We all agree about the importance of diversity at Wesleyan. Or, at least we all say we care about diversity.
The Catholic Chaplain is resigning at the end of the term, leading to a kind of “review” of the position. In February, after delaying discussion for four months, the deans spoke with the Catholic community with the goal of creating a new job description. They met with some students to discuss how to improve the Catholic Chaplaincy. They also asked for input from faculty members, promising that the decision will be made through a collegial process. Everyone was excited by North College’s desire to address the Catholic community’s concerns.
In March, however, a new job description was posted which cut the position to twenty hours. The students were surprised and immediately expressed their concerns. A half-time position would not adequately accommodate Catholic faith on campus. Priding itself in diversity, the University has traditionally employed three full-time religious chaplains. However, Wesleyan now lags behind its peer institutions in this regard, with the freshman class including just 9.9 percent Catholics, while our peer institutions brought in 21.6 percent. Anyone who has been to a Catholic service at Wesleyan knows of the diverse background of the community’s members. Some have cited the University’s lack of commitment to faith on campus as a detriment to attracting international students and students of color. Cutting the Catholic Chaplaincy is another step in the wrong direction.
To these objections the administration responded that they “will make sure to hire someone who addresses these concerns.” Some professors were dismayed by the process, which was more autocratic than collegial, as initially promised. The CSO strongly objected to the new job description, but all it got from the deans was a reassurance to “consider these concerns” and a request for student volunteers to join a committee reviewing resumes. The CSO, seeing the need for action, refused to take part in this preemptive review of resumes until their concerns were addressed.
Finally, the deans met with six students and a faculty member. In this meeting, the students were told that although the decision was motivated by budgetary concerns, it was a product of consensus among the parties consulted by the deans. The other attendees vehemently denied this, observing that no one in the room, other than the administration members present, were in favor of cutting the chaplaincy position.
After long debate about why this decision is unacceptable for the Catholic community, the deans offered a “compromise”: An interim Catholic Chaplain would be hired for the 2006-07 academic year while a task force reconsiders these issues. This was less than a “compromise,” considering that this interim position would still only be the half-time position that the deans had earlier decided by fiat.
The CSO rejected this “compromise,” preferring instead to keep the position vacant while the task force is at work, and coordinate with parishes near Wesleyan to hold services on campus. Several members of the community have rapport with the local Catholic groups. Keeping the position vacant would motivate both the community and the administration to fairly evaluate these issues, while preventing institutional inertia from precluding the possibility of a Catholic Chaplain working more than twenty hours a week. Catholic and other interested faculty have expressed their support for this position.
Rejecting the proposal has led to the administration accusing the CSO of being too ideological and stubborn. And yet it is they who have already decided that the position be cut even before discussing this with the community. Their “compromise” seems more motivated by a desire to include the words “Catholic Chaplain” in their pre-frosh mailings than by any actual concern for the community. Amidst this discussion, the CSO had offered several alternatives which were strictly rejected by the administration as unworthy of consideration.
Today the administration decided to push through with their “compromise,” saying they’ve consulted with students enough. We disagree with this decision being interpreted as a compromise and with the process through which this has been reached. This long Wespeak seems symbolic of how bureaucracy works, giving us a glimpse of how the administration works to “address student concerns.”
And again, we have the administration paying lip service to an ideal while in practice choosing to pay homage to the gods of the US News & World Report. As long as diversity is only on paper, whether it be a mention of a Catholic Chaplain in a pre-frosh mailing or being able to say we have a Dean of Diversity, Wesleyan will only continue to say it cares about diversity, without actually believing diversity is important enough to strive for.
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