Let’s be honest, Chancellor. It hasn’t been a great 2015 for you so far. You’ve had to deal with an increase in violence on and around campus, increasing racism and hatred, and for a brief moment, the Greek community thought you would be close to shutting them down. This has brought me to the opinion that you’ve lost touch with our university. I believe you institute new policies like diversity and sexual assault training, not because they’re actually good ideas, but rather because they contain buzzwords that the news can pick up and gloss over the fact that these incidents that are still occurring on campus.
Sure, if you mandate diversity, sexual assault, alcohol, and whatever other training you deem necessary for incoming students, it covers the university’s ass, but doesn’t actually mean they won’t happen. I can tell you right now that if I had to sit in front of a computer for four hours to complete some B.S. training, then I’d take it not as a step forward, but rather another tedious completion assignment for a 1000-level class.
Outside of failing to recognize the fact your initiatives are merely a way to for the university to say “hey, we tried to educate them,” I feel like you’re more concerned about pandering to boosters or donors to gather donations for the university than you are the student body. I get it, it’s part of your job, and it funds the construction of new buildings, but rather than ask for millions of dollars for a building that so a guy can put his name on it, why not ask for millions of dollars for the little things? Have you been inside the Arts & Science building recently, or perhaps ventured into any of the buildings on white campus? They look like they haven’t been renovated since they were built during the Cold War era. Just take a stroll around campus, and you’ll see more and more examples of that. Not every student gets to use the fancy business or journalism schools, but I’m positive every student has had a class in A&S, Middlebush or Strickland. It’s when I hear about a business school annex being built, rather than the renovation of buildings used by everyone that makes me upset. It makes me feel like you focus on two or three areas that you can market, and leave everyone else behind.
We haven’t even gotten to the racist acts this campus has experienced over and over again in the past year. When our very own MSA president wrote about how he was called a “faggot” and a “nigger,” it took you a week to respond to it. A week! Considering he represents 34,000 students, Payton Head is someone you should be in contact with regularly and have on your side. Then, when the LBC court were called niggers to their face, you were in Ghent!
You’re expanding Mizzou’s reach and advising other universities, but I can’t imagine a scenario where you the Chancellor of the University of Missouri needs to be at the University of Ghent in South Africa! On top of this, when your “ground-breaking” summit on Greek Life took place this summer, you weren’t in attendance. Granted, that wasn’t your fault and your plane was delayed, but it still perpetuates the image you’ve lost touch with our fellow students.
Chancellor, I believe you’re a smart man and are good at your job. However, I recommend taking some time and meeting with the students on this campus. Don’t meet with administrators and act on what they advise, act on what the students think. Go on a grassroots tour of your school. Go into the dorms and figure out what could be made better with the help of the RHA presidents elected by the students, meet with the LBC and NPHC and let them voice their concerns to you in person, go into the Greek houses and have dinner to find out what they think, or just sit down with a random student in the student center and ask what they think about the state of Mizzou right now. I think you’d find a lot of frustration with you and the university. It would help us voice our concerns, but also let us know why you make certain decisions. There’s nothing more exasperating when the university makes a decision and 90% of the student body doesn’t know why. So Chancellor Loftin, come back to _us_.
Come back to the 34,000 students who you represent and claim as family, and do what families do, talk it out and make things better.
William Black
wabkh5@mail.missouri.edu
