The Rambler held a voter registration drive with the Transy College Democrats on August 30 by first-year students to support voting. The Transy College Republicans, among other organizations, were invited to participate but ultimately did not attend.
The purpose of the drive was to help students vote, however they were able. Around two dozen students registered to vote for the first time, updated their voter registration to Lexington, or sought to obtain an absentee ballot from another precinct.
The deadline to register or to update one’s address or party affiliation is October 9. Kentucky residents, including Transy students who now reside in Kentucky, can register to vote or update their registrations here. Absentee ballots are obtained in Kentucky by contacting the County Clerk in the county where you are registered to vote.
The 2018 general election will be held on November 6.
The Diversity & Inclusion workgroup of the Strategic Planning Committee has completed its initial phase and will soon publish an “initial findings report” on Transy.edu, according to workgroup chair Hannah Piechowski, Director of Student Transitions, who also said the workgroup “will continue work into the summer.”
Transylvania formulates a new strategic plan every five years. One description of the plan’s work, published in the March 9 edition of TNotes, reads,
“The Strategic Planning Steering Committee appointed by President Carey has begun work on developing a vision for the future of Transylvania. As part of those efforts, Work Groups have been formed to investigate several key topics: Enrollment, Cost and Competition; Academic Excellence; Diversity and Inclusion; and Community, Service and Collaboration. Led by members of the Steering Committee, Work Groups will be composed of additional members drawn from the campus community. These groups will gather input and conduct research that will inform plan development. In the initial phase this spring, each Work Group will offer open campus forums to gather input from faculty, staff and students on each topic and all are encouraged to attend.”
On Transy’s network, the progress of the Strategic Planning Committee can be tracked at strategicplan.transy.edu.
In addition to Piechowski, the Diversity and Inclusion workgroup members include students, faculty, and staff. These are Isaac Settle, a sophomore; Joey Howard, a junior; Aissata Sackho, a first-year; Dr. Kremena Todorova, Associate Professor of English; Dr. Steve Hess, Associate Professor of Political Science; Johnnie Johnson of Admissions; Susan Brown, Librarian; Mambuna Bojang of IT; Mary Struckhoff of Athletics; and Taran McZee, Associate Vice President for Diversity & Inclusion.
Of the three students on the committee, two are white male members of the Delta Sigma Phi fraternity. The third, Aissata, is a black, Muslim woman who lived in Senegal for 11 years and speaks four languages. She attended high school in Louisville, KY.
“I’m very incompetent being in the room,” Joey said of being a white man in this workgroup, laughing. “I’ve witnessed things but I don’t represent them. I’ve mostly been trying to listen. That’s what the workgroup is doing – gathering information as much as possible, assessing it, and combating problems.”
Asked whether the committee’s work has been affected in any way by having only one student of color, Piechowski wrote, “I think you have asked a very good question, one that reiterates the need for this work to be done. I will continue to reflect on your question, as I think it adds an important layer of consideration.”
Asked what she felt about being the only student of color in the workgroup, Aissata said that she felt the committee’s work was “still useful.” Of the four members of the committee interviewed by The Rambler, all four expressed optimism that their findings—and eventually, their recommendations—would be used.
Though The Rambler was not able to obtain a copy of the initial findings report in advance, Piechowski informed us that the “predominant themes resulting from the findings thus far include: 1. Addressing Institutional History, 2. Education and Engagement, 3. Finances and Facilities, 4. Policies, Procedures, and Accountability, and 5. Emotions and Healing. These themes and findings will be used to create action items during the summer and into the 2018-2019 school year.”
Recent events around the University have highlighted a widespread interest in campus issues of diversity & inclusion. The Rambler covered a demonstration held in Alumni Plaza by students calling for many changes, as well as a forum held by the Diversity & Inclusion working group to solicit student, faculty, and staff input.
“I feel like blacks at Transy are being constantly asked to prove our worth,” Aissata said, “as if we don’t really belong here.”
Administrators have promised many changes in the 2018-19 school year. But Dr. Todorova said she believes that “Change must come from the students. We cannot just have faculty or administrators making these changes and hoping that will change the campus culture. It can’t come from the top, change has to come from the bottom.”
