On this page, we document student collaborations exercising leadership to push forward academic departments and administrative offices.
Dear Professors,
Thank you so much for attending our Physics Town Hall. It provided great insight to begin our conversation. We were thankful for the candid responses from all of you as well as the respect that everyone had for each other’s opinions. On the Sunday after the town hall we met with a group of physics students to reflect on the meeting together. We came up with an actionable plan to create a more inclusive and inviting space for BIPOC. We want to work on this as a department because it will allow us to learn and grow as a community.
Hire a departmental consultant
As students, we came to Bryn Mawr to learn. Therefore we think hiring a consultant specializing in DEI issues in physics needs to meet with the faculty and students. We want to become a better place that can offer real and substantial support to BIPOC students, and the best first step we can take is getting an outside perspective on how we, as a department, can improve. On that end, we ask that when a consultant is hired, the Physics Department is transparent about the process and shares the consultant’s recommendations with the students. We recognize that the consultant might have some hard truths for us all to recognize and reconcile with. We ask that everyone remains open to the suggestions of the consultant and work together to understand and dismantle our discomfort with being faced with our own failings.
Here are some options for consultants:
Movement Consulting (Dra. Nicole Cabrera Salazar)
Specializes in Physics and Astronomy
5 sessions per semester - $10,000
Marta Esquilin Consulting (Marta Esquilin)
General DEI consulting for academic institutions
$8400
Decolonizing Physics Course
In discussion with the students of the Physics department, we believe an in-depth course on decolonizing physics should be offered. This class should be a required course for all students in the Physics major. We know this kind of class cannot be implemented immediately as it takes time to plan a curriculum. For the benefit of those graduating soon, for class years that cannot undertake the addition of a new requirement, the upper level physics courses need to have a unit on decolonizing physics until the course is able to be wholly incorporated into the major. Though there are a limited number of faculty, we believe it's a necessary course that will offer a well rounded academic experience to students in Physics.
Mandatory Community Outreach
Students want to participate in community outreach to help show support to future generations and give hands-on education on how to teach and support others/engage with learners at different educational levels.
Extending Tutoring and TA Support
There is currently not enough awareness of the tutoring programs that Bryn Mawr offers. Additionally the programs are not robust enough to meet the needs of students to provide adequate support. In order to help all students have an equitable and accessible learning experience, tutors should be available for introductory through upper level physics courses. The programs should also be publicized by the department as an additional resource to office hours or TAs. Physics 101 and 102 Labs should have undergraduate student TAs in lieu of graduate student TAs. This would allow graduate students to be TA’s for 300 level courses.
Monthly Town Halls
A way of holding each other accountable and maintaining transparency would be to hold monthly town halls. Here we can discuss any updates on departmental changes, how supported students are feeling, and promote a sense of community among students and faculty.
Many of our demands for departmental change require a sustained level of engagement. We hope to discuss ways to institutionalize these changes in the department and create an outline on how to cultivate student engagement beyond the duration of the strike. Together, we hope to raise the bar of what it means to be a Physics Department. We believe that these ways to show support to BIPOC students, both in the short and long-term, are able to help us challenge ourselves and the way we think. The work we are doing now is fundamentally going to affect the future of Physics at Bryn Mawr and beyond. It takes a lot of self-reflection and open conversations between faculty and
students to start changing how we think and treat others.
Being a historically women's institution, we have always challenged what it means to be in a majority male space. Women, especially black and indigineous women of color, are not equally represented in physics. We want to continue pushing the boundaries of what a scientist looks like on all levels which is why we want to make these departmental changes, and fundamentally change.
June 23, 2020
To the faculty of Bryn Mawr College and Haverford College Classics,
We write to you to make you aware of this open letter created by alumni of both programs. As an organization that was created to ensure that those within the fields of classics, archaeology, philosophy, and art history have a place to exist free of discrimination and inequity, and enjoy systems of support and community in the Bi-Co, we have cosigned and released our own statement in solidarity with the signees of the letter (of which there were over 200 by June 22, 2020).
As you formulate a response, please note demand 9: “Compensate student labor. It has been a noticeable point of contention for years that the students of the department are the ones to push for and execute any efforts to foster equity and diversity within the field. The faculty of the Departments does less than the bare minimum to support them, especially when it comes to showing up to planned events. Stop forcing students to do all the work themselves. You must play an active part in the growth of the departments yourselves as well as pay students who do labor.”
All those who signed and will sign this open letter expect a response from the department faculty, not the students. Those current students whom the department asks for input are already in a tenuous position with tenured professors, who gate-keep student access to academic success and ultimately, graduation.
In the meantime, please go through the names of the signees and remove any mention of their names and likenesses posted to the departments’ website and social media.
