Last Thursday, the first student occupiers moved into Fanning Hall to demand accountability from the Connecticut College administration about the unequal treatment of alleged bias incidents. Five days later, some students remain in Fanning still unsatisfied with administrators’ responses, while others have chosen to focus on their final exams or leave campus for the summer vacations. Nevertheless, our collective dissatisfaction and frustration with the Katherine Bergeron administration endures.
Sprouted from the physical occupation of Fanning Hall, the Occupy Fanning blog itself has now taken on a life of its own beyond students’ physical presence. While the blog remains integrally connected to the aims of the occupation and exists as a platform for those continuing to occupy the building to voice their discontent, it is also broadening its focus and reinforcing its own commitment to continuing to expose the widespread administrative incompetence and failures at Connecticut College into next semester and beyond.
The blog is currently administered by a small group of five members of the College community who are not physically present in Fanning Hall. We invite students, faculty, staff, recent alumni and parents of Conn students to be in touch with us at our e-mail address occupyfanning@gmail.com with stories that we will investigate and feature in the weeks and months ahead.
We look forward to continuing and diversifying our commitment to call the Katherine Bergeron administration to task for their failures and thank all of those who have already have shared their stories.
Dear protesters,
ReplyDeleteI have followed your blog for the last few days. I'm not writing about the content or merits of your protest, but instead to share that I'm frustrated and saddened: at no point on this blog or on social media have you used your own names. You have not said who is leading this anonymous protest.
Your movement for transparency is stunted by the information you are not releasing about yourselves. I ask simply and publicly, who are you?
What you write on the internet, about the college and about others (whether you like them or not) is permanent and, in publicly questioning the college and its leadership, you have yet to equally take ownership of your protest.
I hope you'll simply say who you are.
Respectfully,
Andrew Nathanson '13
People who speak up suffer so much backlash at this place i'm not surpirsed at all they dont say who they are.
DeleteThe prior "anonymous" responder makes an important point. There are serious power differentials to consider here... It is a hallmark of the current age to focus on individuals rather than collectives. In this case, presenting a collective identity makes strategic sense for students (who are positioned at one end of the formal power structure). However, it could be useful to consider Andrew's point and to share some specifics in response to the question of 'who are you?' and without falling into the trap of naming individuals, which isn't the point here and which precedent has shown to bring "backlash" (to use the prior commenter's language) - for example, this could mean something like 'we are a collective of X students from across X class years; we are members of X different campus groups; we are [some statements to suggest different kinds of diversity], etc.' Such a description would help move the focus (and potential for retaliation) off of individuals.
ReplyDeleteAnd just to preempt the likely response 'but this group is naming individual administrators, and so they should name themselves,' the naming of administrators is not about them as individuals so much as it is the structure of the administration which vests power in individual positions. Those who willingly accept those positions (and the compensation afforded by them) do so with full understanding that they will be help accountable for the work they are paid to do.