Last spring, in the wake of Charles Murray’s visit to campus, Provost Susan Baldridge convened a group of faculty, staff and students to form an independent committee dedicated to the task of considering the issues of speech and community on campus. Since then, we, the members of what came to be called the Committee on Speech and Inclusion, have been wrestling with some of the most challenging questions that face this campus (and others) today. And while we are as yet no closer to figuring out how our campus and community can or should move forward, we have discovered that the very act of discussion can lend clarity and depth to topics, ideas and viewpoints which, left unexamined or unchallenged, can lead to misunderstandings, hardening of positions or unconscious bias.
These discussions haven’t been easy, even for a cohort of faculty, staff and students who have volunteered to engage in this practice. But with the benefits of such difficult conversations in mind, we feel it is essential to provide an opportunity or opportunities for all members of the community to come together and engage with the critical questions that affect us all, questions that strike at the very core of who we are as a residential liberal arts college. We would like at this juncture to engage actively with the community as we continue our efforts to sort through the issues and produce concrete recommendations.
To this end, we are excited to announce that on November 15, we will be hosting a pair of events — a breakfast and dinner sponsored by Atwater Dining — that we hope will provide a helpful first step in prompting meaningful dialogue on topics that have proven difficult to engage with on our campus. We welcome everyone’s participation and we will try to create a space for people to engage in whichever ways they feel most comfortable.
We don’t expect anyone to discover the answer to any one question; that’s not the point of these gatherings. Let’s get together and start talking. After this dinner we expect to be using many of our meetings to focus on related topics of particular interest, and we plan to advertise the weekly topic and open those conversations to the community. So we will keep you posted on dates and times. For now, please sign up at go/csi for either the dinner or the breakfast — we look forward to seeing you there! The breakfast on November 15 will be held from 8 to 9 a.m. in the McCullough Student Center. The dinner will be held in Atwater dining hall from 5 to 8 p.m.