We await your responses.
Sincerely,
The Bryn Mawr Branch of the Mountaintop Coalition, on behalf of all open letter signees
See Departmental Response Here
On Friday, June 12, 2020, the Bryn Mawr and Haverford Classics departments shared a statement on the murder of George Floyd, the field’s complicity within and perpetuation of racist systems, and our commitment to dismantling anti-black racism in all forms. The faculty of Haverford’s Classics department are writing to expand on this statement with a description of our ongoing and new departmental initiatives to work toward an anti-racist future for Classics in our community and our discipline. In addition, as a member department of the Society for Classical Studies, and as individual members, we endorse and participate in the statement by the Society for Classical Studies, and will post our endorsement on our website with a link to that statement.
In the time since we released our original statement, two letters have been brought to our attention: the first is a n open letter addressed to the Bi-College Community, written by thirteen current Bi-Co students, and the second, written by Bi-Co alumni/ae/a, is one addressed specifically to the Bi-Co Classics departments, calling for actions and reforms to promote anti-racism and other forms of equitable and inclusive practice. We want to begin by thanking the students and alumni who put together these letters: we value your insights and your calls for expeditious and vigorous action to make Bi-Co Classics an actively anti-racist and inclusive community. We acknowledge that trust within our community has been broken and that our students are suffering, and we commit ourselves, in our ongoing work on these issues, to answering their calls to action.
We recognize that this work must be part of an ongoing departmental prioritization of anti-racist work within and beyond Classics. To that end, we append to this letter the draft of our departmental Plan for Anti-Racism, Equity, and Inclusion. This version of our plan to make Bi-Co Classics an anti-racist and inclusive program began to emerge through conversations among the department’s faculty during the Strike For Black
Lives on June 10th and has been significantly revised and expanded in consideration of the Open Letters. Our conversations as a department have taken their cues from student feedback (the open letters mentioned above; senior exit interviews; anonymous course evaluations; individual conversations and experiences with students) as the most crucial starting point from which we situate our commitment to anti-racist action. We recognize that the five faculty members currently at Haverford lack the perspective of black classicists. In response to this, we reaffirm our commitment to seeking and hearing the testimony of our students and of BIPoC classicists and to being transparent about our departmental efforts.
As part of our commitment to heightened transparency about our efforts, we intend to post our evolving plan to our website (classics.sites.haverford.edu/equity) where it can serve as a focus for dialogue, continual improvement, and long-term accountability. We recognize that the conversations — both among the Haverford faculty and with our colleagues at Bryn Mawr — and the plan itself can only be preliminary to broader conversations and actions involving all constituencies within the Bi-Co Classics community. We invite collaborative discussion regarding these initiatives; the work is ours to do, but we eagerly look forward to engaging with the feedback, ideas, and perspectives of our current, past, and future students.
Deborah Roberts (incoming interim Chair)
Bret Mulligan (outgoing Chair)
Ava Shirazi
Hannah Silverblank
Matthew Farmer
The Haverford Classics Department’s Plan for Anti-Racism, Equity, and Inclusion
The members of the department want to make the study of Classics welcoming for all students, especially those who may be encountering the field, its texts, and frameworks for the first time; it is crucial that we identify and change ways of teaching and aspects of our discipline that might make students feel that their ideas, identities, or questions are unwelcome.
The action plan articulated below is neither exhaustive nor sufficient, but we share it in its current form here in the spirit of transparency and in the hope that it provides a locus for dialogue, continual improvement, and long-term accountability. [#15-16]
We recognize that this will be an ongoing process and we invite community feedback, suggestions, and collaborative discussion regarding these initiatives. To encourage this exchange, we have established a Department Suggestion Box. [you will be asked for your Haverford credentials to access the Box, but comments may be left anonymously]
During the 2020-2021 academic year (and beyond), Haverford Classics is committed to renewing and expanding anti-racist, inclusive, and equitable teaching practices. We acknowledge that the actions outlined below are only preliminary steps, and look forward to developing more extensive plans for the future of our department in conversation with students, alums, allied faculty, librarians, and other experts.
Actions
● This fall, the annual BiCo Classics Senior Seminar will focus its secondary reading on anti-racist and other socially just modes of scholarship. Students will engage with anti-racist work in the field, study ongoing efforts to support and advocate for diverse Classics students and scholars, and help develop resources for centering the work of BIPoC classicists. [status: planned fall 2020]
● In the past, courses whose primary focus was race, gender, or other aspects of identity were offered periodically as opportunities arose; this year, we commit to
regularizing these course offerings as stable, recurring elements of our teaching. In Spring 2021, we will offer the first version of a new course that we plan to make a permanent element of our Classics curriculum, “The Future of the Past.” [status: planned spring 2021]
○ As this course recurs in our regular two-year cycle of offerings, our faculty will each engage with different questions and topics related to a socially just vision for Classics.
