Around the 22nd of June, the Junior Fellows (students) and Senior Fellows (faculty) slated to be part of the Social Justice Residential College (SoJo) at Bucknell for 2023-24 were summarily informed that all SoJo courses had been cancelled due to low enrollments and the residential college as such would not exist. All traces of SoJo were soon wiped out on the Bucknell website. The faculty who taught in SoJo during the 2022-23 academic year wrote an open letter to the faculty to express their dismay and shock at this decision. The letter is reproduced in full below:
Social Justice College cancellation
Dear Colleagues,
We are deeply disturbed that all the Social Justice Residential College courses for 2023-24 have been cancelled. Two of the three current Senior Fellows (including one who is pre-tenure) will not be permitted to teach their foundation seminars at all; they are abruptly scrambling to reinvent their teaching schedules. The Junior Fellows are scrambling to find housing and employment.
It is particularly puzzling that the foundation seminars have been eliminated this year. Just a short while ago, we were all pressured to offer more foundation seminars because of unexpectedly high first-year enrollments. Some instructors, including one of the signatories below, were assigned a second foundation seminar for this reason. The administration is claiming that their decision to cut SoJo foundation seminars was taken because of low enrollments. However, at the time their decision was made, multiple other Residential College foundation seminars had been running with low enrollments — but only SoJo’s were cut.
This situation is not of SoJo’s making, but rather the product of misguided university choices and priorities. It also seems malicious. When foundation seminars in the residential colleges run into enrollment issues, they are typically resolved after discussions with Senior Fellows. Inexplicably this year, no one had the courtesy to consult with the affected faculty. This lack of transparency is disturbing. SoJo has historically served as one of the few safe spaces for marginalized and vulnerable students on our campus. What better way to stifle student activism than to silence the teaching of social justice?
This decision, quite frankly, undercuts and throws major doubt on recent statements from administration assuring us of Bucknell’s “commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.” If this university, as it professes, is invested in the dual goals of “an equitable Bucknell,” and “creating and nurturing a campus community that reflects our society,” then gutting a program dedicated to social justice education is a strange way to show it.
Meenakshi Ponnuswami, English, SoJo SF from 2018-23
Jennifer Thomson, History, SoJo SF from 2022-24
Chase Gregory, English, SoJo SF from 2022-24
Deepak Iyer, Physics & Astronomy, SoJo SF from 2020-21 to 2022-23.
SoJo faculty followed up the first meeting with the Provost and the Dean of A&S with the following message:
Dear colleagues,
We are grateful that Margot Vigeant and Karl Voss took the time earlier today to meet with SoJo students and faculty as well as several others who have been concerned about the abrupt cancellation of the Social Justice College. Students and faculty voiced heartfelt defenses of SoJo, arguing forcefully that SoJo is integral to the health of Bucknell’s most vulnerable communities.
Both Margot and Karl listened carefully and seemed concerned and engaged with the issues. They are strongly committed to reviving SoJo for the 2024-25 academic year and to advertising, popularizing, and strategizing about Res College enrollments next year, particularly with regard to SoJo.
However, it is less clear how we will move forward, so we write now with three specific suggestions:
1. We believe it is vital to reinstate the Social Justice College with its Foundation Seminars, common hours, Junior Fellows, and funding, even if the students no longer have the opportunity to live together.
The enrollment numbers may be low, but we believe that we should disregard those numbers this year. As the attached testimonials indicate, we are losing a vital resource for minoritized communities.
2. If it is absolutely impossible to reconstitute the College, the professors should be allowed to convert their Res College classes to regular Foundation Seminars. The Foundation Seminars are currently packed to capacity, and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t add two new sections. It costs us nothing.
3. In either case, alternative funding should be made available to our Junior Fellows.
Karl noted today that he was surprised that so many students, staff, and faculty had shown up in spite of the short notice and at a time when so many are off campus – a sign that this event affects our community deeply.
We have summarized the key points of our meeting below, and we are also linking the complete set of 60+ student comments that have poured in during the past 24 hours. Some are from students who were only “SoJo adjacent,” but who felt so close to the community that they were moved to respond.
We urge you to read this powerful document. It demonstrates the depth of SoJo’s impact on our campus and the enormity of what has been lost by the decision to cancel SoJo.
We note in particular that two of the comments are from incoming students:
· I’m an incoming freshman, and the SoJo residential college was one of the main reasons why I even accepted to enroll here. To me it was a representation of a genuine commitment bucknell had to fostering inclusion and equity.
· As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I was looking forward to having a safe space on campus where I could thrive and make changes with fellow Bucknellians. As an incoming first year, I have heard so many amazing stories about how SoJo has changed lives and how Bucknellians who have been a part of it have felt empowered and have made new connections. Us Bucknellians in marginalized groups have gone years for our whole entire lives feeling left out, marginalized, less than, and worthless in many situations. SoJo has been and was going to be a place where we could feel EMPOWERED, LOVED, and WORTHY. For Bucknell to take this away makes us feel less than. It makes us feel left out. All Bucknellians deserve to feel empowered, loved, and worthy.
What hurts most is being deeply disappointed by Bucknell BEFORE I even have stepped on campus as a First year. It hurts that a school that claims Diversity and Inclusion is important would take SoJo away from us. I’m deeply disappointed in Bucknell.
We hope that the appeals of these students will be heard and that this situation will be resolved quickly.
Sincerely,
Meenakshi Ponnuswami, English
Jennifer Thompson, History
Deepak Iyer, Physics
Chase Gregory, English
Summary of comments and suggestions offered by students, staff, and faculty during the meeting with Interim Provost Vigeant and Dean Voss on Friday, 7 July 2023:
· Speakers articulated that this decision removes one of the few safe spaces on campus for students who are nonwhite, queer, first generation, and/or working class.
· This decision removes one of the few safe spaces on campus for students who are politically minded to have important conversations about politics, activism, community building, and organization.
· Speakers emphasized that this decision not only influences how these students will find community at Bucknell through their classes, but also and perhaps more importantly how they find dorms where they feel safe living.
· Students expressed that dorm safety can be both mental and physical concern for minoritized students, and SoJo housing is one way of combating this concern—it is important to live in a place where you don’t feel threatened.
· Several speakers reiterated that this decision sends a message to minoritized students that Bucknell does not care about them, which stings particularly in the wake of the SCOTUS rulings.
· Speakers also pointed out that this decision sends a message that Bucknell actively discourages political activation and social engagement as a goal of higher education.
· Speakers were adamant that this decision directly opposes Bucknell’s professed goals of fostering a spirit of community justice, equity, and inclusion on campus.
· Involve staff in these decisions and announcements as well. As of right now, people who don’t have access to the faculty list-serve are forced to find out about these major decisions via the rumor mill.
· More spaces for minoritized students generally, but especially in the absence of SoJo.
· Better and aggressive promotion of ResCollege.
· Better housing for ResCollege students to make things more appealing for incoming students.
- Make ResColleges an “opt-out” rather than “opt-in” option.
The Provost sent the following email to faculty and staff via the Message Center after the first meeting that the Provost and the Dean of A&S held to discuss this issue
Dear Colleagues,
The Provost’s Office and Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences Office continue to meet with faculty, staff and students about the recent decision to pause the Social Justice (SoJo) Residential College* for 2023-24. I want to thank everyone who has shared their thoughts on this important topic.
To address some of your most immediate questions, I want to let you know that student preferences for SoJo-related Foundation Seminars filled less than a third of its seats. Students who preferenced SoJo seminars are being assigned to other Residential College seminars in which they indicated interest during their course registration. A small number of students will be placed in non-Residential College Foundation Seminars based on their registration preferences. Junior Fellows who had been assigned to SoJo are in conversation with Residential College leadership and alternative plans are in process. Seven Residential Colleges with other themes will run this year as planned.
At noon on Tuesday I’ll again be at the picnic tables between Rooke and the ELC. To reach colleagues who are off-campus or would prefer it, I’ll have drop-in Zoom office hours on Wednesday and Thursday this week that you can schedule using the link below. I am and remain committed to promoting the benefits of the Residential College experience and I hope to use some of our discussion time to continue to develop ideas for a return to robust enrollment in this high-impact program.
Looking forward to seeing you,
Margot
SoJo faculty responded with the following message
Dear Margot (cc: Karl),
Thank you for your update on the message center. We appreciate the continued conversation and your willingness to engage with this issue.
There are still several outstanding questions that remain. We hope that you and/or others involved in the decision making will address these questions directly during the next meeting, or via an email to the campus community.
We reiterate that the best solution is to continue running the Social Justice ResCollege this year. It is quite difficult to resuscitate a program after a year’s hiatus, particularly when the footprint of that program has been thoroughly scrubbed from the University’s physical and web presence. If that outcome is indeed impossible, we propose these solutions instead. Committing to these steps will materially establish the importance of the Res Colleges (SoJo in particular), maintain enrollment levels, and provide monetary support.
Outstanding questions:
- We are still perplexed about why this decision was made without consulting with the SFs who were going to lose their classes. Historically, enrollment issues have been negotiated in consultation with the co-Directors, Kelly Finley, and the Senior Fellows. Why was the decision made without SF input?
- Were options like combining three classes into two and running SoJo with two courses (especially to support our untenured colleague) considered? If so, why were they rejected?
- What happens to the money that the university will save by canceling SoJo? If the university simply expects to absorb it into something else, we propose a possible use below.
- The university routinely allows classes with as few as 3 or 4 students to run, understandably, since these are often “required” courses. Recent student testimonials make it amply evident that Bucknell desperately needs space where minoritized students can feel safe, and where they can engage in matters that are important to them. Is this not a sufficient “requirement” to merit enrollment exceptions?
- What admissions priorities have led to the steady decline in RESC enrollments, and what is the university doing to reverse this decline?
Solutions:
- Reinstate the canceled RESC sections as regular Foundation Seminars.
- Redirect SoJo funding towards other SoJo related programming (teach-ins, etc.) as monetary compensation for students, staff, and faculty. This should include the $10,000 stipends for the SFs and appropriate compensation for the JFs who participate in such programming. For the JFs, this compensation must be over and above any alternative positions they have been given at present.
- Allow all students who stated SoJo preference to continue to live together, and support one extra RA position for that particular Hall, chosen from among the SoJo JFs who lost their jobs.
- Support a SoJo related trip for any students on campus that might wish to go on such a trip.
- Provide support in the way of space and food specifically for minoritized students to engage socially with each other and find safe spaces for conversation and organizing.
- As a long term solution to the difficulty with hiring JFs, make JF compensation equivalent to RA compensation (this point has come up for years, but no change has been made, and every year we lose talented JFs to RA positions).
- Reinstate the website portion linking to the “Social Justice Residential College” and all relevant information, clearly noting that it is on pause for 2023-24 and guaranteeing that it will resume for 2024-25.
Again, we appreciate the conversation, and we hope that you and others will do the needful to materially establish Bucknell’s stated support for diversity and inclusion