The students who held up signs and passed out lists of demands in the Alumni Plaza demonstration held on May 8 were quick to clarify that they were not “protestors,” though in organizer and senior Kacy Hines’s words, they wanted “to see some real change.”
“We want to work alongside the administration… the event is to garner support for teaching people about what is already happening on this campus,” said Blake Taylor, a senior and one of the event’s organizers, the day before the event.
“The fact is that probably 85% of campus is cis, white, straight, and privileged, and if you’re not fighting alongside the people who are struggling, you’re complicit against that struggle. There are people graduating who have never had to educate themselves on privilege, things of that nature.”
The demonstration was framed around the “Change My Mind” meme, which places the burden of disproof on an idea’s viewer rather than a burden of proof on its presenter.
An example of the “Change My Mind” meme, which was taken from a photo that originally depicted conservative activist Steven Crowder declaring that male privilege was a myth. See Know Your Meme for more.
Demonstrators sat at tables placed on the lawn behind Old Morrison and asked those who approached the tables to sign petitions to the administration if they did not disagree with any of the demonstrators’ demands. We obtained a list of these demands in full, and they can be viewed below:
Courtesy of Paola Garcia
Taran McZee, the new Associate Vice President for Diversity & Inclusion, had learned of the event in advance and requested a meeting with the demonstrators to discuss their concerns. Also in attendance were Vice President of Enrollment and Student Life Holly Sheilley and Vice President for Marketing and Communications Michele Sparks. These administrators did not attempt to dissuade organizers from holding their event, but said they sought foremost to listen to their concerns.
Administrators repeatedly sought assurance that students wanted to cooperate and work with them to solve problems, while two students who wished to remain anonymous informed The Rambler prior to the demonstration that they wanted to sign the petition, but worried that doing so risked retaliation from the administration or from professors, potentially including loss of their scholarships.
Asked for comment on this, President Seamus Carey wrote, “Freedom of speech should be a cornerstone of any academic campus… No student should be fearing retaliation from anyone on this campus.”
President Carey, Dean Bryan, and McZee all attended the demonstration in Alumni Plaza. (Dr. Sheilley was out of town but stated she otherwise would have come.) According to several demonstrators, President Carey stayed for “about an hour” to discuss the students’ concerns and ways of potentially addressing them.
Asked how he would describe the tone and substance of those conversations, President Carey wrote, “Honest. Open. Real. Authentic. I saw real courage from these students in how and what they expressed to me and the other cabinet members present.”
McZee made similarly positive remarks. “The students did a great job explaining the ‘why’ for the demonstration and their eagerness for social justice on the campus was admirable,” he wrote.
The day of the demonstration, each declined to answer specifically questions about which of the demands could be accommodated and which could not. But the following week, on May 17, organizer and senior student Kacy Hines solicited a second meeting, this time between the Cabinet and the demonstration’s organizers to discuss ways the University might address the demonstrators’ demands. The Rambler attended that meeting.
The discussion was framed around the list of demands, point by point, as Cabinet members sought to identify and clarify actions already being taken or, where opportunities existed, to commit to take action. The discussion ran to about ninety minutes.
Of the many things discussed and debated, one that generated the most conversation was demand #1: “Continuous in-person anti-discrimination training for all students, faculty, and staff.”
Sparks stated that the faculty are able to participate in a non-compulsory summer workshop on diversity infusion, and that the “goal is to get all the faculty through this workshop eventually.” Dean Bryan stated that thirteen faculty members will be able to participate in the workshop this year, and that she did not know how long it will take to get all the faculty through the workshop.
Blake Taylor asked what it would take to get more speakers to come to campus who would address issues of prejudice and discrimination, to help students address these issues. Sparks replied that the faculty have chosen “Civility” as next year’s theme, and Bryan advised that the faculty will largely be responsible for choosing speakers in accordance with it.
Senior Paola Garcia asked whether “Civility” is “real civility, with mutual respect or just civility as a concept… that’s used to silence people,” and Dean Bryan answered that the theme was understood as being connected to issues of privilege.
