This is Part 2 of a two-part article. Read the first part here.
Activism is used by Wesleyan as a means of advertisement, made into a commodity
Police reports from April 11th
According to Middletown Police reports, Public Safety called the police on April 11th not once, but twice, once at 9:17 AM, and again at 2:16 PM, with no actual presence from the police occurring for the first call.
Many students, myself included, feel that Roth’s advocacy and authority on free speech and campus protest do not line up in reality given his record of activity concerning these topics at Wesleyan, using his perceived advocacy to both profit himself (such as the release of a book that addresses his advocacy for his brand of free speech), as well as Wesleyan itself. Let’s take a look at his and Wesleyan’s record in recent times.
Caroline Kravitz ’19 shared this information from Protecting Immigrant Families regarding proposed changes to America’s immigration policy and what you can do to support immigrant families. You can submit public comment at the link above before December 10 to support the effort to prevent this catastrophic rule change.
For more information, check out the flyer below:
“Janitorial workers provide essential labor in our homes, dorms, classrooms and athletic facilities. Our failure to see, support and organize with these workers must end.”
María with her grandchildren.
Some of you may have seen students tabling with petitions in Usdan or sharing a GoFundMe on social media in support of María Sarabia this week. Students for Custodial Workers has written this guest post to explain the conditions of custodial workers at Wesleyan and what you can do to help! Read below the jump for their post:
Wes is known for its history of activism. Rage update outlines all public activism that occurred on campus in the past academic year. It seems to have become an every other year sort of thing for us with our first article in 2014, our second in 2016, and now our third in 2018. All articles are definitely worth a read and although 2017 didn’t get an article, it was certainly a year worth remembering so I’ll leave some links to further reading in the end.
Rage update wouldn’t be complete without the words of alt, the author of our first rage update:
You’ve now arrived on campus, and we hope that you find your time here enriching and transformative. In that hope, we feel that it would be ill-advised to allow you to not have at least a foundational understanding of the things that have forced us as a community into dialogue, disagreement, and action.
This is not to scare you or to give you a negative impression of the University. However, we are certain that most if not all of you were told about the “passion” that Wesleyan students have and the issues that we care about on campus are at the forefront of those passions. While there is certainly no requirement to take an activist stance on any of these issues and it is in fact easy to sink beneath the radar on these issues and all the others not covered here, we would plead with you to be engaged in the community that you are now a part of.
Read this, ask questions, and reach out to students and faculty that have been here before you. We hope that as you begin your time here, you fully invest yourself as a community member committed to making Wesleyan as good as it can be for you and for those after you. Caring about Wesleyan does not foreclose critique on Wesleyan and as you read this, and other things like it, we hope you understand that too.
Questions about queer activism? Wondering what’s up with sexual assault? Curious about campus history?
Come join us for a teach-in and skill-share on recent activist history at Wesleyan.
We’ll give a brief tour through the now-updated activist timeline and have time for Q+A :)
Date: Wednesday, March 7
Time: 8-10 PM
Place: 200 Church
Facebook Event
Most of this is recycled from my old post
Guess who came to the good-ol’ M-Town right before Spring break? If you guessed your hallmate’s mom (because like, let’s be real, your hallmate needs an intervention), then you are very close. This weekend, a rather eclectic (lol) bunch of folks arrived on campus via sky dive (I wish).
The Board of Trustees is had the first of their meetings this year! If you ever forget when the meetings are, just think about the weekend before Wesleyan goes on break, and the Board of Trustees are likely meeting. Their next meeting will be in May around Reunion & Commencement.
Well, as this semester has already started off with some extremely valid frustration, I thought it would be appropriate that we reminded everyone who the Board of Trustees are, what their job titles are, and how you might be able to contact them. Turns out, their names and jobs are publicly available on the Wesleyan website, and their emails are too (on Wesconnect, via the ‘Networking’ tab). Thanks Zach for doing this first when students were frustrated about need blind being axed a couple years ago.
On Monday, posters like the one above were put up all over campus, including on most (if not all) senior house doors. The posters call for the removal of Daniel Handler ’92 as Commencement Speaker after repeated instances of racism and sexual harassment. They also call attention to the fact that Dr. Anita Hill, who is known for speaking out against workplace harassment, will receive an honorary degree (a lesser honor and a shorter speech) at the same event.
The poster also links to Wesleying’s Write-In: “Commencement 2018: Lemony Snicket, Anita Hill, and Silencing Women of Color in the Age of #MeToo” and a recent article in Pacific Standard by David M. Perry ’95 detailing Handler’s history of sexual harassment.
Wesleyan solicits donations from alumni year-round to support the many fundraising campaigns that keep Wesleyan afloat (but somehow still not need-blind…). Over the summer, I spoke with Cade Leebron ’14 about her own campaign for alumni to speak up about the many issues that students and alumni alike see at the school. She began Text Wes Back to collect actual responses that she and other alumni sent back when Wesleyan texted them to donate money to the school.
Read below the jump for the full interview.
Content warning: This interview discusses sexual assault.
“There has long been an inequality of opportunity within the film industry, and we know diversifying the film industry begins within our education at Wesleyan.”
On March 28, students from the University’s College of Film and the Moving Image released a letter, along with a list of signatures and testimonies, expressing dissatisfaction with aspects of Wesleyan’s Film Studies department. The letter called for systematic changes to the ways in which the department operates, including hiring three tenure-track professors (prioritizing women and POC), offering more diverse courses within the department, and reforming disciplinary procedures so that they are less reliant on “blanket threats” to drop students from the major or drop their theses.
The letter, which has been in the works since February, was a collaboration between a group of current film students – both majors and minors – as well as prospective film students. Before it was put into wide circulation on March 28, the letter was shared amongst students and alumni of the Film Studies department, along with a call for signatures and personal testimonies to present to the CFILM faculty. (From email circulation and tabling in Usdan, the letter received 175 signatures and eight accompanying testimonies.)
Read the full letter and testimonies after the jump:
