Last week, the No Limits Project was given a copy of the same document the editors of the S&B received. The contents of the document shocked and saddened us. As we saw at the open forum last semester and as this document shows, our community remains divided and mistrustful. Questions must be answered and action must be taken to assure something egregious as this does not happen again at Grinnell College. Only by increasing transparency and accountability between the administration, faculty and students can we rebuilding trusting relationships.
We, the No Limits Project, would like to underscore the lack of accountability at this institution between the rhetoric used for the marketing of the college and the reality on campus. We find a pressing need for the administration to respond to our demands. As this issue of the S&B shows, the hiring and firing practices of this College are not in-line with our core values. By responding to our demand for a full and independent review of staff hiring and firing procedures, the administration can start to work with the campus community to mend the problems that have risen and will persist due to a lack of transparency.
We do not think it coincidental that this lack of dialogue between the students, faculty and administrators comes at the same time so many of our stated commitments to our core values—social responsibility, diversity and, consequently, excellence in education—are being ignored. Reading the document reported on by the S&B has only strengthened our determination to meet with the administration to address our demands. We want Grinnell to be the institution it markets itself as. We hope all community members—students, faculty and staff—can help us work to meet that goal.
This is why we have invited President Osgood and all of the Vice Presidents of the College to meet with us in a public-fish-bowl style meeting open to the whole campus. While we welcome the opportunity to meet in person with the administrators to talk about our demands, the No Limits Project is meant to be a transparent dialogue and we refuse to have these conversations behind the closed doors of our administrators’ offices.