○ Topics may include: concepts of race and ethnicity in the ancient Mediterranean; the history of slavery, or the works of authors who experienced slavery; histories of racism and anti-racism in classicizing education; BIPoC receptions of classical literature; Queer Theory in Classics; disability in ancient culture and in works of classical reception. We’d love to hear from students about topics within this framework they would be eager to study.
○ Prof. Farmer will offer the first iteration of this course as a 200-level CSTS class in spring 2021.
As we renew and reimagine our commitment to anti-racism, we plan to hold a series of events during the coming academic year to showcase and encourage anti-racist work and art in our field. More information on how to participate in these events will be circulated as the fall semester approaches.
● The faculty in the department will participate in a S pecial Session of READS:
Steps Towards an Anti-Racist Restructuring of Classics, a program organized by
Eos: Africana Receptions of Ancient Greece and Rome. Taking up Eos’ and Lauren Michael Jackson’s call to “get down to the business of reading,” Prof. Shirazi will organize and lead discussions of the two texts: Frantz Fanon’s “Concerning Violence” (from The Wretched of the Earth, 1961) and Margo Hendricks’ “Coloring the Past, Rewriting Our Future: RaceB4Race” (2019), within the Haverford community, before participating in the special sessions of READS on October 16th. Other courses in the department (including Prof. Farmer’s Senior Seminar and Prof. Silverblank’s “Beasts, Hybrids, and Giants: Confronting Monsters from the Past”) will feature these texts in the syllabus and seminar discussions, and the entire Bi-Co community will be invited to participate in these conversations. [status: fall 2021]
● Our annual Classics Marathon, to be held in October, will feature a work of classical reception by a Black artist. Texts currently under consideration include Derek Walcott’s Omeros and Wole Soyinka’s Bacchae: A Communion Rite. Our Marathon series offers in alternating years an all-day drop-in reading of a long ancient text such as Homer’s Odyssey or Apuleius’ Metamorphoses and a staged reading of a play or other shorter text. We decided last spring that as of fall 2020 we would start including examples of classical reception among these readings; this allows for greater breadth of cultural context and a greater variety of authorial voices. [status: fall 2021]
● Our Senior Majors’ Visiting Speaker this year will be Curtis Dozier (Vassar), director of the Pharos Project, which documents and combats white supremacist appropriations of the ancient past. Prof. Dozier was chosen by the participants of this year’s Senior Seminar, which will host his visit, as well as engaging in anti-racist readings leading up to it. Prof. Dozier’s talk and reception, which will be open to the community, will be held on Nov. 19th, 2020. [status: fall 2021]
● Prof. Shirazi will be co-organizing a workshop with Alessandro Giammei (Italian Studies, Bryn Mawr) on Zombie Philologies. The series, supported by a Mellon Tri-Co Seed Grant, will invite members of the Tri-co community: [status: beginning fall 2021 and continuing]
○ to actively engage with recent theoretical turns in literary and cultural studies, such as critical fabulation and queer temporality, to question the very aura of objectivity that philology has acquired in the last century;
○ to work together on developing a decolonized approach to philology and textual studies that responds to students’ frustration with the white affectivity and Eurocentric detachment of traditional syllabi on the canon.
● When Haverford faculty suggest speakers for the Classics Colloquium, we will take special care to seek out and recommend BIPoC scholars. [status: ongoing]
Haverford Classics has long sought to practice equitable and inclusive teaching, drawing on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, creating free digital resources and audio recordings for Classics students, and offering courses that center questions of identity and exclusion. Here are a few of our short-term goals for creating more equitable classrooms.
● Responding to students’ calls for better resources to support just and equitable research and teaching, we have begun work on a new bibliography focused on anti-racism in Classics. In consultation with our research librarians, we are working to develop this bibliography as a tool that will help students study: anti-racist work in Classics; classical reception by BIPoC artists; and scholarship by academics of color, particularly Black academics. Students in this fall’s senior seminar will assist with the formation of this bibliography; we will use our work to actively support and build on existing anti-racist research in classics, such as the “Black-Centered Resources for Ancient Mediterranean Studies” bibliography. [status: ongoing, begun summer/fall 2020]
● As a department, we commit to developing more equitable course syllabi.
