Over the last two years, three Guilford faculty members were denied tenure. These decisions caused aftershocks across the entire community. As a result, protests were held, letters written, lawyers hired, and friendships strained. The entire community was left to reconcile itself in the aftermath. This spring, the accounting, English, history, music, peace and conflict studies, religious studies, and sport studies departments are conducting nationwide searches for 10 new tenure-track faculty members. Two of these will replace Eleanor Branch and Shelini Harris, two of the professors denied tenure last spring.

This time the community has a chance to be proactive. Too often outcries and community input come after negative events, after it is too late for positive change. Only in these moments do we voice our opinions on the college that Guilford is and the society we wish it could be. Whether you are a first-year or senior, tenured faculty or tutor, these new professors have the potential to stay at Guilford for decades, left to shape the community of the college after most of us are long gone.

Community involvement is crucial in the hiring process, both in the evaluations of a professor’s expertise and through opinions on what kind of professor Guilford needs.

Student input is especially important, and is weighted heavily by each department in the hiring process. By going to presentations by candidates, or sitting down to an informal lunch with them, each of you could be contributing to our college’s future.

Let us come together, within individual departments and across the entire campus, to not only decide which candidates are the best teachers, but what it is we want out of our college both in the next year and in the next decades. And let us choose the faculty members that can help us realize that vision.

We all witnessed how our collective community voice shines when threatened by conflict or tragedy. Let us learn to use our voices swiftly and strongly from the start, when we can create, instead of rebuild, a community of peace and collaboration that will welcome and be enhanced by these new faculty additions.