Four big letters weigh heavy on our minds and hearts these days: APSA.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve heard about the proposals in the new Administrative Program and Services Assessment report. You’ve received emails, Facebook notifications, seen fliers on doors or maybe overheard people talking in the cafeteria. Undeniably, a huge controversy has ignited our campus.
We are all concerned about the well-being and future of the College. And frankly, we should be.
We at The Guilfordian hope that the services that strengthen our community and make Guilford the unique institution it is will not be discarded. We hope that the administration will view staff and administrative departments not just in terms of hard numbers or statistics, but in terms of their far-reaching effects on the community and the Guilford experience as a whole.
We hope that the administration understands that many of the areas that face reduction or elimination are indispensable and essential to Guilford’s core.
If you usually ignore documents that have scary words like “administrative” and “assessment” in them, you should brave through it for this one because, undoubtedly, the decisions made for the APSA proposal will affect you in some way. They will affect us all.
In the report itself, the euphemism “restructure” can be found throughout the document. Much of what we love about Guilford now faces this fate of restructuring, or worse, elimination.
Services like the Friends Center, the Art Gallery, Bonner Center, Career Development Center and Multicultural Education face downsizing, position cuts or being clumped in with other departments.
And they are the lucky ones. Other services, like the Conflict Resolution Resource Center, could be cut altogether.
Reducing resources that enrich student experience and propel community building and diversity does not reflect what Guilford stands for.
As an institution that emphasizes core values of community, diversity, stewardship and justice, it seems like our priorities are off here — especially given that areas such as the PE Center and Athletics will most likely be maintained as is.
The smell of contradiction lingers in the air.
We feel grateful that we were eventually included in the conversation. We just hope this inclusion was out of more than just politeness.
We hope our voices will not just be heard, but listened to intently.
Guilford’s future depends on it.
