Holding a plate piled high with ceviche and rice, President Doug Bennet held an hour-and-a-half long conversation with students in La Casa on Monday night. The discussion was intended to focus on how issues such as the presidential search and program houses specifically affect the University’s student of color community. Bennet also ruminated on the recent graffiti incident in Clark, the student takeover of his office in 2004, and the chalking ban.
As varied as the topics of discussion may have been, various students were left wanting more.
“It was cool that he came down here,” said Luz Burgos ’09, house manager of La Casa. “But sometimes I was wondering where to find the answers in all his talking. I was skimming through them trying to find the answer that actually [addressed] our questions.”
Bennet initiated the discussion by emphasizing his preference for having question-and-answer sessions take place in student housing.
“I stopped the round table events because people just weren’t coming,” he said. “The house visits are much more productive. [But] I’ve never had this beautiful food as a distraction before!”
Several students had attended the event with specific concerns in mind. Micaela Gutierrez ’07 asked for Bennet’s thoughts on creating a non-Student-Budgetary-Committee-backed source of funding for student of color organizations.
“I wasn’t expecting that much out of [the discussion],” Gutierrez said “I came here with specific questions about Para La Familia, basically. I felt like I was waiting for a direct answer that never came.”
Melgily Valez ’09 broached the topic of faculty diversity and turnover rate among professors, causing Bennett to riff on the tagline “diversity university.”
“I never liked it,” he said. “It’s presumptuous. Whatever it means, you can’t deliver on it. It wasn’t thought up here at Wesleyan.”
Bennet went on to explain that 70 percent of the faculty is tenured, but that a diverse pool of applicants is always examined for visiting professors. Bennet personally approves every applicant pool of potential faculty, a practice he would like to see the next president continue.
“I’d like to impress that on my successor,” he said. “You should have a presidential hold on the hiring process.”
Bennet also fielded questions about the state of the presidential search. He stated that the search committee was about to begin selecting the final list of candidates.
“The presidential search isn’t a total change,” he said. “The board stays the same and the senior staff stays the same.”
Wes Moss ’09 asked how the incoming president and administration would stay in touch with the student body, citing a lack of support for students who might struggle with academics and study skills.
“I hope the system supports people, but it’s not going to catch everyone,” Bennet said.
He credited the reorganization of the Office of the Dean, as well as Dean for Diversity Daniel Teraguchi, for facilitating the relationship between students of color and the president.
Bennet also cited the administration’s reaction to the Clark Hall graffiti incident as an example of effectively discussing latent prejudices on campus.
“We were able to get together very quickly and have what I thought was a very productive meeting with the students,” Bennet said. “It’s easy to point the finger at the outside world and say that it’s ridden with prejudices and that Wesleyan will inevitably reflect a part of that, but I don’t buy that excuse.”
He also said that in response to the Clark incident, there was a possibility of instituting an FYI on diversity and racial sensitivity, in order to create more productive dialogue on these issues.
Bennet mentioned the student takeover of his office in 2004 as an example of unproductive dialogue.
“The takeover of the office was shocking to me and I think it was not legitimate,” he said. “I don’t think you can make progress by force, and that is what was going on there. There’s a way to avoid these kinds of confrontations and think of more constructive ways.”
Valdez, a resident of Womanist House, asked how the University is making progress regarding the concern that program houses such as La Casa were too geographically isolated from the center of campus.
“The student of color community is a very tight-knit community,” she said. “But it can be very detached. We’ve tried to do events to invite people in but it doesn’t always work. Sometimes I wonder if it’s because of the distance off campus.”
Bennet recounted several recent policies the University has undertaken to address such concerns, mentioning the integration of several program houses into the dorms, as well as selling the In-Town residences.
“Wesleyan bought many more houses than it needed in defense against Middletown, which was an awful measure,” he said. “We’re selling houses back now to Middletown residents and faculty.”
Several students remained dissatisfied with the discussion especially when the topic moved to chalking, which some held to be an important form of expression for queer and student of color groups on campus. When Gutierrez asked whether there was any chance of chalking coming back, Bennet replied, “zero.”
“I don’t buy the argument that any one particular part of the campus was particularly entitled to use chalking as a form of expression,” he said. “There are bigger issues on campus [than chalking].”
“There are always bigger issues on campus,” Burgos said after the discussion had wrapped up. “It doesn’t make sense to allow a small minority, something that was probably only like five people, to ruin it for the rest of the community.”
Regarding the future of the University and fostering a more tightly knit community, Bennet appeared optimistic.
“I’ve given up hope that I can perfect this community,” he said. “What I hope is that at this point it’ll just get better.”
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