As included in “Reevaluating academic freedom” by Editor-in-Chief Sangjun Hornewer ’20, below is President Schutt’s response to the student reaction document:
The letter from 16 student leaders, which I received on Friday, April 19, raised serious concerns about the experience of students of color on our campus. In response to the letter, I was very pleased to be able to meet Tuesday afternoon, April 23, with those student leaders and more than 20 other students. Davis Schneiderman and Andrea Conner, Dean of Faculty and Dean of Students; Claudia Ramirez Islas and Andre Meeks, Director and Assistant Director of the Office of Intercultural Relations (OIR), also participated in the three-hour meeting.
Students in the meeting related experiences on campus that should not occur at an institution that “embraces diversity,” in the words of our Mission Statement. I apologized for those experiences, in behalf of the College, and we spoke at length about steps we can take to make genuine, lasting progress. Students who will be on campus over the summer will work on those steps with Dean Schneiderman, Dean Conner, OIR and me, and this work will certainly continue beyond the summer.
We discussed, in particular, the ways in which the College can respond to the goals and objectives in the student leaders’ letter. These include safeguards against racial bias; faculty and staff handbook additions; more OIR resources; enhanced efforts to recruit faculty and staff of color; more effective and sustained diversity education; and advance explanations in courses regarding racially charged material. The College also must improve campus communication and involve students more fully in problem-solving. One important step in this connection will be new appointments to the Intercultural Advisory Group co-chaired by Professor of Philosophy Daw-Nay Evans and Claudia Ramirez Islas, including ample student appointments.
I look forward to working actively on these measures with students and other campus colleagues, and was grateful to take part in Tuesday’s meeting.
Stephen D. Schutt
President
Lake Forest College
