President Brand discusses campus climate with students

On Monday, April 18, students, faculty and staff gathered in the Richard and Norma Small Multi-Sport Center to hear President Jonathan Brand discuss current climate issues on campus. Classes were postponed, and students and faculty filled the gymnasium. The video of the meeting has been posted within this story to make it available to students currently studying abroad or traveling and unable to attend.

President Brand outlined the following actions that will be addressed

• Strengthening the role of diversity in faculty searches
• Pursuing diversity training for all faculty and staff
• Working on the college’s expression/civil discourse statements
• Re-launching the Sustained Dialogue program which trains 50 students as facilitators

In a meeting with students, President Brand also took immediate suggestions to

• Enhance diversity training in New Student Orientation or First-Year Seminar
• Using faculty with mediation skills more widely

President Brand has invited the campus community to contact him directly with additional suggestions. He also made it clear that individuals whose primary goal in speaking or acting is to intimidate, threaten, or goad others should curb that behavior immediately or leave Cornell College until they have that destructive impulse in check.

The speech lasted about fifteen minutes. View a full transcript.