BREAKING: Faculty Release Letter of Protest Against Blue Camel Changes

On Mar. 9, 2026, The College Voice received a letter from a member of the Connecticut College faculty articulating collective disagreement with the administration’s decision to not renew Lorelai Frantz’s contract with the Blue Camel Cafe. This letter garnered 84 signatures of support from faculty and has been sent by the faculty member to President Andrea Chapdelaine. The letter is attached below. For more information on this situation, please read The College Voice’s article on this situation. 

March 9, 2026  

Dear President Andrea Chapdelaine and Trustees of the College,  

We, the undersigned eighty-four faculty members, write to express our disagreement with the administration’s decision not to renew Lorelei Frantz’s contract with the Blue Camel Cafe. We also oppose the vision offered by Dean Victor Arcelus to alter the cafe from its current state into something different that neither the students nor the faculty want.  

These are our reasons for objecting to the plans to terminate Lorelei’s employment and change  the Blue Camel:  

• the disregard for staff and contract employees at the College that Lorelei’s individual case represents;  
• the disrespect that Dean Arcelus in particular has shown the campus community by devising his “living lab” concept and attempting to foist it on the rest of us;  
• the mistreatment of Lorelei Frantz and the harms to her and her family that will likely follow;  
• the expectation that a rotating cast of students, whose first priority should be their education, will manage a complex operation;  
• the disruption of a unique and special campus space, truly the only one where students, staff, and faculty can meet on a non-hierarchical basis (as opposed to faculty offices and other spaces in academic buildings).  

The College’s claims to support staff and contract employees are deeply undermined by the treatment of Lorelei, whose case exemplifies an increasingly disrespectful attitude towards staff.  Indeed, despite attempts to cast this decision as one in which negotiations over a new contract  broke down, it has become clear to us that the College has never even spoken to Lorelei about a  next contract.  

Instead, Lorelei deserves our gratitude for the work she has done. For twenty-two years, she has created and maintained a social space on campus unlike any other. She has mentored students how to run a small business for decades. Why would we discount her years of experience and insight and replace them with a so-called “living lab”?  

Besides the harms that Dean Arcelus’s plan will do to the quality of campus life, we ask that you also seriously weigh the harms that her termination will do to her and her family. The College Voice reported the following on February 25, 2026: 

The resolution is set to have a major effect on Frantz’s livelihood. “I will no longer have a business. I am the sole supporter of my family,” revealed Frantz. “My husband is 68 and an amputee. He is unable to work. I have had custody of my 14 year old grandson  since he was 3. I have a mortgage…I am going to have to find a job. This will not be an easy time for us.” Still, Frantz will not attempt to open a coffee shop elsewhere. “I thought about it but decided I don’t want to start over,” Frantz confessed.  

We have heard the explanations and read the FAQs, and we don’t accept the explanations we’ve been given.  

If Lorelei’s contract is not renewed and if the Blue Camel is changed into some form we no longer recognize, we commit ourselves to the following:  

1. We won’t patronize the new space without Lorelei.  
2. We will reach out to staff in a spirit of solidarity and encourage them to do the same.  And if the students decide to do likewise, we would welcome their pro-staff solidarity.  

With applications to the College expected to decrease for demographic and other reasons, now is not the time to make campus life worse and to stir public resentment from students, staff, and faculty.  

The best course of action is simply to renew her contract. There is neither student buy-in nor faculty buy-in for Dean Arcelus’s “living lab” concept or for terminating Lorelei’s contract.  Please join us in preserving a beloved institution. There are so few spaces for community and comity on campus that we don’t understand why anyone would want to destroy everyone’s favorite.

Dean Accardi

Joseph Alchermes

Anonymous

Anonymous

Anonymous

Anonymous

Nadav Assor

Geoffrey Atherton

James Austin

Chris Barnard

Catherine Benoît

Rachel Boggia

Tristan Borer

Blanche McCrary Boyd

Leslie Brown

Ana Lilia Campos-Manzo

David Chavanne

Sheetal Chhabria

Kendell Coker

Ann Sloan Devlin

Madison Donnelly

Lara Ehrlich

Denis Ferhatovic

Julia Flagg

Marc Forster

Leo Garofalo

Rae Gaubinger

Robert Gay

Luis Gonzalez

Andrew Greenwald

Karen Buenavista Hanna

Cherise Harris

Charles Hartman

Heidi Henderson

Aida Heredia

Kris Hernandez

Shawn Hove

Candace Howes

Yibing Huang

Mays Imad

Petko Ivanov

Afshan Jafar

Hisae Kobayashi

Jessica Koehler

Priya Kohli

Jacob Levi

Rashelle Litchmore

Laura Little

Karolin Machtans

Nina K. Martin

Daniel Moak

Purba Mukerji

Michelle Neely

Metika Ngbokoli

Jason Nier

Augustine O’Keefe

Marie Ostby

Matteo Pace

Denise Pelletier

Don Peppard Jr.

Bridget Pupillo

Sarah Queen

Julie Rivkin

Jennifer Rudolph

Kate Rushin

Caroleen Sayej

Joseph Schroeder

Chris Steiner

Mark Stelzner

Catherine Stock

Jeff Strabone

Perry Susskind

Mara Suttmann-Lea

Matt Swagler

Ayako Takamori

William Tarimo

Midge Thomas

Shakita Thomas Kpetay

Anna Vallye

Lawrence Vogel

Amanda Russhell Wallace

Lina Perkins Wilder

Dale Wilson

Andrea Wollensak