Board of Visitors

Dear Mr. Dubuisson,

I hear your cry for change and appreciate your thoughtful message. Black lives matter to me and always have and always will.

I am very sorry that the words that I shared did not adequately and appropriately express my outrage and sorrow over the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and the senseless killings of countless others and police brutality in our country. I share your call for justice and am united in your demand for deep and systemic change.

I do have a duty as you wrote to hear your voices, see your fears and help in your struggle. I pledge to do so and will ensure that Christopher Newport will stand with you.

So how do we move forward? First, we must all demand that justice is swift for police abuse, and that there is real reform of our criminal justice system, appropriate training and accountability of police officers and an end to violence in our country.

This is also a time for us to have a serious conversation and really listen to each other. It is difficult for me and many others to fully feel the depth of your pain and anger because we have not walked in your shoes. Our campus community needs to more fully understand what it's like being Black in America.

As a campus community we must also discuss and have a better understanding of the racial inequities in income, housing, health care, jobs and education that contribute so powerfully to the problems we face. We must thoughtfully address these issues and add our voices to effect change.We will listen and learn and lead and serve together as a community committed to lives of significance. Our able faculty can help us to do this.

To that end, I have asked the Provost, the President of the Faculty Senate and the Chair of the University's Council on Diversity and Inclusion to immediately plan very serious and honest conversations and convene those conversations as soon as we are able to return to campus. We will invite students, alumni, faculty and staff and all those who wish to contribute. I will participate personally and listen and learn from those conversations. Our goal will be to more fully understand the struggles of people of color and seek ways to bring about change.

As further evidence of my commitment, I ask that my name be added to your petition. I will encourage all of our students, faculty, staff and alumni to join us in this people and country changing work.

I pledge that together we will act to ensure that Black lives are safe and Black lives matter. Together we will work to inform minds and stir hearts to ensure the goodness and promise of America.

Sincerely,

Paul Trible

Mr. Dubisson's Response to President Trible

President Trible,

I appreciate your genuine response and your ability to self-evaluate the message that your previous email conveyed.

At a time like this, it is important that we work together across color, class, and economic lines to ensure we build a more equitable and robust society than the one that currently exists. I am happy to hear that you also believe there needs to be systematic change throughout various institutions including - economic inequality, affordable housing, access to healthcare, and a fair job market. Bridging these gaps for Black Americans won't happen overnight, but with the help of someone in your position, and the CNU community, we can help secure a better future for those who have been left on the outside looking in.

I look forward to this discussion being held when the campus is safe to reopen, and the work we can all do together to make a positive change. Actions will always speak louder than words and adding your name to our list is a good first step.

Thank you for your email and your pledge to support that Black Lives Matter.

Best,

Marlon W. Dubuisson, MPP
SCFAA, President Fairfax County NAACP Young Adult Committee Chair

Good afternoon. I am Bobby Hatten.

I am a trial lawyer and I have the great honor to serve as the Rector of the Board of Visitors of Christopher Newport University,

And I welcome all of you to this public meeting of that board.

Before starting the business meeting I would like to take a moment of personal privilege

To speak to everyone in the Commonwealth of Virginia who is listening:

We have a crisis of structural and intractable racism in America.

It is obvious and blatant to everyone who has eyes to see and a heart to understand.

So obvious that the entire country has just seen a policeman murder a Black man in broad daylight, slowly killing him with his knee on his neck, while three other policemen stood by and did nothing to stop it.

That crime, as well as other atrocities by police, has ignited the justifiable rage and anger of millions of Americans—Black, Brown and White—who are still marching through our cities and towns.

Chanting, crying, shouting, and pleading "BLACK LIVES MATTER"—and indeed they do.

One thing is certain: White people, like me, DO NOT KNOW what it is like to be Black in America,

But IF this week has taught us anything, it has taught us that it is time—long past time—that White men and women in America need to start listening to Black people and standing up with them.

Listen when they say:

America has a crisis of impunity, immunity, and accountability for police brutality toward Black people.

Listen when they say:

America has a crisis of inequality in income, health care, opportunity, and education for Black people.

Listen when they say:

America has a crisis of justice in our courts and of leadership in our government.

All over America, these cries of Black people for justice and fairness have not been answered.

BUT today the whole world is listening.

We—White people—should have been listening sooner – but this is not new.

Systemic racism against Black people has been ingrained in American culture for hundreds of years.

From slavery, to Jim Crow laws, to the Ku Klux Klan, to segregated schools, restaurants, and hotels, to the red lining of real estate, and the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., this part of our American history is an ugly story.

