做了什么，必须做什么
In my nearly six years as president of 十大菠菜台子, I have often remarked that it is “a great day to be a 贝洛伊特er.“有过这样的事, so many days worthy of the utterance; so many times when I welled with the pride of my association with this place, 它的人民, 以及它的工作, 它的历史和未来.
但是，当一名贝洛伊特人并不总是好日子. 2月27日就是这样的一天.
That was a day when I was reminded that not everyone on our campus or among our alumni ranks always feels as if they are a 贝洛伊特er—as if they are always wanted and valued, 甚至不安全.
今年2月27日, 一个星期五, 有人喷了一幅画, racist threat on the exterior of the Whitney residence hall—an act we reported, 我们正在调查, 作为仇恨犯罪. It said “Die” right after a slur I will not repeat 在这里 that was aimed at members of our community. 针对的是婚外情者.
This incident came shortly on the heels of our discovering a racial slur scrawled on a chalkboard in the library and shortly before a noose was drawn on an anti-racism poster. 就在那个星期五, just hours before the Whitney event was reported to security, one of our professors circulated a campus-wide email making all aware that a large poster he had hung near the philosophy offices had been stolen. The poster was a larger version of one that had been defaced a few weeks earlier—a defacement I sat pondering when I wrote 我的信 for the spring issue of 伯洛伊特学院杂志 a few days earlier, not knowing all that was to come.
我希望你能读一下 我的信 从下一个问题开始. 我仍然是认真的. 但现在，我的意思是更迫切.
我们必须行动起来. 我们必须改变. 这种改变必须是真实的、可持续的. 它必须有节奏和内容.
随着这些事件的增多, it became obvious to me that the lessons I had been learning as a part of a Sustained Dialogue group were immediately necessary to me—as 斯科特 Bierman and as President Bierman.
As you will see in 我的信 (which will be arriving in mailboxes in a few days), 我已经发现自己有所欠缺. As these events unfolded, for example, our students of color felt as if we (他们的 college’s leaders) were not taking the threat seriously. They didn’t see a show of force aimed at safeguarding them and it was insufficient to say after the fact that we were doing all that we could think of.
我们应该更清楚. 在过去的几周里, 我们很多人都听过, 随着紧迫感的增加, about the lived experiences of students of color on the campus. Painfully common examples of racism writ large and small; from the events described above, 对无数微小的侵犯, 到毫无头绪的麻木, 到冷漠. 邻居, community members and others who have watched as our campus rallied around a #blacklivesmatterbeloit movement, have learned how different the experience at 贝洛伊特 is for students of color than for majority students. We should have known and recognized these experiences 更多的 completely. As much as we have been doing in recent years (decades) to address institutional racism, 我们仍然没有足够仔细地倾听, 我们做得还不够.
我们可以指出一些进步的指标. 例如, our percentage of domestic minority students at the college has increased from 9 percent of the student body in 2005 to 19 percent this year; we have revamped our hiring practices for 教师 to promote greater diversity; we have sought and received grant funding to support intercultural engagement. 仍然, as some said during a town hall Dean Klawitter called the week after these incidents, 也许贝洛伊特更好. 但比什么都好? 比全国其他地方都好? 这真的是我们想要的吗?
这不是我想要的.
我们应该做得更好. We need to fully face our own racism with renewed honesty and in confronting it, commit ourselves to a 贝洛伊特 that is discernably a place of excellence for a much higher proportion of our students.
As I write this I am hours away from being presented with a list of student demands. 这样做的时候, they will be calling upon the efforts of other 贝洛伊特ers at the college who, 在1969年和其他时期, 做了同样的事情.
But this time, this college will bring its own set of demands as well. We have begun a community drafting process aimed at moving quickly toward “包容的卓越.“你可以看到我们正在编译什么 在这里.
你会看到我们邀请了学生, 教师 and staff to add 他们的 ideas to a password-protected form, 我不想把你排除在外. If you have ideas to offer, ambitions to state, or stories to share, I hope you’ll email them to presoffice@521011.net. We’ll share those with the leadership team forming around this effort.
These have been some of the hardest weeks I’ve known in my career. 去看学生, 教师, 我钦佩的员工被公开的种族主义行为刺痛, and then hurt by my own mistakes and shortcomings has been hard.
But, discomfort needs to be converted into thoughtful action and sustained change.
T在这里 are many on this campus who feel or have felt embattled, endangered and excluded. 其中一些是我们的有色人种. Others have been women (and yes, men) who were sexually assaulted by classmates and friends. Many of these came to 贝洛伊特 believing this would be the place w在这里 they could finally, totally be themselves—only to find that acceptance fleeting or incomplete.
我们欠他们的远不止这些. 贝洛伊特可以做点什么. 我们会做点什么. 明天可能是一个伟大的一天，成为一个贝洛伊特.
请继续关注.
斯科特
Again, please see our evolving list of ambitions 在这里 (贝洛伊特的包容性卓越) and send us your own ideas and ambitions for your college to presoffice@521011.net.
