Tag Archives: Mike Whaley

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Write-Ins and All Campus Email: Wesleyan Responds to Federal Proposal on Defining Gender

Editor’s Note: This post contains references to transphobia/trans-erasure. If you are upset or disturbed by this news and need support, please reach out to CAPS at (860) 685-2910 and alert the CAPS staff you are in need of a same day appointment. If you are unsure if your issue is a “crisis,” please contact CAPS to discuss.

Wesleying aims to provide a safe(r) space for trans voices, and we are very willing to listen if you feel there are things we can be doing better towards this goal.

Cover Photo from the Trans at Wes Facebook page

Upon returning from Fall Break, students were greeted with an email from Interim VP for Equity and Inclusion Debbie Colluci and VP for Student Affairs Mike Whaley about the federal proposal on defining gender. This proposed federal policy would eliminate protections for trans and gender non-conforming individuals under Title IX, which has in recent years been one of the sole policies guaranteeing trans and gender non-conforming (GNC) people rights within institutions like the university.

In the email, Colucci and Whaley attempt to quell fears about trans and gender non-conforming students losing protections by pointing to Connecticut State laws and University Policy which prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender, gender identity and/or gender expression. However, not everyone at Wesleyan lives in Connecticut full-time, and there are countless trans and gender non-conforming people in our wider community who don’t have the protections of the university, not to mention all of the trans/GNC folks who live in much more hostile environments.

We reached out to some trans/GNC members of the Wesleyan community to share their thoughts and feelings on the matter. Given the intent of the federal policy to literally erase trans and gender non-conforming people’s identities, we wanted to make sure we amplified trans/GNC voices in this post.

If you are trans/GNC and have thoughts or feelings you’d like to share (on this or any topic), please email them to staff[at]wesleying[dot]org and we can post them here at Wesleying! These can be published as anonymously or with your name, depending on your comfort level.

Read on for responses from members of the trans/GNC Wesleyan community, along with the full text of the email, below the jump:

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Tipbox: Decaf PSL?!?!?

Now that it’s definitively autumn (which apparently means pouring rain all the time), it’s officially Pumpkin Spice Latte season! And it’s not just millenials/gen z college students who get to enjoy this sweet autumnal beverage.

Our illustrious former managing editor wilk wrote in to the tipbox on Friday morning, and we just had to share it here:

“Dean Mike Whaley just ordered a DECAF PUMPKIN SPICE LATTE WITH SKIM MILK. IN PI CAFE. DECAF Psl wtf”

Now, we’re not here to coffee-shame anyone, and we know that the PSL gets a bad reputation from people who hate things that women like, but seriously, who gets a decaf PSL at 10 AM???

Anyways, here’s your reminder that you can always write in to the tipbox or email staff[at]wesleying[dot]edu with any weird/wacky/wild campus happenings!

 

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WSA, Administration, and Students Respond to White Supremacist Posters

Earlier today, I received a tip from a friend that yesterday (April 23), a group of older white “protesters” were demonstrating in the 100 block of Washington Street (between High Street and Main) around 2-3PM, and were displaying signs with messages like “White America is the real America.” After I updated today’s post with that information, Wesleying received several anonymous tips confirming that there was indeed a white nationalist demonstration on Washington Street yesterday afternoon.

Those submitting the tips said that they overheard the group of white nationalist demonstrators planning an “anti affirmative action” demonstration outside of the Office of Admission at 9PM tonight. But that’s not exactly how it panned out.

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Beyond Scott Backer: Accountability at Wesleyan in the Sexual Misconduct Judicial Process

This article has been the collaborative effort of kitab, Maya, and wilk.

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Last night, the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe published the latest installment in their “Private Schools, Painful Secrets” series detailing New England private schools’ repeated mishandling of reports of sexual misconduct and assault involving administrators. The Globe article, titled “Educators accused of sexual misconduct often find new posts,” exposed more explicitly that one of these administrators turned out to be Wesleyan’s own former Associate Dean of Students, Scott Backer.

The Globe team focuses on how the lack of public accountability at private schools allows offenders to “rewrite their pasts,” going on to hold positions at other institutions. Administrations keep quiet to avoid scandal, more concerned with image than the wellbeing of their own and other students. The article makes little mention of our own administration, however.

Interested in structures of accountability at Wesleyan, we looked into the timeline of Backer’s employment and his role in the institutional structures already in place for reporting and adjudicating sexual misconduct. What we found suggests that there are very few processes by which student and faculty complaints about administrative conduct can be heard or taken seriously.

That Wesleyan employed an offender for eight years–despite accounts from students that he was not doing his  job properly–and then failed to be transparent about his “departure” from the university is an example of a broader pattern. The problem is larger than Scott Backer.

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Psi U Suspended From All Social Activities Through 2015

Psi U

The all-male residential fraternity Psi Upsilon has been placed on probationary housing status and suspended from all social activities through the end of 2015, according to an all-campus email today from President Roth and Vice President for Student Affairs Michael Whaley. 

These new sanctions come as a direct result of two reported sexual assault cases against Psi U—one of Wesleyan University’s three all-male residential fraternities, and one of five total Greek residences, on campus—with the first incident occurring at an “unregistered pledge event” in spring 2011, and the second in the spring of 2013. The second case is detailed in a lawsuit filed in March 2014, currently pending against Psi Upsilon, the Wesleyan Xi Chapter, and several Psi U members (but not against the University itself), that asserts negligence on the part of the defendants. The perpetrators in both cases, according the University, were “dismissed from the University after being found responsible for sexual assault.”

