On November 30, the president of the Self-Government Association (SGA) of Bryn Mawr College announced via email that the upcoming SGA meeting, on Sunday December 1, would be an open forum dedicated to discussing “concerns and grievances” of students surrounding the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
In the email, Bryn Osborne, on behalf of the SGA Executive Board (E-Board), stated, “We think it is important to hold space for all students to come together to discuss our concerns and work together to make our community a safer place for all students. This will include brainstorming topics and suggestions that will then be brought to administration”.
The very next day, however, another email from the SGA E-Board was sent to the community announcing that the meeting had been canceled, saying “after talking to our administrative advisors and hearing from various community members, the decision has been made to cancel our Sunday open forum SGA meeting…We want to acknowledge that many have felt distressed by our holding of an open forum, and that many others will feel distressed by its cancellation. We want to reaffirm that our goal and intention as an SGA E-Board is always to provide space for student voices, liaise between students and administration, and serve the entire student community”.
Alternative Meetings
In response to the cancellation of the SGA meeting, members of both Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) took to Instagram to covertly advertise a newly, independently, planned meeting which would now take place on Sunday. There were no official messages posted to the permanent feed of either group’s Instagrams, but rather a simple message shared on people’s stories. The message was spread by word of mouth, or word of Instagram, and over 100 people showed up to Dalton 300 at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday for the gathering. All students were asked to deposit their phones to one location in the room to ensure the confidentiality of all involved parties.
Students in the meeting worked together to form a list of grievances and action items. Based on this list, a document, titled Bryn Mawr Students’ Collective Grievances and Action Items, was drawn up by a core group of students from both SJP and JVP. The document was then further revised at a Tuesday December 5 open forum meeting in which over 50 people were in attendance.
On Wednesday December 6, the document was distributed to the community on SJP’s Instagram. By Thursday, it was reported by SJP that over 400 individual people and 35 clubs had signed the document, including over 350 current students and two faculty and staff members.
Administration Response
“The Grievances and Action Items” were presented to leadership within the College on Friday December 8. Later that same day, President Kim Cassidy, along with the Dean of the Undergraduate College, Karlene Burrell-McRae, and the Dean of Student Life, Tomiko Jenkins, sent a message in response to the school, titled, “Creating a Path Forward.” The message read:
“…Over the past few weeks, we have engaged in several good-faith efforts of dialogue with student leaders of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), in which they have shared their concerns. These conversations have prompted actions on our part and a commitment to further conversation. A few examples include providing financial support for educational programs and workshops and co-hosting an informational session with Brooke Jones, the College’s Chief Investment Officer, in the Spring. Therefore, we were somewhat surprised to see this new and expanded list of requests and concerns.
We are deeply committed to supporting our students and to ensuring that they can pursue their studies in the classroom and beyond. These two commitments guide our actions. With these things in mind, our goal as a campus community in working together is to move toward dialogue that advances actions for the good of our entire student body in all of its diversity.
We are also committed to engaging students within a spirit of dialogue and action. However, progress as a community toward meaningful levels of understanding cannot be accomplished if there remains an approach to change that involves unilateral insistence and a set of actions that neither realizes the work, compassion, and commitment of so many staff, faculty, and students since October 7th, nor the institutional constraints we face as a College. Dialogue, compromise, and understanding are all extremely necessary during challenging times.
The dehumanization of both Palestinian and Israeli people in the conflict in Gaza has created indescribable harm and pain. We are asking us as a campus community to move forward with our activism and to remember that all of us are people – those with whom we agree, disagree, fellow students, faculty, staff, and members of administrative leadership.
As an educational institution, we must be ever-focused on supporting student learning, creating environments where all students can have the space to learn and grow. We are eager to continue to listen and learn more about the ways student experiences have been impacted by the current crisis. And we look forward to discovering solutions together.
It is through collaboration across divides that we will move forward and find common ground, and we urge everyone to hear differing perspectives so that we can move ahead together as a community, centering ourselves in openness, compassion, and empathy for one another.”
Big Cheese
Leadership also responded at Big Cheese, the semesterly open forum event where students can ask questions of college leadership, to inquiries related to the Israel-Hamas war and the situation in Gaza, as well as the cancellation of the SGA meeting.
In late October, an incident occurred surrounding the posting policy of Bryn Mawr’s campus. Students had posted flyers in support of Palestine around campus which were subsequently taken down as they were deemed to have violated the college’s posting policy. This subject arose at Big Cheese and President Cassidy explained some aspects of the policy. She clarified that name and contact information has to be on anything posted on school grounds in order to make it possible for people to engage in conversations surrounding the subjects being posted about.
Cassidy further explained that literature can only be posted on certain spaces around campus, mostly bulletin boards, because that creates spaces of rest where people know they will not encounter such items. She also pointed out that a lot of the rules about posting are designed to protect the “physical plant” of the College, such as the the walls, as well as the staff who are thus required by the policy to clean up.
President Cassidy also explained the College’s policy for releasing institutional statements on world affairs. She said, “I think long before October 7 we have been trying to move away from making institutional statements and have been moving towards institutional actions,” and pointed out that the College has to consider all students. She specifically mentioned the fact that there is a possibility of the College isolating certain people by making statements, which is why they are “moving towards actions.” This explanation was in response to the questions students have been raising since October 7, regarding why the College had not released a more specific response to the killings in Gaza.
Cassidy emphasized the importance that she and other leadership see in holding dialogue surrounding world events. When asked how students could best engage with leadership on such topics, she discussed the benefit of students and College leadership working closely together. She explicitly stated, “What is not helpful is receiving a set of demands”.
In reference to some of those demands, various administrators pointed out that some couldn’t be resolved, at least in the way the document wished them to be, due to things such as legality or established College rules. For example, the provost, Timothy Harte, said, “I can’t, as provost , require faculty to give extensions, I have encouraged them to do so.” This comment was seemingly in reference to the demand, “We call on the President, Deans, and Provost to offer and improve Academic Flexibility…making clear to faculty that academic flexibility must be provided in ALL classrooms and offered to ALL students…[and] offering universal extensions”.
One student inquired into why the SGA open forum was canceled, specifically considering the fact that college leadership had made it clear that they encourage dialogue and conversations. Many students believe that the SGA was pushed by administrators to cancel the meeting. Tomiko Jenkins, the Dean of Student Life and a co-advisor of SGA, remarked, “My experience was not that SGA was pushed [to cancel]…There wasn’t a push to cancel but more of a dialogue surrounding conversations needed at a time”.
The final question of Big Cheese was, “is using the word genocide taking a side?”, which President Cassidy chose not to answer. She said “I think I’m gonna pass…I’ve said what we are trying to do”.
The meeting concluded in silence.
