I would like to take a minute to address the “silencing” of Doug Bennet at yesterday’s forum. When student facilitators tried to maintain the integrity of the forum’s format that was negotiated and agreed upon by student representatives and deans, many members of the audience proceeded to boo and demand that Bennet be able to speak.
First, I would like to point out that there were miscommunications and confusion between students and administrators, as well as within the student organizers as to what the format of the second half of the forum would be. (This is understandable considering that this meeting was put together in literally 24 hours.) President Bennet was under the impression that he and his staff would be allowed 25 minutes to respond to the questions and concerns brought up by those who were able to articulate them during the open mic speak out. I would like to reiterate that the mic was open for 25 minutes to students, faculty, staff, community members, AND administrators. Only students chose to use that time. To allow Bennet and the administration (six people) the same amount of time allotted to the 400 other participants is grossly unbalanced. To bifurcate the forum into a student question, administrator response format places students and adminstrators on uneven ground. The point of this forum was precisely to allow members of the greater Wesleyan community to meet on even ground and articulate individual as well as group concerns. To allow Bennet and his colleagues more time than everyone else to address these concerns allows for them to create the appearance that they are handling these concerns, when, obviously, they are not. It leaves room for them to put off further discussions and forums, because they can claim they’ve already addressed our concerns.
This forum was not the beginning of any student movement. The concerns explicitly articulated, as well as the many that were unable to be articulated due to time and space constraints, represent struggles that have been going on for days, weeks, months, years, and even decades on this campus. Nor was it a culmination of a struggle; we’ve got their attention, now we have to keep it.
I do not wish to speak for all of my peers, but I know that I did not go into that meeting expecting solutions or results. This was a space for continuing and encouraging discourse, a space to give a voice to those who have been silenced. President Bennet will have ample time to address the concerns brought up at the forum at length. He has the resources and the power for his voice to be heard over and over again. Yesterday’s forum was not a space for him to monopolize.
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