c/o Sulan Bailey
On Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022, President Michael Roth ’78 announced the departure of former Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Alison Williams ’81 from the University in an all-campus email titled “Campus Update.” Sound familiar?
This is the first line of an article I wrote a year ago after students were informed that Williams would no longer serve as VP for Equity and Inclusion, without a shadow of an explanation for the sudden change.
I remember the moment I received the announcement like it was yesterday. I reread the email three or four times before taking a screenshot, which I sent to my best friend with the caption, “What is going on here?” Once the confusion passed, the emotion that dominated my thoughts and feelings for the following month until my original article was published was anger.
My anger was only exacerbated by the seemingly apathetic response from the University’s administration. They had a line prepared before I even got the chance to reach out for comment; Williams’ responsibilities would be taken on by other members of the Office for Equity & Inclusion in an effort to minimize any impact of her leaving on students, faculty, and staff. Of course, no administrator could comment on so-called personnel matters. This felt hypocritical to me.
“It is with mixed emotions that I write to inform you that Alison Williams will no longer be serving as Vice President for Equity and Inclusion,” Roth started his announcement.
What are “mixed emotions” if not a comment on the nature of Williams’ departure? In any case, Roth, and every other administrator I contacted, declined to elaborate on the mixed emotions in question or the circumstances surrounding her departure.
As I embarked on my month-long journalistic exploration into Williams’ departure (and its larger implications across campus), I found myself increasingly frustrated at the blocks between my reporting and the information I wanted to access. I didn’t necessarily expect everyone to immediately spill the tea on a major personnel change at the highest level of administration, but I discovered very little about what actually caused Williams’ departure from the University.
What frustrated me the most was that none of the administrators seemed to have a clue why it all bothered me so much. Her responsibilities would be covered, her role would be filled in due time, what was all the fuss then?
I felt like I had to consistently remind myself that I had every right to be upset that the only vice president of the University who is a Black woman like me was removed from office so swiftly and without any sort of elaboration as to why. I was allowed to be angry and frustrated that, over the single year I had been here, several of the administrators and staff members that had made the most impact on myself and my peers, especially those who are also students of color or first generation/low-income students, had left the University, without an explanation. This wasn’t a sentiment echoed by most of the administration I spoke to. Even Williams told me, during my interview with her, that Wesleyan students had the most privilege, collective power, and access to information of the students at all universities where she had worked.
All the time that I was working on my article, in the face of the administration’s apparent apathy for the impact of Williams’ departure, I couldn’t shake a very distinct memory I had of Williams from my first semester on campus. One night early in my freshman year, for reasons I have still yet to surmise, there were fireworks on Foss Hill. My friends and I ran out from our dorms to witness the spectacle, all the while speculating what the fireworks were meant to celebrate.
Williams was also watching fireworks out on Andrus Field, and approached our excitable little group of first-years, striking up a conversation on how our semester was going. As we told her both what we were enjoying and detesting about our classes, extracurricular activities, and dorm experiences, she seemed to actually be listening. And when we were done, she invited us to visit her in North College anytime we had any suggestions about how the University could be a better, more inclusive place for us and everyone else. I never got the chance to take her up on that offer before she left that office.
I cannot remember having a conversation with any other top administrator that made me feel seen, not just as a student and an employee of the University, but as a person. Seeing Williams leave our school’s administration without any justification made me feel like I might not ever have that experience again. At the time I was reporting on her departure, that was the feeling at the root of my anger and frustration that I wasn’t able to articulate until now.
A year has passed since Williams left the University under circumstances that have yet to be shared with the student body, and I’ve worked through a lot of the emotions that I faced in the days and weeks after President Roth’s announcement. Communication from the administration on the progress of the hiring process to fill the Vice President of Equity and Inclusion role have become fewer and farther between. The administration originally intended to find a replacement for Alison Williams during the Spring 2023 semester, but the timeline’s been extended. In the absence of an official leader of the Office of Equity and Inclusion, life has moved on.
Most students who were outraged by the announcement and lack of context last year, myself included, are now too worn down to be more than mildly exasperated. The administration has managed to run out the clock on our indignation, and now they can quietly decline to take immediate action on the situation because it isn’t being actively demanded of them anymore. But this isn’t enough for me.
As difficult as it may be to reignite passions about a topic that’s grown stale due to a prohibitive lack of information, it is necessary to keep pushing for more from our school’s leaders. It’s more important now than ever to use whatever platforms we have available to us to demand that our needs as students be listened to. For some, that platform is the Wesleyan Student Assembly; others work with the Resource Center to innovate new programming to create safe and welcoming spaces for all members of our school community. For me, that platform is The Argus. As long as I am a student at this university, I will never stop demanding accountability from our leaders, advocating for my own needs and those of my peers, and trying to create a better University than the one I inherited.
Sulan Bailey is a member of the class of 2025 and can be reached at sbailey@wesleyan.edu.