspirations. (Side note: let’s look at partisanship and how compromise has become a dirty word for most activists.)
I do not have the answers, and I’m not pretending I do. I am smiling and cringing at the same time while following this. Smiling that kids care enough to disrupt, cringing as I recall the same ardor with which I pranced around. My last thought: the older I get, the more I realize how much I truly don’t know or fully understand.