Only three years ago, as a country we shamed a Black football player who harmlessly put his knee on the ground to protest police brutality during the singing of our national anthem.

He rightly believed that our national pledge of allegiance is to "one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.""

But the police killings of Black men and women has continued.

Enough is enough.

White people can no longer look away and refuse to confront these issues.

It is long past time for broad-reaching structural and institutional changes to our laws and our culture to root out and destroy racism against Black and Brown people in America.

As leaders of this great University, we have heard the voices of the Black Community and we support you.

Your voices, thoughts, and feelings matter to the University– but we want you to know that we have not been waiting for this national tragedy to respond.

Under the progressive leadership of President Paul Trible,

Last year we instituted the Community Captains program to directly change the lives of economically disadvantaged children in Newport News, most of whom are Black.

This program will ultimately provide 100 students with a totally free college education at CNU.

This progressive program is unmatched by any other college or university in the state of Virginia.

Last week the University Council on Diversity and Inclusion, led by our colleagues Sheriff Gabe Morgan and Brad Hunter, and including students, faculty, staff, alumni, and leaders from the community—submitted Christopher Newport's Strategic Plan for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to the Commonwealth of Virginia.

In thoughtful detail, this 25-page document outlines a bold plan of action for the University to overcome the remaining burdens of historical racism in higher education.

Today, twenty-one percent (21%) of CNU's 5,000 students are non-White, and 300 are Black. I am pleased to report that our focus on attracting more students of color has increased the number of Black students we expect to welcome to our Freshman class based on deposits received. This year we expect to welcome 91 Black students versus 78 last year—an increase of 16%. The Community Captains Program that I have just described will swell those numbers of Black students in future years.

Paul Trible's mantra and CNU's mission is to change hearts and minds so that we can provide leadership to our community, our state, and our country.

Happily, the hearts and minds of our nation are changing—yesterday thousands of Black, Brown, and White people gathered in front of the White House and their voices were lifted up in unison as they sang  - Lean on ME – Lean on me when you're not strong, I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on.

CNU's message to our students and to this community is simple:

Lean on Us because Black Lives Do Matter at CNU, and we intend to play a leadership role in changing the hearts and minds of our students, our community, and our country so that we can end the crisis of racism that is so destructive to our national ideals of equality, fairness, and justice.

Mr. Rector,

Thank you for inviting me to offer my perspective and reflections on the previous academic year on behalf of CNU faculty.

I recognize and am grateful to the entire CNU community for its momentous effort in wrapping up a trying academic year. We have dealt with challenges on many occasions. The challenge of the pandemic is a game changer and we will deal with its consequences in the foreseeable future.

To date, CNU faculty and staff members have spent 57 workdays fulfilling their duties and responsibilities under extraordinary circumstances. Our lives have been transformed in so many different ways. In spite of this dramatic change and numerous difficulties, we pulled through. We showed up. We persisted. We completed an arduous semester juggling family and work obligations, adjusting schedules and assignments, retooling teaching techniques, learning new online teaching platforms, and educating and counseling our students. The students made a quick transition from campus to home life and put their heads down to pore over lecture material and learn new ideas and theories in non-traditional ways. Administrative leaders and staff spent countless hours strategizing the future of our institution and figuring out ways of keeping all of its members safe and sound in the midst of the new “normal”.

Our new normal is unsettling. But we are fortunate that many dedicated individuals are working around the clock, weekdays and weekends, to prepare us to return to campus in fall as safely as possible. I am impressed with the extent and breadth of organization that deals with every minor or major aspect of CNU’s reopening. This is a true collaborative enterprise and it is a forte that we must keep reinforcing. I tried to estimate the amount of time that we have collectively spent on this extensive planning process. Based on 4 weeks of planning, 5 days a week, 6 hours a day (more than that for some of us here today), involving anywhere between 50 and 100 CNU members, I estimate that we have spent between 6,000 and 12,000 hours on extensive discussions, individual preparation, feedback gathering, and deep analytical thinking. We went above the call of duty not because this is a contractual obligation but because we care about each other and because we love this place deeply. This is our human contract.

I receive emails from anxious colleagues on a daily basis. As the medical knowledge about the novel coronavirus expands, we will have more answers to our questions and more informed decisions about how to protect our community. Nevertheless, concerns and apprehension remain. Faculty are anxious about what the future holds, the impact of the pandemic on the university budget, and the implications for our mission as a liberal arts institution.

