November 7, 2024
Dear Campus Community,
I am writing today to provide an update on the steps the College is taking to foster a more inclusive campus.
Over the past few weeks, Jason Craige Harris from the Perception Institute has been meeting with campus community members. Building from those conversations—and as part of our yearlong Conversations for Change initiative—we will host our first dialogue session on November 21, from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m.
One of the fundamental goals of Conversations for Change is to expand our ability to listen and ask questions, so that we may better understand one another’s perspectives and move forward together as a community. We strongly encourage all students and employees to attend. This session, held in the CUB Ballroom, will be livestreamed to additional locations to accommodate more attendees, if needed. We appreciate the Faculty Council’s support in expanding and relocating the faculty meeting for this important event.
The November session is aimed at deepening mutual understanding; raising awareness of how bias, racism, and prejudice affect those around us; strengthening campus relationships; and, importantly, exploring pathways that are designed to result in lasting change.
The following are updates on other initiatives we are undertaking:
- Over the past month, Vice President for College Life Anne Ehrlich and Chief Diversity Officer Eloísa Gordon-Mora worked with a group of students to develop a plan for alerting the campus community when a significant incident that may have been motivated by bias occurs. The group agreed that the Chief Diversity Officer will email the community when such an incident is likely to have significant bystander impact, and the affected party agrees that an email may be sent.
- Additionally, the Chief Diversity Officer will update the Bias Response and Educational Protocol website on a monthly basis, which includes an aggregate summary of bias incidents. The Chief Diversity Officer will send a link to this webpage and a summary of progress made on bias education and response initiatives to the campus community at least once per semester. I’d like to thank the student leaders who helped us to identify this need and worked collaboratively with us on this path forward.
- College Life will work with students and faculty to deliver more robust and mandatory bias-awareness, belonging, and bystander intervention education during New Student Orientation.
- Last month, I requested that Amanda Blaugher, Title IX Coordinator and Director of Civil Rights Compliance and Education, along with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, College Life, and Human Resources, provide recommendations on expanding awareness and educational programs related to bias—building on our well-established Title IX efforts. Those recommendations are currently under review.
- The Provost's Office plans to organize a series of initiatives to engage faculty and staff to build bias awareness and strengthen inclusion and belonging in the academic division. First, the Provost’s Office is working with Junjie Luo, JCCTL Director, to promote more conversations about inclusive teaching pedagogy and practice. The first of a series of co-organized moderated discussions, Inclusive Curricula, will take place on Tuesday, December 3 at 4:00 p.m. in the Lyceum with Professors Nathifa Greene of Philosophy and Alecea Standlee of Sociology and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
- The Provost’s Office also is co-sponsoring a series of events organized by the Political Science Department. This multi-disciplinary program, in which faculty research on various forms of bias will be shared with the goal of identifying how the research can inform our community, will be open to all students, administrators, and faculty.
- Finally, the Provost’s Office is planning to hold a midyear faculty workshop on January 15, 2025. Michelle Schmidt is in discussions with Jason Craige Harris from the Perception Institute to lead the workshop, which will focus on building greater community and belonging through countering and addressing racial and other biases.
- Other measures that will be taken by the Provost’s Office include giving weight in the next round of tenure-track faculty hiring to the potential for new faculty to contribute courses toward the race, power, and equity component of the new Gettysburg curriculum. In addition, beginning in the 2025-26 academic year, the Provost’s Office will partner with Chief Diversity Officer to hold orientation sessions within faculty committees on the importance of bias awareness during their decision-making work. The Provost’s Office is also working closely with Human Resources and the Chief Diversity Officer to evaluate and update the Inclusion Partner Program used in our hiring practices.
I want to thank the many people who are working on these and other efforts. I recognize that some will have immediate impact, while others will take longer but are designed to strengthen our structures, processes, and education. It is important to ensure coordination, effectiveness, and accountability across all that we are doing to create a more inclusive campus. With that in mind, we are seeking to create a unified plan—one that will be shared with the community—integrating these new initiatives with the many other activities already in progress across the campus.
I look forward to talking with you more about these initiatives at the November 21 meeting. Thank you for your commitment to fostering a more inclusive and respectful community.
Sincerely,
Bob Iuliano
President