Although the email acknowledges that many or all of the current fraternity members were not present at the time of either assault, the University believes that “some sanction of the fraternity is appropriate,” and the resulting decision is “consistent with our policies to support survivors, punish assailants and change the culture so as to eliminate elements that lead to sexual assault.” This action follows a busy semester of changes to and increased oversight of Greek life on campus, including the announcement that the Beta Theta Pi house would be off-limits to students for the 2014-2015 academic year. The entirety of the email has been reproduced below.

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“No More Freshman Pledges,” University Tells Greek Organizations

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Following Monday’s announcement that Wesleyan’s single-sex residential fraternities (Psi Upsilon, Delta Kappa Epsilon, and theoretically Beta Theta Pi) must fully coeducate within three years, the University has already taken steps to enforcing this policy—but with new requirements affecting all of Greek life on campus. Beginning this semester, all Greek organizations are prohibited from taking freshman pledges.

In an email to residential Greek organization presidents on Tuesday, but which was only today brought to the attention of non-residential organizations (reproduced below), Dean Mike Whaley discussed the hiring of a new Greek Advisor and listed additional “safety measures” that now must be put into place by all Greek organizations on campus. The residential Alpha Delta Phi and Eclectic Societies are impacted, as well as the non-residential fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi (presumably Chi Psi, too) and non-residential sorority Rho Epsilon Pi.

Most notably, the University announced the elimination of “rush/pledging of first-year students,” starting immediately. Under this change, no students will be allowed to join Greek organizations until at least their sophomore year. Outside of frosh, rushing/pledging will continue as planned. In an email to Wesleying, Whaley clarified that “We are not eliminating rush/pledging this year. We are implementing a restriction on first-year students rushing/pledging during their first year on campus. Many institutions have a similar restriction.”

Princeton University passed a policy prohibiting freshman pledging in 2011, which began implementation in the fall of 2012. California Polytechnic State University did so in 2010, following the death of a freshman in an initiation ritual.

“The rationale, in part, is to allow frosh to get established with their academics and the campus prior to rush/pledge activities,” Whaley said. “Frosh can also be quite susceptible to peer pressure so we hope to reduce the possibility of hazing activities by implementing this restriction.”

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A Decade Without Chalking, Part Five: An Interview with Dean Mike Whaley

Follwing a portraiture chalk project and guest post by Ross Levin ’15, our five-part retrospective on the Chalking Moratorium wraps up.

One Friday morning in October, I trekked across campus to Dean Mike Whaley’s office to talk about a chalking controversy that took place about a decade ago. The previous weekend, two students had gotten into a physical confrontation with President Roth for chalking on Wyllys Avenue during Homecoming. A few hours after chatting with Dean Whaley, I took part in a massive legal chalk-in on Church Street sidewalks as midday traffic cruised by. Dave Meyer strolled by and tried to confiscate the chalk. We explained that the sidewalks are Middletown property. He continued on his way.

Institutional history has a funny way of working in cycles, and Dean Whaley, who arrived at Wes in 1997 and was Dean of Students in 2002, probably knows this better than anyone. Surprisingly, Whaley told me that he loved the queer chalking when he first arrived at Wesleyan. He also mentioned that President Bennet specifically reached out to him, an openly queer administrator, for advice. But unlike the former students I interviewed, Whaley framed the conflict primarily in terms of a hostile work environment. “The problem was, OK, you don’t like the ban, we get that,” Whaley said of the protestors. “But how do we resolve this hostile work environment?”

Was the answer to adopt some vague notion of “community standards”? Or geographic boundaries for chalking? Or an end to the anonymity? Or ought the Wesleyan community realize, as Professor Potter argued, that “no one has the right not to be offended”?

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Happy Spring Break!: Dean Mike Whaley and Your Mom

So, 2 days ago an all-campus email was sent out by Dean Mike Whaley imploring the student body to cease the annual athletic contest and shit-show rodeo that we know as Tour de Franzia.

This is all dandy and fine; the vice president of student affairs is reaching out to us to address to something that he is very concerned about. And then he sends this email to our parents:

“Dear Wesleyan Parent or Guardian,

We need your help.  I am forwarding to you the message (below) that I sent to all students yesterday.  The so-called “Tour de Franzia” has surfaced at Wesleyan in recent years and it has been fraught with problems.  It has been impossible for us to identify the students who organize the event because it is publicized and promoted via an anonymous Facebook account.  We need your help in talking with your student about the very real dangers associated with the event.  I hope you will help us to discourage participation in this dangerous activity.

Many thanks,
Dean Mike Whaley”

So, when you go home today or over the weekend or whenever you do this break, do expect to answer some questions and provide some descriptions of wet, sticky nights running around as Chewbacca. And make sure to make note of the fact that “Tour de Franzia” is actually, above all else, a fun old pun.
Happy Spring Break!
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Beta: Beginning of the End?

Seems like the administration is really flexing its muscles this time around. Fresh from my inbox:

Dear Students:

I write to notify you of a revision to Wesleyan’s residency requirement designed to clarify the University’s rules concerning off-campus housing. In brief: beginning Fall 2011, Wesleyan students will be prohibited from residing in — or using for social activities — houses or property owned, leased or operated by private societies that are not recognized by the University. You can find the revised policy online at http://www.wesleyan.edu/studenthandbook/residency.html

Students found to be in violation of this policy will be subject to disciplinary measures by the University, including suspension.

President Roth asked for this policy revision to address the problematic issue of having residential organizations that appear to function as Wesleyan entities yet have no Wesleyan oversight. DKE, Psi U, and Alpha Delt are recognized as part of program housing and are thus not affected by this change. This revised policy would, however, have major consequences for Beta which has chosen to not participate in program housing and is therefore not recognized by the University.

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