Connecticut College Sees Yet Another Voyeurism Incident

On August 29, at 11:14 PM, Mary Savage’s email titled “Campus Safety Bulletin- KB Incident” arrived in inboxes informing people of the most recently known incident of voyeurism on Connecticut College’s campus, which occurred earlier that day at approximately 8:30 PM. This first communication to the campus did not include the term “voyeurism,” but it explained that “a student was taking a shower in the basement of KB and observed an individual taking photos of them with a phone over the shower stall.” Interested students will find that the vast majority of communication from the upper administration regarding these incidents will always avoid using the term “voyeurism” (the single outlier is the recent email from deans Victor Arcelus and Nakia Hamlett).

This incident comes after the arrest of two students convicted of voyeurism in 2019 and 2020 and an alleged incident of voyeurism in 2021. Despite searching for more information, it was not possible to find additional, concluding information communicated to the campus regarding the incident in 2021.

Voyeurism is an issue that is clearly plaguing Conn’s campus as it is other college campuses around the country. Though it may be reassuring to some to find that two of the culprits, Carlos Antonio Alberti in 2019 and Nicholas Spellman in 2020, were arrested, it is equally upsetting that voyeurism continues to take place on Conn’s campus and that the 2021 incident has been seemingly disregarded by the administration without closure for the impacted students (including not just the victims of the incident but those that were emotionally and psychologically impacted by the news and perhaps previous experiences). 

In an article published by The College Voice in 2021, Jackie Chalghin ‘22 outlined the announced measures to be taken by the college and their perspective regarding the implementation of those measures during their time at Conn. 

In 2019, then President Katherine Bergeron claimed the school would work to install cameras at the entrances/exits of residence halls, create a Conn College app to make critical phone numbers more easily accessible, prepare a year-end report regarding sexual misconduct complaints, place additional blue lights in the River Ridges/Winchesters, administer a survey to gather data regarding experiences of sexual misconduct, and create a working group of students, faculty, and staff to assess the college’s policies, procedures, and communication strategies. Two years after the incident, Chalghin reports that the students “rightfully rallied against the cameras, as they add a discomfiting layer of surveillance” (students serving on the Student Government Association at the time recall lengthy discussions with the administration arguing against the installation of cameras, the administration ultimately decided to go ahead with the camera project despite student pushback), the Rave Guardian app is a retroactive solution to a problem necessitating proaction, the sexual misconduct reports now available on CamelWeb are retroactive and difficult to find, the vast majority of blue lights do not work, the last time they had personally received a survey was pre-COVID, and “working groups only work if [the] administration heeds their suggestions.”

In other words, the school made promises to mostly retroactively address voyeurism, which were not properly fulfilled, included actions that were against the wishes of the student body, and proved unhelpful in truly preventing the problem. 

There is no mention of an email from Bergeron following the 2020 incident, but there was one sent in November of 2021 following the poorly communicated incident that occurred earlier that month. In the email, she promised that “locks will be installed in single stall bathrooms that are not currently lockable, upper windows in Larrabee bathrooms will be frosted, any remaining gaps in stalls will be filled, architectural studies will be conducted to identify other future solutions, [and] new mounted signage will include the 24/7 On-Call Line for the confidential Sexual Violence and Prevention Advocate.” These are the immediate steps listed but Bergeron went on to commit the college to a slew of additional actions that have been – unsurprisingly – entirely unfelt by the student body including increased funding for the Office of Sexual Violence Prevention and Advocacy, expanded educational programming regarding sexual violence and its prevention, an updated Equity and Inclusion Action Plan related to ending sexual violence, an appointed committee who will update the plan, and expansion of SVPA-focused staff. 

Bergeron ends this email by reminding the campus that “of course, all of us are responsible for creating the culture we seek,” deflecting the majority of the responsibility from the shoulders of the administration and making it sound perfectly reasonable that all parties on campus – the students, faculty, staff, and administration – should and can share this burden equally.
Neither in this email from Bergeron nor the prior email alerting the campus to the event sent by Mary Savage, the Director of Campus Safety and Emergency Operations, and the then Associate Dean for Equity and Compliance Programs/Title IX Coordinator Ebony Manning mentioned the word “voyeurism,” though Savage’s email once again described “that an individual was photographed without consent while showering in Katherine Blunt House.”

The only email from the administration that used the term “voyeurism” was signed by Victor Arcelus, dean of students, and Nakia Hamlett, interim dean of institutional equity and inclusion. Though little details are known regarding the recent voyeurism incident on campus as it remains an ongoing police investigation, this email included much more pertinent information than any previous locatable email regarding voyeurism on campus. 

Most notably, the deans informed the student body of immediate actions taken the night of the incident when on-call staff met with the students who reported it and Dean Arcelus met with the student accused of voyeurism. Geoff Norbert (associate dean for Campus Life), Eric Barnes (director of Residential Life), Taylor Chafey (assistant director for Residential Life), Nicole Powell (director of Sexual Violence Prevention and Advocacy) met with the residents on the impacted floor of KB the next day. Similar to the bathrooms of Lazrus, a lock was added to the exterior door of the bathrooms on the floor to transform them into single-occupancy spaces. 

Though the plan has been met with less-than-positive reactions from many students, deans Arcelus and Hamlett also provided a moderately detailed outline of the bathroom renovation plans for the campus. In response to one criticism that the bathroom renovations should not take so long, they informed the campus that “this project is far more complex than simply replacing the existing partitions with floor-to-ceiling partitions,” in fact, “the ventilation system, fire suppression system, and lighting needs to be redesigned” so that each stall can have its own ventilation, sprinkler, and lighting. As students are certainly aware, such extensive construction for buildings as old as many of the dorms on campus is difficult, costly, and time-consuming. The deans added that all bathrooms that have not been recently renovated are being fully renovated including work beyond the not-so-simple addition of privacy partitions. All bathrooms of standard campus residence halls are set to be completed by Summer 2025. 

Though this addresses a number of the questions raised by students, valid criticisms still remain: why did the College wait to begin these renovations until 2021 when 2019 and 2020 saw major incidents of voyeurism? Why were there no plans for construction during Summer 2022? Why are there no further plans for construction during winter breaks besides 2022 and 2023?

The renovation of the bathrooms is one step taken that will – once complete – likely be effective in proactively preventing future voyeurism on campus. More steps are certainly possible and the school has proven that it will listen when students effectively wield the tools of shared governance and strong voices. As Interim President Wong said, “if I make a mistake, because I didn’t listen, you have to call me out.” If the administration makes mistakes and does not listen to the student body, it is well within the power of the students to call them out. 

Hopefully, once the College knows more, the administration will inform the student body. Until then, students are directed to the following resources for support:

• Campus Advocates: svpa@conncoll.edu or https://bit.ly/ConnCollSVPA
• Student Support Specialists: 860-439-2412
• Student Counseling Services: 860-439-4587
• Connecticut College Chaplains: 860-439-2450
• Student Health Services: 860-439-2275
• Campus Safety: (860) 439-2222
• Sexual Assault Crisis Center of Eastern Connecticut 24-hour hotline, off-campus advocate 860-437-7766
• Safe Futures, off-campus domestic violence or relationship violence advocates, 24-hour hotline 860-701-6000