A Statement of Values and Expectations for Community Discourse by the Babson Faculty
The letter below is a statement of values and expectations for community discourse that the Faculty Senate requested be forwarded for signature to all full-time and part-time faculty members. This letter is one part of our attempt to respond to the events both on and off-campus after the election last Tuesday. It was distributed to the faculty late Sunday, November 13, and to date, it has over 200 signatures, with participation increasing. It will continue to be updated over the next few days with additional faculty signatures as they are received.
To: The Babson Community: Students, Parents, Alumni, Staff, President, President’s Cabinet, and Trustees
From: The Babson College Faculty
In light of recent events in our country, the rise of insensitive and aggressive behaviors by members of our community on our campus, and the shocking affront to members of the Wellesley College community, the faculty of Babson College feels the need to remind everyone who we are, what we expect, and what Babson College stands for. Recent events demonstrate that we still have a long way to go to fully meet these expectations.
When interacting with one another, we expect everyone in our community to display:
- Mutual respect for differences,
- Honest and respectful discourse,
- Empathy towards others,
- An open mind to the concerns and experiences of others,
- A commitment to creating and maintaining a safe environment, and
- The courage to speak up when others are violating community values.
Central to Babson College’s mission is the promotion of diversity and inclusion. In the face of the current discourse around our country, we stand in solidarity with our alumni who continue to actively embrace this value and sorrowfully acknowledge those who have been negatively impacted by the current discourse. Given the highly disturbing reports that significantly harm our efforts towards diversity and inclusion, we strongly affirm that aggressive behavior intended to hurt others in any way is inherently wrong. The racist rhetoric, intimidation based on identity, and other demeaning ways in which some students are reportedly treating each other must end immediately. Regardless of personal point of view, political stance, race, gender, religion, or identity, it is imperative that we create an environment in which all members of our community feel safe and all members feel that they belong at Babson. In addition to being a general moral obligation, these guarantees of safety and belonging are vital to the core mission of academic communities to promote the most vigorous discussion, debate, and growth.
As elaborated in Babson’s new Academic Master Plan, we, as the faculty, are committed to addressing these challenges by working together towards a truly diverse and inclusive campus. We had already begun new efforts towards this goal and are now working to deepen these commitments. We are emphatic that we must all treat one another with respect, civility, honesty, and open-mindedness, reflecting both our moral responsibilities and our academic mission. We look forward to strong action by President Healey and her cabinet to make clear to students, alumni, and parents the seriousness of upholding these values and our lack of toleration for violations of community standards. Above all, at Babson we need to be better, and we can be.
In this difficult time, we need to demonstrate leadership and to set a positive example. Let’s start together, right here and right now.
Barbara Alexander
Abdul Ali
Elaine Allen
Meghan Allen
Marty Anderson
Ellen Argyros
Weerapat Go Attachot
Nestor Azcona
Jennifer Bailey
Lakshmi Balachandra
Robert Barry
Stephen Bauer
Michael Bayer
Lauren Beitelspacher
Bret Bero
Jennifer Bethel
Gaurab Bhardwaj
Shay Blanchette
Amy Blitz
David Blodgett
Bob Bonnevie
James Bradford
Sandy Bravo
Candida Brush
Kevin Bruyneel
Elizabeth Bryson
Bruce H. Bumpus
Cary Bussema
Tom Buttacavoli
Joanna Carey
J Mark Carr
Bill Casey
Sandra Castaldini
Eric Chan
Raymond Chang
Frederic Chartier
Rick Cleary
Peter Cohan
Allan Cohen
Stephen Collins
William Coyle
Victoria Crittenden
Alia Crocker
Michael Daley
Tom Davenport
Ryan Davies
Julie De Zutter
Stephen Deets
Ken Demma
Anirudh Dhebar
Jon Dietrick
Anne Donnellon
Kellie Donovan-Condron
John Edmunds
Jen Ellis
Sinan Erzurumlu
Katherine Faigen
Ira Farber
Steven Feinstein
Marjorie N. Feld
Michael Fetters
Katrin Fischer
Sebastian Fixson
Fritz Fleischmann
Yunwei Gai
Mary Gale
Bradley George
Dwight Gertz
Kristen Getchell
Kerry Roberts Gibson
Clare Gillan Huang
Ruth Gilleran
Wiljeana Glover
Mary Godwyn
Beth Goldstein
Michael Goldstein
Steven Gordon
Richard Goulding
Michelle Graham
Sandra Graham
Kay Green
Danna Greenberg
Rachel Greenberger
Patricia Greene
Patrick Gregory
Dhruv Grewal
Patricia Guinan
Robert Halsey
Richard Hanna
Diana Harrington
Neal Harris
Michael Harrity
Kandice Hauf
Chris Hennessey
Richard Herron
Kathleen Hevert
Krista Hill Cummings
Jon Hodge
Pamela Marie Hoffer
Elaine Holmes
James Hoopes
Paul Horn
Carolyn Hotchkiss
James Hunt
Bala Iyer
Kent Jones
Nathan Karst
JB Kassarjian
Kathleen Kelly
Michele Kerrigan
Davit Khachatryan
Phil Kim
Cheryl Kirschner
Cheryl Kiser
Julia Kokina
Dave Kopcso
John Korsak
Danielle Krcmar
Laurie Krigman
William Lamb
Julian Lange
Nan Langowitz
Bill LaPoint
Ian Lapp
Melissa Leonard
Toni Lester
Julie Levinson
Xinghua Li
Philip Licari
David Lopez
Benjamin Luippold
Mahdi Majbouri
Ruben Mancha
Richard Mandel
Melissa Manwaring
John Marthinsen
Michael Martin
Dennis Mathaisel
Ken Matsuno
Lucy McAllister
Nancy McCarthy
Kate McKone-Sweet
Carolyn Megan
Weston Miller
Brigitte Muehlmann
Kankana Mukherjee
Kevin Mulcahy
Wendy Murphy
Fred Nanni
Heidi Neck
David Nersessian
Erik Noyes
Mary O’Donoghue
Tina Opie
Fred Opie
Gary Ottley
Dessislava Pachamanova
Adele Panichella
Sal Parise
Blake Pattridge
Ross Petty
Judah Phillips
Mary Pinard
Katherine Platt
Lidija Polutnik
Jim Poss
Mark Potter
Jenny Rademacher
Angela Randolph
George Recck
Shawn Reeves
Terence Reilly
Amir Reza
Joseph Ricciardi
Miguel Rivera-Santos
Vikki Rodgers
Anne Roggeveen
Keith Rollag
Kerry Rourke
Paul Schmitz
Victor Seidel
Brian Seitz
Madeline Sherlock
Jessica Simon
Jonathan Sims
Erik Sirri
Raj Sisodia
Rosa Slegers
Sydel Sokuvitz
Donna Sosnowski
Virginia Soybel
Josh Staveley-O’Carroll
Donna Stoddard
Elizabeth Swanson
Jerome Taillard
Scott Taylor
Olaf Thorp
Jennifer Tosti-Kharas
Denise Troxell
Ross Tsakas
Bob Turner
Siddharth Vedula
Susan Vroman
Tony Wain
Ronald Waite
Kevin F. Wall
Richard Wang
Megan Way
Joseph Weintraub
Jeffrey Wetter
Peter Wilson
Chuck Winrich
Beth Wynstra
Yasu Yamakawa
Janice Yellin
Andrew Zacharakis
Babak Zafari