Following demand #2, the President agreed to establish an open hour for students to visit his office. He will be available every Monday he’s in town, from 8-9 A.M., though the start date of these office hours has not been publicly announced.
Responding to students’ request for “active recruitment of diverse faculty and staff,” McZee said he had already modified the language of Transy’s job postings to make them more explicitly solicitous of diverse candidates. A requisition for an “Assistant Director of Diversity and Student Engagement,” posted on May 22, contained the following statement: “Transylvania University is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to enhancing the diversity of the university community. In support of this goal, we seek qualified candidates with a wide range of backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. We embrace diversity and encourage all who are interested to apply.”
Sparks added that Dean Bryan requires that pools of possible candidates for any open position be representative of many diverse groups.
Demand #4 called for “Live updates about Project One and other events/occurrences related to ‘diversity and inclusion.’” McZee said that Project One is “a staple on this campus” and will not be rebranded under his tenure. Kacy Hines questioned whether an absence of ongoing information about Project One showed that it did not exist; administrators assured her that it does.
The Rambler was unable to identify any specific ongoing activity associated with Project One – McZee characterized it in terms of its general mission, to “expand diversity and inclusion across the university,” but did not name any activity it is conducting to this end, in spite of repeated questioning.
Librarian Susan Brown said that the Project One bookshelf in the library is administered by the librarians without contact with any Project One committee. She said Project One operated “in 2015 to 2016.” Brown is currently a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Workgroup for the campus strategic plan.
On May 3, asked about recent activities by Project One, Dean Covert stated that “Dr. Serenity Wright, Associate Dean for Diversity and International Student Experiences, provided oversight for Transylvania’s Project One Initiatives,” and that division and department chairs had been tasked with responding to Project One’s findings around that time. Wright left the University in 2016.
“We look forward to leadership by Taran McZee, Associate Vice-President for Diversity & Inclusion, in renewing the work of Project One and establishing new initiatives on campus,” Covert wrote.
According to Joe Bahena, a senior, demand #6 was intended to address what he described as the tendency of Transy’s website to showcase the same minority students over and over “and make it look like there’s more minority students at Transy than there really are.”
Sparks responded heatedly, raising her voice as she explained that as a biracial person, she takes the issue of tokenization very seriously. She said that every time her office publishes photos of Transy students, they ensure that the students are depicted accurately proportionate to Transylvania’s racial makeup. She said that while the current website format may appear to show the same students over and over, that is more a function of how photo shoots were conducted and how the website rotates randomly through its stock of photos, page by page.
Sparks said practices have been updated when new photo shoots are being conducted to ensure the same students are not depicted at multiple locations. Additionally, she said she would alter the website’s settings to keep it from rotating photos and the University’s practices when soliciting student consent to be photographed, to ensure students understand their image may appear in all forms of marketing media.
Regarding demand #7, the conversation focused on the possibility of a repeat offender registry for Title IX. In an email sent before the meeting, newly appointed Title IX coordinator Amber Morgan said, “It is illegal to publish a list of TitleIX offenders. I strongly discourage any individual or group from publishing their own list as they could be sued in civil court for defamation, slander, and/or libel.”
In response to the demonstrators’ listed complaint that Morgan’s hiring has not been well enough publicized, Morgan named a number of vehicles whereby the hiring was announced, and said she had reached out to one of the demonstrators requesting a meeting to brainstorm ways to communicate her new position.
Demand #10 called for creation of a system for reporting misconduct by DPS officers. Sparks stated that the Red Flag Reporting system is already available on Inside Transy for student use in reporting misconduct by any University employee, including DPS. She said that reports filed in this system are sent to a third party, but remarked on the difficulty of finding and using this system, “I’m going to make this better.”
Demand #11 pointed out long wait times to see counselors, particularly around finals week each semester, and called for hiring additional counselors. Sparks advised that Ashley Hill, Director of Student Wellbeing, is able to connect students with outside counselors as needed during shortages internally.
Students and faculty interviewed after the meeting expressed optimism that change has been promised and voices heard. The Rambler will continue to cover issues of diversity and inclusion as these changes unfold next year.
