Campus community speaks out on the changes to campus following April protest
By Brad Butterfield
Significant and lasting changes have come to campus in the wake of the pro-Palestine protest this April. Following the protest’s conclusion, multiple high level university employees resigned, nearly tens of thousands were spent on security cameras, and a new campus locking procedure was outlined, but then not carried out as described. In August, a groundbreaking CSU system-wide Time, Place, and Manner (TPM) policy was released, which has resulted in ongoing and spirited dialogue on the topic of free speech on campus.
Campus locking plan… or not?
A May 21 university email stated that most buildings would be locked most of the time. Students would need key cards to access buildings, even during normal business hours, the email said. The plan, which was not put into place as described, punctuated a series of administrative decisions which left some faculty frustrated with leadership decisions and communication.
“The free mobility of people in spaces is a huge part of the joy of things, which is chemistry students talking to communication students talking to faculty in the anthropology department,” said Maxwell Schnurer, chair of the communication department. “And that notion that you would imagine the constituency that you serve as a threat, and that you would need to make sure that only authorized people were in particular spaces at times, is a sad failure of the university.”
According to James Woglom, chair of the faculty senate, the campus locking plan arose from a period after the protest that was marked by a distinct lack of trust between university decision makers.
“I think we were in a space in which multiple constituencies on campus had a deep level of distrust in each other,” Woglom said. “And not to say that we have healed that mistrust, but I do think at that time, it was another in a series of actions taken without shared governance and without a sense of an understanding of what our campus needed.”
According to a May 30 university email, the locking plan had been in the works, “for some time,” and did not stem as a direct result of the pro-Palestine protest.
The walking back of the locking plan came after considerable conversation and advocacy from both students and faculty, according to Woglom.
The campus locking plan is now “on hold,” according to Aileen Yoo, Director of News and Information.
On May 13, the university spent $29,367 on security cameras, according to public records. The purchase was not a direct response to the protest, but, “added a sense of urgency,” to an already formed security plan for campus, according to Yoo.
Extended sabbatical, transition, retirement, resignation
Multiple high-level university employees have resigned following the April protest. Peter Cress, who was interim chief of police during the protest and Tom Jackson Jr. who served as president resigned over the summer. Also noteworthy is the resignation of Frank Whitlach, a 17-year employee of Cal Poly Humboldt, who headed the university Advancement Division prior to resigning and embarked on an, “extended sabbatical,” according to a university press release dated June 7. Additionally, Molly Kresl, who was associate dean of students, resigned following the protest under undisclosed circumstances. Both Kresl and the university declined to comment on the circumstances surrounding her resignation from Cal Poly Humboldt. Public records related to the matter were supposed to be released on Oct. 18, but have been delayed.
While some in the campus community see Jackson’s resignation as a victory, many feel the opposite way regarding Kresl’s departure.
“I don’t think losing Molly was a super great thing for the university,” said Sara Jaye Hart, chair of the department of history. “That’s a big bump, you know. But losing Jackson was… you know, that’s a success.”
System-wide Time, Place, and Manner
A first of its kind, system-wide CSU TPM policy was released by the chancellor’s office on Aug. 15. The new TPM policy allowed each university the opportunity to adjust the policy to fit individual campus needs in the form of addendums. The summer release and lack of collaborative conversation in development of the system-wide policy frustrated many faculty members. A lawsuit filed by the California Faculty Association alleges that the chancellor’s office violated the Higher Education Employee-Employer Relations act during the creation of the new TPM policy.
“[Mildred Garcia] can’t just create a policy that affects our work without meeting and conferring with us,” said Tony Silvaggio, interim president of the California Faculty Association, Humboldt.
Regardless of the lawsuit, the top-down approach to governance across the CSUs has disappointed some campus leaders in Humboldt.
“It has a hierarchical feel to it,” Woglom said. “It feels imposed. It feels potentially oppressive, just by it being something that wasn’t made by us and was applied to us.”
The new TPM policy “obviously fails,” said Schnurer, who added that policies like the new TPM aren’t an effective way of preventing people from organizing.
“The most stringent laws in the most repressive states don’t prevent people from expressing themselves when they reach a critical point of deprivation,” Schnurer said. “It just kills the small parts of a university where, honestly, we should be talking deeper about some subjects, and student protesters bring attention to issues that the university might never perceive.”
The TPM policy’s release provided $75,000 in one-time funding for each university to aid in educational programming regarding the new TPM policy.
“$75,000 while we have student tuition and fees go up, we are cutting classes and faculty,” Silvaggio said. “It’s really disturbing.”
At a TPM presentation on Oct. 3, Chrissy Holliday, vice president for enrollment and student success, emphasized that policy is largely the same as the previous TPM policy which existed at Cal Poly Humboldt.
“We took existing policy, procedures, all of that, and pulled it into the addendum framework that the system gave us,” Holliday said.
Regardless of its similarity to the old policy, many of the changes in the new TPM policy have concerned the campus community. Under the new TPM policy, Chief of Staff Mark Johnson will serve on the newly created Free Speech Response Team (FRST), which currently has 13 other members.
“It’s highly problematic that his name is on it,” Silvaggio said, noting that the faculty overwhelmingly voted no-confidence in Johnson due to his handling of the protest. “Both [Johnson] and the president’s decision to deploy law enforcement against student demonstrators resulted in direct physical harm of students and members of our campus community.
The FRST is tasked with implementation and enforcement of the new TPM, while the newly created Community Engagement Team (CET) is designed to de-escalate through conversation.
“They are purely there to help maintain a safe and calm environment and to intervene and to try to have calming conversation,” Holliday said.
Holliday explained that the CET will receive specific training in handling protests. The effectiveness of the CET remains to be seen — and some are skeptical.
“I think having a team that says, ‘Oh, we’ll rush somebody over to listen to your complaints, you don’t need to protest,’ you know, kind of misses the point to a certain degree,” Schnurer said. “If it’s left in the hands of administrators, it’s going to be the same situation as we saw last spring.”
According to Silvaggio, the faculty interest in the CET stemmed from a lack of trust in the administration’s ability to safely handle protests.
Whatever its imperfections, the TPM policy change did ignite a campus-wide conversation regarding freedom of speech and of assembly.
“The fact that it’s engaged, as many people are in conversation about what free speech looks like and how to police … that is awesome,” Hart said. “It doesn’t mean it was rolled out perfectly or even particularly well, but it still has an unintended consequence of increased engagement, and that’s good.”
This article is the third of a three-part protest follow-up series.