The following is a letter Wartburg’s president sent to students, alumni and staff:
As a College, we must acknowledge our history of racist acts. As an individual, I confess that I, and others on this campus, while enjoying white privilege, have been complicit, and have betrayed our missional values, falling short in our vocation to serve a college of the Church.
Going forward, we must interrogate every behavior, process, and policy, asking the question, “How does this feel to a person of color in search of the opportunities we promise?”. The question is not what we intend by those things, but how does each behavior, or process, or policy feel to students of color. And then we must fix what’s wrong, to ensure that behaviors, processes, and policies guarantee equity.
In a conversation with an alum, she reminded me that now is the time for listening and action. First listen so that we can hear what alums and students are saying, and then act on what we learn from them. As Krystal Madlock (Director of Multicultural Student Services), Dan Kittle (Dean of Students), and I visited with her, she offered a welcome note of encouragement: This is possible.
Listening and acting are predicated upon building, and sometimes rebuilding, trust. Trust starts with personal relationships; hence our clear efforts to ensure that we listen. Trust also comes with transparency, so let me respond explicitly to something we’ve all learned in recent days.
Wartburg College did not do enough for the students of color who’ve shared their stories of racist victimization by a former professor, William Earl, who is no longer at the college. I cannot undo what has been done; however, I have launched an investigation to understand what happened and, more important, what didn’t happen, at the times described in those horrific videos shared by our alumni. When the investigation is complete, we will rectify any problems that remain. I promise to share more when I know more, and that will happen no later than the end of this month.
To ensure that we are listening, we are:
| • | Making ourselves available to you and our current students, personally. You are of course welcome to contact anyone in the college, but I lift up my Cabinet: Dan Kittle, Dean of Students; Edith Waldstein, Vice President for Enrollment Management; Rich Seggerman, Vice President for Finance & Administration; Brian Ernsting, Dean of the Faculty; and Scott Leisinger, Vice President for Institutional Advancement. |
| • | Sustaining open lines of communication with the Black Student Union. These efforts are led by Krystal Madlock and Dan Kittle. |
| • | Convening a series of forums, giving people the opportunity to tell their stories and offer their ideas for moving forward. |
In addition, we shall reinvigorate the work that we’ve already begun in recent years:
| • | I will re-emphasize the role of the Community Response Team in documenting allegations of racism and in recommending concrete consequences; I’ll ensure that every student understands the role of CRT and feels comfortable communicating with its members. |
| • | We’ll revisit and refine our policies on hiring, collecting them in a single hiring guide that not only assures affirmative action in hiring, but also offers supervisors practical guidance rooted in best practices. |
| • | We’ll build upon the success of the campus-wide diversity and inclusion audit we completed a couple of years ago by thoroughly auditing each division through the prism of diversity, inclusion, and equity. |
| • | We’ll continue our work to teach everyone on campus about racism and its many manifestations, including microaggressions, by redoubling our efforts in the student orientation program and our regular faculty and staff training. |
| • | I’ll continue to support the faculty’s efforts to create inclusive classrooms where all students can succeed, and I note with gratitude and respect that an ad hoc group of faculty have already begun working with the Cabinet on a joint effort to heighten our efforts in these areas. |
As we listen, as we really hear what students are saying, we will take meaningful action, and we will share what we are doing. While I want to hear more from alums and students before making final decisions, I can already predict that we’ll implement a mandatory system of reporting, expecting that our faculty and staff will report to CRT or other designated officials the complaints that students share but feel reluctant to pursue on their own.
We have established a website to keep you up to date on all our actions, both old and new, specifically those in the areas of reporting and investigation, training, curriculum, and communication. On that site, you will find additional information about our orientation programming addressing microaggressions, faculty workshop training, and the diversity, equity, and inclusion audit of Student Life, which will be the first of several.
I want you to understand that, even as we are listening, we are doing. But, by no means are we done.
I feel profound gratitude for the extraordinarily frank comments I’ve heard in recent days. Some alums whom I’ve known for many years, and whom I’ve known well, have only in the past weeks shared with me deeply buried feelings and painful experiences they’d prefer to forget. I appreciate how difficult that is—to share such intimate facts with me—and I understand that such sharing is rooted in love for the college, in expectation that we can improve, and in trust that I will seize this moment.
These conversations, and the conversations we are planning, nourish a steely resolve to seek and secure racial justice. Some of our alums are angry, and yet, they’ve done exactly what I’d expect Knights to do: they’ve offered the college, and me personally, an opportunity for redemption.
To return to that piece of wisdom shared with Krystal, Dan, and me, it’s not only possible; it will be. With your help, the help of alumni, as well as the help of students who will become alumni, with your encouragement, support, and, when necessary, your stern admonition, we will become better than we have been, better than we are. This I promise you.
Yours,
Darrel Colson