Eclectic are the participants in the Frankfort launch of the Poor People’s Campaign. There are union shirts, clergy’s stoles and backward collars, t-shirts representing Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, red pro-teacher shirts, clothing nondescript. There are elders walking with canes and high-schoolers with swoopy, shaggy hair. The crowd does not look left-leaning, right-leaning, or any particular way at all.
Protesters gathered indoors before going outside to participate in nonviolent civil disobedience (Photo by Emily Dent).
But they are united under the banner of an unabashedly progressive “National Call for Moral Revival” at the start of a planned 40 days of “nonviolent moral action” now underway in 30 states and Washington, D.C. The Poor People’s Campaign is named for the last efforts planned by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., prior to his assassination in 1968. Rev. Dr. William Barber and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis are the Campaign’s national co-chairs.
(Photo by Emily Dent)
“I hope this is the start of rewriting our whole national moral and religious vocabulary,” said Rev. Dr. Wilson Dickinson, Transylvania’s former Dean of Religious Life, who was in attendance.
Paul Whiteley Jr., one of the event’s organizers and a member of a group of attendees from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 227, said that “figuring out ways to come together calls for policies that look out for people, not just the 1%.Policies state and national right now are morally bankrupt.”
The event began with a number of speakers who addressed the media—who were present in great numbers—with a crowd of supporters at their backs. They included Rev. Donald Gillette II, who ministers at E. 2nd Street Christian Church, who called for those assembled to “unite against racism, poverty, and militarism” – words overtly evocative of Dr. King’s.
Rev. Donald Gillette II, one of the Poor People’s Campaign’s local organizers, is second from left (Photo by Emily Dent).
“White supremacy is gaining ground. War and ecological devastations are tearing this country apart,” Gillette said.
Among others, speakers included Amanda Stahl, a self-described “justice, queer, and disabilities activist” from Louisville; Kevin Short, a high school student from London, KY; and Rhonda Raslin, a minister and mother of 5 from Georgetown, KY.
Speakers repeatedly invoked a statistic found by the progressive Institute for Policy Studies: 140 million Americans are low-income or living in poverty. Their rhetoric centered on Christian notions of social justice, mutual support, and love in the face of a national politics they view as fundamentally immoral.
They concluded by peacefully obstructing street traffic around the State Capitol building, continuing in the songs that had punctuated the event.
Together they sang, “Somebody wants to build that wall, y’all, and it’s gone on far too long.”
(Photo by Emily Dent)
The Poor People’s Campaign will convene in Frankfort in the State Capitol Annex every Monday through June 25.
News Editor Hayle Hall sat down with Taran McZee, the Associate Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion, to introduce him to Transy’s campus. Read more about Mr. McZee here.
Newly elected SGA President Jocelyn Lucero and former SGA President Joseph Gearon discuss the past year of SGA and what they see as SGA’s next steps for the upcoming year. Check out our individual interview with Lucero here and our individual interview with Gearon here.
Newly elected SGA President Jocelyn Lucero discusses her plans for SGA next year and her experience as a senator. Check out our individual interview with former SGA President Joseph Gearon here and our group interview with both Lucero and Gearon here.
Former SGA President Joseph Gearon discusses his past two years leading SGA and what he hopes for SGA’s future. Check out our individual interview with current SGA President Jocelyn Lucero here and our group interview with both Gearon and Lucero here.
On May Day this week, left-wing radicals from various organizations gathered in Duncan Park not to overthrow capitalism but to eat and fellowship.
May Day, or International Workers’ Day, is celebrated every year on May 1 in honor of workers and organized labor movements. It was an official state holiday in the Soviet Union and remains an official holiday in many post-Soviet countries. In the United States, it is generally associated with radical and anti-capitalist movements and “working-class militancy.”
Representatives of the Lexington Democratic Socialists of America, Anti-Racist Action, Food Not Bombs, the Kentucky Green Party, and the Kentucky Socialist Party were in attendance, as were several candidates for local office, who attended in solidarity or support. Winter, an attendee from the Kentucky Socialist Party, noted that the event was an opportunity to bring together many single-issue “radical groups” in solidarity against the “real enemies.”