○ Recognizing that structural biases often lead the work of scholars of color to be under-read or ignored, we will include the work of BIPoC Classicists in all syllabi of courses focused on secondary reading. [status: ongoing]
○ In courses (such as elementary language courses) that don’t emphasize secondary readings, we will address and contextualize depictions of enslavement, racism, misogyny, ableism, and other forms of violence and discrimination in our primary texts and textbooks. [status: ongoing]
○ To ensure that our syllabi achieve these standards, we commit to holding departmental syllabus workshops focused on questions of diversity and inclusion whenever new course proposals are submitted, and to revisiting existing syllabi to ensure they meet our evolving standards of equitable and anti-racist teaching. [status: ongoing, begin summer/fall 2020]
● Recognizing that student voices must be part of curricular reforms, and that students must be compensated for the work they do to help us improve our curriculum, we will continue to work with the BiCollege Teaching and Learning Institute to hire student consultants who can help us identify and remedy issues of inequity in our courses. [status: ongoing, planned 2021–22]
● We value the role that students play in the education of their peers and include Teaching Apprentices in our Elementary and Intermediate languages courses to better support student learning and communication. We have identified this as a locus where improved training of and cooperation among our TAs will benefit all constituencies. [status: ongoing]
● We understand that students’ experiences in our classrooms are shaped by complex, intersectional identities; our work towards anti-racist teaching practices must, therefore, be integrated with our other efforts to improve accessibility. We plan to continue expanding our initiatives for accessible teaching, including further incorporation of UDL principles in designing syllabi, producing audio recordings of translations of ancient literature, developing ancillary resources for those who are encountering an author, genre, or idea for the first time, and implementing course designs that foster student attainment of course goals (e.g. clear expectations, alternative grading modes, assignment choice, multiple paths for success, etc.) [status: ongoing]
These plans for the coming academic year must — and will — be only one step towards an anti-racist, equitable future for Classics. Looking further to the future, we plan:
● To support the concentration in African and Africana Studies; we will continue to offer courses that can be cross-listed with the program; if invited, we will actively engage in future conversations about the program. [status: ongoing]
● To continue to support efforts to develop institutional and curricular support for Transnational Studies. [status: ongoing]
● To refocus our goals for a departmental Film Series to feature films and filmed stage productions that address issues of race and discrimination. It has long been a departmental desire to hold more film screenings, in connection with courses but open to others and followed by discussion. Initial possibilities include Theater of War’s Antigone in Ferguson and Prometheus in Prison. [status: ongoing, spring 2021]
● To create more opportunities for our students and faculty to serve communities off-campus, especially communities of color. One initial hope is to pursue a recent invitation to work with Boys’ Latin of Philadelphia, a charter school focused on delivering classically-focused pre-college education to students from underserved communities. [status: ongoing, begun summer 2020, additional planning, 2020–21]
● To renew our series “Classics and Beyond,” a biennial residency at Haverford that features innovative and ethically engaged performance and scholarship in the field. This will provide a further venue for our students to engage with anti-racist work and with the scholarship of academics of color. [status: ongoing, next iteration 2021–22]
We are committed to creating a program that is accessible to all students, regardless of previous training or experience. Responding to advice received during the External Review (2019–2020) and student feedback, we plan to engage in sustained conversation about the name, tracks, and requirements of our program. Equity and access will be a focus during these discussions.
Actions:
● Consider the structure of and relationship between existing majors and minors
[status: BiCo conversation planned for 2020–2021]
● Consider the requirements of the existing and/or revised majors and minors, with particular attention to the nature of the language requirement [status: BiCo conversation planned for 2020–2021]
● Consider, in the context of program structure and requirements, the name of the department as well as of particular major tracks, bearing in mind the issues raised by the name “Classics.” [status: BiCo conversation planned for 2020–2021; survey of dept. and major names at peer institutions, completed by student employee, winter 2020] [#9]
● Regularize the inclusion of students in these conversations, including, for example, in our new planned Community Conversation program. [status: BiCo conversation planned for 2020–2021]
3. Student Support & Departmental Climate Support for students studying at Haverford [#14, 16] Actions:
● Create a departmental “How to Get Help” page, modelled on the course-based “How to Get Help” pages that most of our course websites have included since 2018–2019. This consolidated page, which has previously featured some internal and external resources (like LIFTFAR and Sportula), will present a more comprehensive set of resources for students of color and for all students interested in deepening their commitment to anti-racist work, including resources suggested by students and alumni, and we invite the community to continue helping us expand these recommendations. This expanded list will be featured on our new website, classics.sites.haverford.edu, and made available both to students in our classes and to the broader community. [status: launch summer 2020]
● Make visible the new departmental “How to Get Help” page within our courses and syllabi. [status: ongoing, launch fall 2020]
● Continue working to mentor students from underrepresented groups through existing Haverford programs, and commit to advocating for improvements to those programs based on student feedback and experiences.
