April 16, 2012
All-campus meeting held to discuss Spurzem letter and hate notes
In what many saw as an overdue gesture, President Carol Christ held a community forum at 4:15 p.m. in John M. Greene Hall to talk about the hate notes and the Anne Spurzem letter. To allow more students to attend, she cancelled athletic practices and urged academic and administrative offices to close as well. The president began the discussion with some opening remarks, then passed on the conversation to a panel of faculty members made up of Ginetta Candelario (Sociology and Latin American Studies), Donna Riley (Engineering), and Naomi Miller (English and Study of Women and Gender). Dean Mahoney and Dean Walters also spoke, but then they opened the forum up to student discussion. Tensions and emotions were running high. Some students even suggested that the residents of Parsons House be locked in until they sorted it out among themselves and someone confessed. Although the all-campus meeting allowed students, faculty, and administrators to voice their concerns, it was only a single step toward resolving the persistent issues under discussion.
From the Weaving Voices Archives oral histories, to be submitted to the Smith College Archives in Spring 2019.
[Last updated on October 20, 2018]