There’s been a tension building in Skidmore recently. Time and again these past few semesters, the administration and the wider community have found themselves in conflict. With the school’s operation mostly halted by the COVID pandemic, and the transition to a new president looming, now is a good time to consider what has been going wrong, and how things might improve.
This tension has flared around large issues like the CIS swing space, the student minimum wage, employee healthcare benefits, the athletics center, and international students’ housing during the pandemic. Each time, the administration has made its financial decisions economically, but without proper input from the community. In response to recent plans, deemed unacceptable for their lack of transparency or threat to community wellbeing, students and faculty have (for various issues) staged protests, written faculty-penned open letters, and threatened protests.
“The administration has not placed value on transparency from the beginning of these projects and that’s why they receive such backlash,” Rachael Borthwick ‘21, SGA President-elect wrote in a message. “The administration has been neglecting the voices of marginalized students and it’s time we start getting them to hear us…we need to hold the administration accountable to centering these student voices. And to do so we must work collaboratively with the administration at large.”
Staff and faculty have voiced similar sentiments. Many signed petitions and spoke out publicly over the insufficient transparency and community engagement in the planning of the new athletics facility. Among the main concerns were how it would encroach upon the operation or increase costs for the Greenberg Child Care Center, creating an undue strain for young parents.
This pattern is not a coincidence, and it does not need to be normal. Lack of transparency and absent community input has been at the heart of each of these issues. In response to several of these conflicts, the administration has staged ‘open forums’ to hear out the community, but the results have been lackluster. Administrators have often carried these meetings with glib and combative tones, or, with the athletic facility, not shown up at all — the session to address concerns over the center was headed by two members of SGA, forcing them into a conflict of interest. SGA should be voicing concerns on behalf of the students, not acting as a buffer between them and the administration.
Administrators, from Glotzbach down, believe they are working in the community’s best interests. The Liberal Arts education model is facing unprecedented financial insecurity, and there is good reason to believe that the administration is foregrounding the school’s financial endurance above immediate community concerns. But why has the administration failed so consistently in creating a dialogue with students, faculty, and staff? If the college’s decision-makers lose touch with the community, they will be unable to work on our behalf. Skidmore’s administration should be working for its community, not managing it from the top down.
What Skidmore needs are pathways for community self-determination. Communication between the administration and the community should be an ongoing, actively-solicited process. Open forums should be held early and often, not in response to the outrage. The needs of marginalized students must be foregrounded. The perspectives most respected should be those who live and work here; students, faculty, and staff deserve the right to shape their community.
Next semester, Skidmore is going to have a new president, Marc Conner. We’re also going to be recovering, in our college and as part of the world, from Coronavirus. Both situations will be difficult, but they offer an opportunity to rebuild. Now is the time for Skidmore to start functioning as a community.