○ We volunteer to serve as advisors through the Horizons Leadership
Institute, which supports “first-generation to college, low income, or from backgrounds under-represented in higher education.” Members of the department have participated in this program since its foundation in 2014. [status: ongoing]
○ We have actively sponsored and mentored students in the Mellon Mays
Undergraduate Fellowship program, which supports students from underrepresented groups in pursuing research and graduate school. [status: ongoing]
● Continue to work actively with Institutional Advancement to expand resources in this area. The department annual budget includes only a few hundred dollars in discretionary funds, which are all already devoted to student activities. When we receive (usually small but appreciated) gifts from alumni, we convert these into student grants. [status: ongoing] [#10-11]
The Department recognizes that our students remain vital members of our community even when they are engaged in academic and pre-career work away from campus. We commit to mentoring them during their planning process, to supporting them during their time away, to hearing feedback on their experiences when they return, and to deploying this feedback in subsequent mentorship and support.
Actions:
● Contact students while they are studying away from campus about their experience and inquire about potential support they may require [status: ongoing; begun for students with funding to study during the summer, students studying abroad, 2018–19; planned expansion to include personally-funded summer programs and activities]
● Conduct “Return Interviews” with students when they return to campus [status: ongoing; begun for students who returned from study abroad in fall 2019; planned expansion to include other programs and activities]
● Report the results of these interviews to members of the department and, as appropriate, generate actions for Departmental Action Plan. [status: ongoing; begun fall 2019]
As part of our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, individual members of the department have been seeking to further educate themselves on diversity and anti-racism and seek paths for active involvement. Over the past few years, faculty have participated in training for the Horizons Advising program, attended workshops on bias in the faculty search process, taken part in reading groups and internal college dialogues on racism, attended panels and workshops at conferences, and participated in the training organized by the group Academics for Black Lives. Among our plans for future education and training are these:
● The faculty in the department will participate in a Special Session of READS: Steps Towards an Anti-Racist Restructuring of Classics (See “Events 2020–2021” above for details).
● We will apply to bring to campus (in person or virtually if on-campus activities are curtailed by the COVID emergency) a Race Forward Equity Training workshop, in which Professor Ava Shirazi participated while at Princeton, and invite participation by all BiCo faculty studying the ancient past. [status: planned for 2020–2021]
● When Professors Farmer, Mulligan, and Shirazi will all next be in residence, we hope to take part in the TLI/Cantor Family Fund program for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching and Learning, in which faculty work with a small team of two or three student consultants and engage in a deep and sustained (semester-long or yearlong) exploration of excellence in teaching in that discipline. The Fund is designed to advance innovation and excellence in teaching and learning, and in particular, to support students from a wide variety of backgrounds. [status: planned application in fall 2022 for implementation in 2023] [#9]
We have established formal and informal mechanisms to mentor tenured, tenure-line, and visiting colleagues. Our weekly department meetings go beyond necessary administrative items and often feature conversation about new teaching or research methods or challenges that have emerged in our teaching or research. These lunches also include set times to present about research, allowing colleagues to try out new ideas and receive feedback as they develop articles and prepare talks. The Chair, in accordance with College policy, visits classes and offers annual feedback for junior and visiting faculty. [status: ongoing]
Actions
● In order that our observations may be not only supportive but multivocal, faculty will develop a practical plan to visit each other’s classes to observe, learn, and engage in conversation on different methods and approaches. [status: ongoing, planned launch in 2020–2021]
We appreciate and draw inspiration from Haverford’s traditions of shared governance and student-faculty conversation and collaboration. Introspection about our practices has made clear that, although conversations and collaborations have happened, our practice would be stronger and welcome more voices if it were regularized and expanded.
We will host a series of conversations (likely over lunch) about issues that concern, interest, or excite our students. One of the first of these conversations will focus on questions about the department’s name and major tracks. [status: ongoing; planned launch in fall 2020]
To parallel our process of encouraging student feedback within and about our courses, we will regularize a Departmental Suggestion Box for gathering feedback about the department and program [status: ongoing, planned launch in summer/fall 2020]
Since 2017, Haverford faculty have conducted exit interviews for majors and minors. We will continue these and will incorporate this feedback into our departmental planning and action.
