Exact details are still unclear, but this much is known: on Sept. 2, there was a fight on campus.
As a result, two students were suspended, and a third faces possible punishment. In response to this outburst of violence, a group of students is attempting to turn the situation into something positive by initiating a series of open forums.
“We need to seize this as an opportunity for community change,” said junior Garrett FitzGerald.
FitzGerald, a peace and conflicts studies and religious studies double major, was one of the students in Shelini Harris’s Globalization and Ethical Perspective class, where the issue was first brought out into the open. It began as a classroom discussion, formed into a petition, and now, the students are planning open forums. Dates for the senate-backed forums will be announced on the Guilford Buzz as soon as they are set.
“The forum’s a venue where we can come together as a community and discuss the concerns we all share,” FitzGerald said.
“The purpose of the forums is to get out ideas of what’s wrong,” said senior Evan Welkin, another member of the class.
The group of students involved hope to use these forums as a means to address issues within the Guilford community that are often overlooked. Issues such as prejudice and violence – both physical and verbal – are main topics they aim to discuss.
Though the fight and the subsequent action taken by the administration are what initially brought the group together, addressing that specific issue is not their main goal.
“We’re talking about a type of case and how we can better address it so the whole community has access to it,” said junior Slavyan Stefanov. “Our main goal is ‘OK, how can we prevent this from happening again?'”
One way to prevent a situation like this from happening again is to address the policy surrounding ‘aggressive behavior’ on campus. According to Wilkin, current policy simplifies fights into two sides: “offenders” and “victims.” Some students involved in the forums feel that this should be changed.
“I think it’s much more complicated than that,” Welkin said. “We have the privilege at a private school to say victims in a fight are not just those who get beaten up, but those who get marginalized.”
As a Quaker institution, mediation and conflict resolution are major focuses at Guilford. However, though the Aggressive Behavior Policy mentions conflict resolution, it is not always used in judicial procedures.
“It amazes me that at a college with a peace and conflict studies program, we don’t have an understanding of violence,” said Assistant Professor of Religious Studies and Peace and Conflict Studies Shelini Harris. “When we don’t fully understand what violence is and only uphold one side of it, we think we are preventing something; but we are promoting it.”
Another way to both address and prevent violence, as well as work to fight discrimination, is to build a strong community.
“Fights are dealt with administratively and separately, but they’re never brought down to a community level,” Harris said.
“I really hope to foster a sense of community that lives up to the one we talk about here,” FitzGerald said. “However much we talk about the community, the fact of the matter is, just talking about it doesn’t make it a reality.”
Guilford claims that one of its core values is Community, but some feel that the presence of Community isn’t as strong as it should be. The major divides on campus, such as the one between athletes and non-athletes, are one aspect of community the students hope to build.
“I see folks at Guilford increasingly separate or cliquey,” Welkin said. “As a result, people don’t communicate, and we can’t pool our resources or concerns.”
“We need to find a way to bridge those lines of communication,” said Bryan Dellinger, a CCE student. “There’s got to be a way to do that. If not, nothing’s ever going to change.”
Community isn’t the only Guilford value being brought to light in these forums. The forums are a chance to reemphasize the core values that many students tend to forget in their day-to-day lives.
“A main purpose of this gathering is to make these core values more than words,” said Dean for Campus Life Aaron Fetrow. “You can see banners on sidewalks, but this discussion is about making them happen. If it’s just lip service, then what is it?”
The forums are also a chance to turn the focus inward – to focus on the problems on our own campus instead of those in the larger community.
“Do we have discriminatory behavior?” Fetrow posed. “Absolutely, but to look in the mirror and recognize that and talk about it in the community – that’s hard to do.”
Initiating discussion is only the start. Forums are a good way to bring people together, but actively creating change is more difficult than that.
“One forum or a few forums can’t change hearts, minds and souls. It takes a long time and long commitment to change ethos,” Harris said.
The forums may only be the beginning, but the students still feel that they will prove beneficial.
“In the short term, it’ll be a place for constructive dialogue within the community,” FitzGerald said. “In the long term, we can carry our concerns to the senate and increase the amount of sustainable impact on campus.