As the spring semester comes to an end, it seems like everyone is in a rush to complete things. Students are putting the final touches on end-of-the-year papers, professors are grading those papers and the administration is working hard to get ready for the summer. However, in one important aspect, Elizabethtown College is making seemingly no progress.
The Bias Incident Report page is new this year, and it is run by the bias incident response team. On the page, it says that “Elizabethtown College is committed to building and maintaining an environment that fosters a culturally vibrant campus community that values diversity, equity and inclusion, and where all community members achieve a sense of belonging.” According to this quote, the College plans on maintaining a tolerant campus community. However, the bias incident dashboard tells a different story.
The bias incident dashboard has several different columns. It shows the month the incident occurred, the category (all are listed as bias incidents), the type (verbal, online, written), the identity affected and the location that the incident occurred in. It also shows if actions were requested and if actions were taken. These last two are simple yes and no answers.
Ever since January, no box under “actions taken” has been marked yes. They all say “pending,” even though some have had actions requested.
One anonymous student seemed frustrated with their bias incident, which occurred in the fall semester. In their specific case, the dashboard marked that action had been taken, however the student did not feel as though it was adequate.
“There was supposed to be action taken, but then it never really happened. I was supposed to meet with Jenn Crowder and then I went to see her, and she just wasn’t there. There was no information on where to meet her,” the student said. A common theme among students affected by bias incidents seems to be a lack of clear communication.
Although it is easy to find out where to report incidents, it’s not as easy to find out how to deal with them. It’s all up to the bias incident response team, who refers incidents to different areas, like counseling services.
So, what happened to the anonymous student whose bias incident was marked as completed? “I just kind of dropped it because I figured it wasn’t that big of a deal. I just didn’t really have time,” they said.
The student who committed this particular bias incident was involved in an extracurricular, and the leaders of that activity came and apologized directly to the affected student. While this shows courage and leadership among Etown students, administration still has not followed up with the student.
In an interview in March, Executive Director for College Diversity, Equity and Belonging Nichole Gonzalez said that she welcomed criticism. “This is the first year we have a bias incident response team that is putting information out and that we have this process,” Gonzalez said. “We are working on building trust because we know there is a gap in that trust, and that’s going to come with time. We welcome the feedback. If anyone does have feedback, please contact me directly. I’d be happy to talk to anybody.”
In the process of writing this article, attempts were made to contact Gabrielle Reed, Nichole Gonzalez, Darcey Mills and Jenn Crowder through phone and email. Attempts were also made to contact Kayshen Morel and Jenn Azvedo through phone. Only Reed responded but could not comment on the situation as she is not directly involved in the bias incident response team.