Actions:
● Conduct personal exit interviews with senior majors and minors after final grades have been assigned [status: ongoing; begun 2017 for Haverford majors; expanded to minors, 2018; invitation extended to Bryn Mawr majors and provided a choice of faculty, 2019; majors only, 2020]
● Seek feedback specifically about how Classics-at-large and Classics-in-the-BiCo could become more open to students from diverse backgrounds. [status: ongoing, begun 2018]
● Report the results of these interviews to members of the department and, as appropriate, generate actions for Departmental Action Plan. [status: ongoing; begun fall 2017]
We are committed to the diversification of our department. With our recent hire (2019–2020), the department has reached its historical staffing level of three tenure-line faculty. But we are committed to expanding the department’s curricular reach and diversity through two paths:
1. our hiring of visiting faculty, who typically play a major role both in teaching and in the Bi-Co Classics community, and whom we work to support and mentor; [status: ongoing]
2. seeking out and forging innovative pedagogical connections, engaging with emerging areas of curricular energy, and proposing others that we hope may gain support for additional tenure-line faculty. [status: ongoing]
In any future searches, we will build on previous best practices, as set forth by the College and as further developed in relation to our field. Section B (Affirmative Action Hiring) of the Appendix on Hiring in our Faculty Handbook states the college’s commitment to the diversification of its faculty and provides guidelines for active recruiting, advertising in appropriate venues (such as The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education), and the inclusion of the Affirmative Action Officer at every stage of the search at which a decision is made whether to carry candidates on to the next stage or not.
In our most recent search, as before, we followed these procedures; we also described the position in as open a way as possible (no specific subfield required, interdisciplinary interests encouraged) and honed our basic requirements to appeal to candidates with a wide variety of academic backgrounds and interests. Candidates in this search were asked to explain how they would contribute to the diversification of the departmental curriculum and to describe their background in or plans for inclusive pedagogy and for mentoring in a diverse student body. We also implemented anti-bias procedures presented at the CITE workshop Professor Farmer has attended. Two of our four finalists were persons of color.
We will also bear in mind that it is occasionally possible for a department to request that it be allowed to carry out a targeted hire (without the usual processes) when a particular opportunity arises to invite to campus a candidate who would contribute to diversity. If we see (or can create) such an opening, we will pursue it.
Haverford searches include two students as full members of the search committee. These students read applications, participate in decision meetings, help host finalists, communicate regularly with students about the search, gather student feedback on finalists, and participate in consensus on all search committee decisions. Haverford and Bryn Mawr students provide feedback on teaching demonstrations, meal conversations, and public lectures. We also solicit and receive feedback on candidates from Bryn Mawr graduate students. Responding to comments in exit interviews conducted after the last search, we plan to have student committee members observe the teaching demonstration as well as the meal and lecture. We also propose in the interests of transparency to regularize meetings with students at the outset of the search process to ensure that they are fully informed and have an opportunity to express their goals and concerns for the search. [status: searches conducted 2017–18, 2019–20; implement regularized information sessions during next search]
Dear Math Majors,
On Monday, October 26th, Walter Wallace, Jr., a Black man, was killed by white police officers in West Philadelphia. We are saddened and angered by his death. The killing was the act of both people and institutions that continue to treat Black lives as if they do not matter. We watch in reverence as BIPOC students from the Haverford Women of Color House, Black Students Refusing Further Inaction, and the Black Student League have begun, fueled, and now are maintaining, being further joined by the Bryn Mawr Strike Collective, strikes across the BiCo to confront our own Institutions’ complicity with structures responsible for Mr. Wallace’s death and the continued oppression of students on our campuses.
On Wednesday, November 4th, we met with a number of you to specifically discuss the strike. We want to thank all of you for your participation in this meeting. We deeply appreciate hearing from those of you that shared your convictions. We acknowledge the anger and pain that leaves students no choice but to strike.
We recognize the sacrifices students are making by striking, and have heard the request for support from faculty. We want you to know that all math faculty support the intention of the strike, though we lack consensus on many crucial issues and how to respond to them. This makes it challenging to craft a single response from The Department. Below we give what we feel can truthfully be said as a collective in response to your demands sent on November 5th (which is copied at the end of this letter).
1. The cancellation of all classes (synchronous and asynchronous) and assignments until the end of the strike.
We did not reach departmental consensus on outright canceling of classes, so individual faculty members will continue to determine their own class meeting schedules. Please know that all math faculty members have good intentions. But each of us is choosing our own way to show support for the strike and its goals. Please check Moodle or email from professors teaching your courses for their individual responses to the strike.
2. The guarantee that no students or faculty participating in the strike will be subject to any academic or professional penalties.
We agree.
We reached departmental consensus in not penalizing striking students and faculty, academically or otherwise. We agree that syllabi and course policies will be adjusted to account for how much time remains in the semester if or when the strike ends. Faculty members intend to meet prior to the end of classes to hold each other responsible for having thoughtfully and equitably dealt with the adjustments made this semester and to inform pedagogical and content choices for the start of next semester.
3. The guarantee that when the strike ends, students will be consulted to determine the most humane way forward regarding lapsed and future assignments and assessments.
We agree upon this.