A Black Lives Matter flag was among several surrounding the event (Photo by Rebecca Blankenship).
Matt Wilmore ’08 represented Lexington Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a local chapter of a national organization. Locally, DSA is working to end cash bail in Lexington jails and to fight gentrification in North Limestone neighborhoods. Nationally, DSA, which has been described by Dr. Cornel West as “the major organization on the American left with an all embracing moral vision, systematic social analysis, and political praxis rooted in the quest for radical democracy, social freedom, and individual liberties,” advocates for Medicare for All. It has around 37,000 members, up from 6,000 prior to 2016.
Kent “Swampy” Glade attended in support of the Kentucky Green Party. He said that the Green Party stood for “nonviolence, local decision-making, ecological wisdom, and decentralization of power,” and characterized its work as in keeping with Kentucky’s tradition of moral seriousness, dating back to the Christian Revival Movement. The issues he emphasized included ranked-choice voting, legalization of medical and recreational cannabis, and revitalization of the industrial hemp economy.
Photo by Rebecca Blankenship.
Jake and Zoey, who declined to give their last names for reasons of personal safety, attended as representatives of Anti-Racist Action. They defined their work as an effort to combat local fascism by providing community support to those who are targeted by fascist activity. They described ARA as a non-sectarian movement committed to “taking care of each other… to self-reliance outside capitalism, [which] ignores the needs of people” in favor of corporate interests. They emphasized the intersectionality of anti-capitalism and anti-racism.
Dr. Arnold Farr, professor of philosophy at the University of Kentucky, is a non-partisan candidate for an at-large city council seat. He stated that he was attending in solidarity with the tradition of May Day and that he worked to fight “any form of injustice.” He is a local organizer for the Poor People’s Campaign, an effort begun by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and recently revived with the leadership of Rev. William J. Barber II.
Mister Broyles is a Democratic candidate for Constable District 1 who said that the office is not currently being used as effectively as it could be. In Kentucky, Constables are responsible for performing all evictions, and Broyles pointed to disparities in how those evictions are handled “on the North Side,” where people’s belongings are often placed on the curb to shame them, versus in other parts of Lexington, where such a sight is not as common. He argued that the Constable should try to provide informational resources to people at risk of eviction and offer moving services to those who are evicted and avoid the risk of eviction by helping people with their utility bills.
Food (vegan) was provided by Food Not Bombs (FNB), a “solidarity, not charity” organization that feeds the homeless in Phoenix Park every Thursday at 5 pm. Representing that group was Lyndon Diggins ’19, who said that FNB has a box at Third Street Stuff for donations, which are urgently needed, especially produce and dry goods. Diggins said that FNB tries to use food that would otherwise go to waste and that they need volunteers to help cook so that the group can continue to grow.
Photo by Rebecca Blankenship.
The May Day event clearly demonstrated the intersection of national and local politics. While attending organizers variously dubbed themselves “socialists,” “left libertarians,” or “anarchists,” the event was amicable, free of sectarian conflict, and entirely peaceful. Attendees enjoyed a meal, conversed, and went to Al’s Bar afterward.
Breaking news: 1) it’s finally summer weather outside and 2) there are only two weeks left of May Term! For this week’s playlist, I’ve thrown together (literally) some old Rihanna, new Rae Sremmurd, Post Malone, and Cardi B beats for either some lit study sessions or the last May Term parties before school is officially over. With all the new music being released recently, it’s hard to keep up with what to play, so look no further than this week’s playlist. I will be taking song submissions/suggestions for my final playlist of the year that’ll be posted next week. These submissions can include anything from your own demo recording to the hottest new song you found on Spotify last week. Feel free to send them to me at tmahlinger20@transy.edu!
As for arts events, the Juried Student Arts Exhibition is on display currently in Mitchell Fine Arts’ Morlan Gallery. The art on display was submitted by students from all academic disciplines and serves as a celebration of creation, so go support your fellow art students and all of their hard work!