We, faculty, are appreciative for being included in the conversations about reopening CNU in fall. Many of our colleagues have expressed opinions, shared experiences and their disciplinary expertise, and continue to do so eagerly. At its meeting in April, the Faculty Senate created a task force – the Crisis Response Team (CRT) – whose mission is to inform the broader conversation about academic instruction during the pandemic and in its aftermath. This faculty-driven task force is working alongside various other groups of academic administrators, staff, and faculty. Attaining the goal of safe reopening will be impossible without careful consultation and coordination of all of these teams.

The first task of the CRT was to revise the Faculty Senate’s memorandum to the Budget Advisory Committee given the expectation of future budget reductions. That work has been completed now and will resume in a second round of revisions in early fall after the state government announces its revised budget. The CRT is currently working on more specific recommendations on how to best approach instruction in fall given the serious limitations imposed by the pandemic. It is a genuine team effort which involves more than 20 faculty members who meet nearly every week and more than 50 faculty experts who volunteered to join the CRT and the SEC with insights based on their areas of academic expertise. The CRT has made a commitment to involve faculty in a community-wide conversation and provide frequent updates of its work to the university. The first report of the team has already been shared with all faculty and academic administrators.

All Faculty Senate Crisis Response Team recommendations will be based on solid data gathering and frequent collection of faculty feedback during town hall events. To inform our recommendations to the university administration, we conducted a survey of all faculty which garnered 268 responses (80% of all full-time faculty and 40 adjuncts). The survey results demonstrate that there is a high level of anxiety among us about face-to-face instruction in fall. For most of us this anxiety is based on our personal or family members’ health risks. 40% of faculty have one or more conditions identified by public health officials as COVID–19 risk factors for severe illness or serious complication, and 56% have a household member with one or more of these conditions. 46% of the faculty are parents of dependent children. Within this group 94% report that their children have been unable to attend school or their regular childcare arrangements, and 47% are very or extremely concerned that disruptions to their usual arrangements for caregiving/daycare/children’s school could impact their capacity to teach in person in Fall 2020.

How could these anxieties and concerns be alleviated? One key solution is flexibility. In Spring 2020, our faculty embraced flexibility in their modes of instruction and spent plenty of extra time in preparation for their courses to ensure their students’ success. 79% of our respondents said that they spent more time than usual on preparation for instruction. In Fall 2020, faculty are asking for flexibility so that they can safely deliver their course content and ensure their students are attaining their learning outcomes. A second key solution is a set of mitigation strategies. Faculty ranked the following risk mitigation strategies as their top ones:

1. Testing, contact tracing, and communication regarding the response to outbreaks within the campus community
2. Frequency of disinfection in shared spaces (classrooms, offices, restrooms, etc.)
3. Ability to socially distance in shared academic spaces (classrooms, library, labs, studios/workshops, etc.)

I know that the university task force groups are already working on implementing these risk mitigation strategies and I am confident that faculty appreciate this extensive preparation for a safe return. Clear, honest, and frequent communication from our leaders is a top priority and expectation.

The Senate formulates its annual goals through extensive consultation with faculty. One of its goals for the previous academic year was to participate actively and meaningfully in diversity and inclusion initiatives. The Senate appreciates the opportunity to represent faculty on the Diversity and Inclusion Working Group. We plan to continue this work through close collaboration with the Council on Diversity and Inclusion. We welcome President Trible’s invitation to “plan very serious and honest conversations” about diversity and inclusion as soon as we are able to return to campus.

We will use our knowledge, our human experiences, our words, and actions to build an institution that recognizes and celebrates the cultural diversity of our CNU community and our country. We must learn from each other and respect our different perspectives and cultural backgrounds. As a naturalized American whose U.S. cultural journey started in the state of Montana, and continued through Wisconsin, California, Utah, and Virginia, I have made my fair share of cultural faux-pas. I am lucky to have had patient, caring, thoughtful individuals, including my CNU students, teach me lessons in cultural sensitivity. I value these people’s perspectives and insights. They taught me with understanding, love, and forgiveness.

The events of the last week, following the killing of George Floyd and countless other black Americans, have rocked our country and the world. Words can hardly capture the human tragedy and grief that these men’s and women’s loved ones are experiencing. The destruction of one human life wrecks an entire universe of lives. Together, as a community, we are all participants in an important mission – to uphold the human contract which is based on respect and kindness toward all members of our society, without regard to their race, ethnicity, gender, physical and mental ability, socio-economic status, native language, political convictions or religious views.

Faculty are not only educators but also role models. We shatter biases and bring down cultural walls with words and actions. We affirm our commitment to these values and live them daily as teacher-scholars at a liberal arts institution of higher learning. We, faculty, students, staff, and administrators are all on the same team.

Thank you.