4. The continued support of the department for its students of color, particularly BIPOC students.
We agree.
Continued support is crucial. And so is finding ways to do better. Students currently rely heavily on individual faculty members for support. The Department recognizes that it must improve its structures, requirements, and policies so that specifically students of color, BIPOC, first-generation, and low-income students thrive. The department pledges to devote time and money to this end. As a first step, in the summer of 2020, the department hired an external consultant, Marta Esquilin, to advise the Mathematics Department on ways to make our learning environment feel affirming and inclusive to all students, but especially for BIPOC and for those from underrepresented communities within our department. You can read about Marta’s process at Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Activities.
Sincerely,
The Bryn Mawr Mathematics Department
[SENT TO THE MATH DEPARTMENT]
Dear Professor Traynor and the Bryn Mawr Math Department,
We–– the students of the math department–– are participating in the Bi-College strike led by the Haverford Women of Color House, Black Students Refusing Further Inaction (BSRFI), and the Black Student League (BSL). We are striking in solidarity with our Black and Brown peers at both colleges and their/our demands. We stand with our peers in combating anti-Blackness in the Bi-Co and beyond, and many of us have committed to striking until all the demands (HC)/demands (BMC) have been met. This strike is built upon the work that BSFRI did in coauthoring the Open Letter to the Bi-Co this past summer, and those demands remain largely unmet by Bi-Co administration.
We appreciate the efforts that some individual professors within the Department have already made to stand with students on this matter. To that end, we demand that the Bryn Mawr Math Department, especially the Chair of the Department, strengthen its stand with its students (many of whom are BIPOC), the Bi-Co, and the larger Philadelphia community that the Bi-Co profits off of. We demand that the Department release an official statement of solidarity. An example is the one released by the Haverford Department of Anthropology. We demand the Department commit, at least, to the following:
1. The cancellation of all classes (synchronous and asynchronous) and assignments until the end of the strike.
2. The guarantee that no students or faculty participating in the strike will be subject to any academic or professional penalties.
3. The guarantee that when the strike ends, students will be consulted to determine the most humane way forward regarding lapsed and future assignments and assessments.
4. The continued support of the department for its students of color, particularly BIPOC students.
We implore the Bryn Mawr Math Department to join us in the strike.
The Bryn Mawr Mathematics Department is aware that we need to engage in deep and sustainable work related to creating learning environments that feel affirming and inclusive to all students, specifically for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and for those from other underrepresented communities within our department.
Our department, similar to our larger society, is experiencing a great moment of reckoning, and issues of race, identity, and power are front and center. Central to this movement for change is the necessity for a serious focus on racial justice in every sector of our society. Within the Math Department at Bryn Mawr, we have decided to engage an external DEI (diversity, equity, & inclusion) consultant and social justice educator, Marta Esquilin, to help us engage in this evaluative process.
Before we can determine the most appropriate course of action to help create a more inclusive and affirming culture within the Mathematics Department, we must first unearth and identify the challenges and strengths that exist. To this end, Marta will be gathering experiences from current math students, majors, alumna, and faculty within the department. She will be gathering this data via confidential focus groups/listening sessions and confidential surveys. After all data has been collected, she will present us with themes and issues that emerged, as well as recommendations for next steps. We will share these themes with our Math community and enlist your feedback and participation in determining how to best address the issues that emerge.
Link to full letter from July 23, 2020
As part of the Mathematics Department’s ongoing efforts to educate ourselves about the history of race and racism in the U.S., we are also learning about the history of African Americans in the mathematical sciences. A great resource for this information is this summer’s webinar series on Mathematicians of the African Diaspora organized by the PRIME REU at Pomona College. Professor Erica Graham is one of the speakers in the series (links to YouTube videos of the talks are available at the site too).
Dear Math Students,
Black Lives Matter. We stand together with those across the country and around the world who condemn the murder of George Floyd. His murder is only the latest example of long-standing systemic racism and police brutality. We are outraged that these violations of human dignity continue to happen.
We acknowledge that many of us are largely unaware of the institutions and history of structural racism in America and the profound extent to which Black lives are affected by them. This ignorance perpetuates systemic and other forms of racism which continue to devastate Black people.
We have to do better. The math department commits to learning about the history of racism and oppression in the United States, to understanding how the associated structures are embedded within Bryn Mawr, and to changing these structures within our mathematics community so as to better support our students and colleagues of color. As part of this work, we will educate ourselves about anti-racist and inclusive pedagogies and incorporate these approaches into our ongoing departmental curricular revisions.
We welcome your feedback and suggestions. If you would like to communicate with us anonymously, you may do so at:
https://forms.gle/WceQCM3Wiqt8ucpk7
Sincerely,
The Math Department
Dear Biology professors,
On behalf of the Biology students, we first want to thank all of the Biology professors who have addressed concerns for the future state of their classes and have worked to not only stand in solidarity with the students, but to adjust and remain flexible in response to the strike (particularly those who do not have tenure because we understand the bravery this took). On Monday, October 26 Walter Wallace, Jr., was shot and killed by the police in Philadelphia. This affected many students on campus because it brought about another killing of a black person due to the injustice of our police system. We are committed to standing up against the injustice that has been happening on and off the Bryn Mawr campus and we support the strike happening in the BiCo. As Biology students, we are frustrated at the mixed responses received by not only the college as a whole, but by separate departments on campus, especially the mixed response from within our own department.
We understand that professors have specific lesson plans, curriculums, and worries about student performance during this time, but we believe standing in support of Black students is always more important. We would urge the Biology department professors to stand with us, the students, in support of the strike and racial justice. Below, we want to communicate our requests as Biology students for how the department could best support us during the strike and going forward this semester and year.
Action Items:
Collectively release a statement voicing your stance/support on the strike.
Host a Town Hall so that professors and students can talk about the strike, go over requests, etc.
Assignments
Put a pause on all assignments until the conclusion of the strike or make assignments not required to submit
In case professors are worried about student prep for grad schools or future classes, upload recorded videos so content is not lost for grad school purposes but do not test on this material (students can watch in own time over winter break/after strike)
No exams should be given at this time. Students participating in the strike are not completing exams or assignments until the conclusion of the strike.
Cancel all classes until the conclusion of the strike
After the strike ends small assignments initially due during the strike can be given new deadlines, larger assignments will need to be reevaluated so as to not overwhelm students post strike
Extend deadlines of assignments
Based on the grade that you hold in the class as of now, you can only improve (it can not go down because of participation in the strike)
Every professor should re-evaluate course syllabi
Increase grade weight of pre-strike work to allow for assignments over the strike to be canceled/deferred
Address the inequities in the department, specifically by altering the curriculum of the intro class
Give students the option to replace a lower grade average of one assignment with another one, similar to the policy that’s in the organic chemistry classes.
Grade with consideration of the fact that we are in a pandemic and a civil rights movement and it is incredibly difficult to learn right now.
Default 3.0 gpa for classes as of right now.
Make a statement of support declaring that professors should not be penalized by the administration for supporting the strike
Come up with a plan that supports senior seminar students
Extension for thesis proposal until the conclusion of the strike
Pause on all assignments without penalization from the department
We are asking for your support. Please think about the students being impacted the most during this time, especially Haverford students taking Bryn Mawr classes and POC on campus. We hope that you will consider these requests and stand with us. The rigor of Bryn Mawr’s STEM department will not be affected by cancelling classes and assignments, as the integrity of our education could never be compromised by a commitment to justice. However, the department's stance on this strike will be a defining moment now and for years to come. These are Actions Items that we have collectively discussed as biology students and we are open to having an active discussion with the Biology Faculty in the future.
Statements from other STEM departments in the BiCo:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KOvw0uy3L3iQNf4P9ZlZgfohmzI21B59Ct5x5RV216s/edit?usp=sharing
Sincerely,
Chinyere Udokporo, Houda Bouchouari
Chloe Nash
Isabella Ravaglia
Emma Yoder
Michelle Scuzzarella
Sa’De Black
Isabelle Finkler
Kass Wojcik
Erin Calloway
Jessica Calloway
Viktoriia Borodina
Roxy Vassighi
Calumina McCondochie
Frances Romero
Jocelyn Bravo
Emily Britt
Natalia San Antonio
Lucy Bruemmer
Amadea Bekoe-Tabiri
Junie Sok
Mayisha Rahman
Ilianny Grullon
Samantha Shaw
Sam Olivares-Mejia
Poppy Northing
Ani Dixit
Fen Walker
Sophie Philip (minor)
Joseph Stein (minor)
Elisa Kardhashi
Kyra Booth
Emma Ecker
Daniela Franco
Lucy Miller
Ariana Martinez
Vanessa Gitau
Lynn Chen
Jenna Margolis
Sophia Guerrero
Victoria McKeown
Angela Oh
Karen Guo
Claire Johnson
Rachel D’Emilia
Rebecca Li
Carlie Hansen
Logan Wallace Shepard
Shiraz Harel
Dana Caldwell
Emily Saks
Divya Sundararajan
Emily Nakamura
Rixzelle Romero
Lexi Boutchie
Elizabeth Kiely
Tillie Ripin
Jordan Ellis-Pugh
Abby Green
Artemis Bowman
Khushi Jaising
Camille Pastrana
Shaili Regmi