Recent campus dialogue regarding the condition of the Office of Residential Life and Learning (ORLL) is an indispensable vehicle in the quest for positive operational and pedagogical development that is at the present time, flagrantly absent. As Tufts' proudest alumnus, and as a former professional staff member of the ORLL for more than five years, whose name has been cast about in this dialogue, I wish to welcome the entire Tufts community to this discussion based on a constructive and factual basis. Indeed, the sincerest and most comprehensive strategy for accomplishing such fundamental change is one that genuinely attempts to understand all stakeholders at Tufts, and our students are unquestionably qualified to participate at many - if not most - levels of the decision-making apparatus on the Hill - in their capacity as intellectual consumers.
Dean of Students Bruce Reitman addressed some of the public discourse in a recent Tufts Daily Viewpoint ("Residential Life is on track," 04/28). Another article on April 29 ("Colleagues write in defense of King") was published, penned and/or signed by several student affairs administrators. Had I not spent the majority of the last eleven years living and working on the Tufts campus, I might have gleaned from these rebukes that the rabble had taken to mutiny without reason or warning. Reitman and his colleagues suggest that character assault and impropriety of venue are perfunctory resorts for students who disagree with the status quo at the ORLL. Open your mind to a much larger universe of players and actions to assemble for yourself a conclusion that will likely bring you to an alternative result.
To commence, please understand that students and staff who contributed many cumulative years of brilliant service to the ORLL have been dismissed as well as pressured to resign their posts as a result of their efforts to bring attention to aspects of the Student Affairs Division at Tufts. Others' quality of life at Tufts were so decimated by the categorical refusal of intervention by senior administrators to ameliorate the deficiencies of their subordinates that an untimely exit from the campus was their sole healthy option. I am personally among the latter group of many individuals, and I am compelled to provide advocacy for all those whose overtures, regardless of their perceived intent, were actually initiated from a wish for goodwill and protection of their school.
Be assured that no news article or opinion piece appeared in any publication of any provenance before years of pleading for corrective action occurred at nearly every hierarchical level at Tufts. Be assured that every student who has spoken with or without attribution has done so with the growing confidence that employment-based retribution will be meted out in response. Be assured that Resident Assistants (RAs) take their roles as peer advisors and community standards champions with a sense of purpose and personal accountability. The final point I wish to stipulate is that many of the purported notions thrust before your eyes by the above-referenced administrators are partial-truths and misinformation based on a lack of knowledge or even collegial familiarity of the structure, operation and personnel at the ORLL. There are no obvious tendencies toward guile on the part of said administrators; merely an unconsolidated cacophony of passionate employees who seek to support their bedraggled colleagues, just as I seek, through facts, to support those with whom I find agency and parity in preserving the integrity of Tufts' mission.
Frustration must be the most salient emotion that has emanated from the criticism of the ORLL in recent weeks and months. Consider the extent to which student and professional employees have been frustrated that their latest, and, for some, their ultimate route before losing their jobs has been through unchallenged and universally-available print/Internet media. Indeed the type you now read shall be counted amongst the lot. Tufts has, through its deliberate unwillingness during the past four years to act with the best interests of student affairs in mind, lost more than nine professional staff and an undeterminable number of student staff to dysfunctional working conditions. While the personal toll on those now gone must not be understated, the price paid by the student body cannot be calculated. The relationship of trust that is forged by well-trained residential staff in loco parentis is a bellwether in determining the health and spirit of a residential college campus. Suffice it to say that given the attrition during the tenure of the last several classes, the injurious impact on the undergraduate community has been palpable.
If the relationship between the residential staff and the student body at-large is the most precious bond within the mission of the ORLL, the relationship amongst the ORLL staff is imperceptibly subordinate to it. When optimally staffed, more than ninety staff members look to their superiors for their knowledge of, and confidence in, the articulate and unambiguous presentation of the theory and applicability of student development pedagogy, the operation of Tufts' infrastructure and service centers, and ample compassion to discern the nuances that sometimes blur the boundaries between interpersonal successes and challenges. Senior administrators have been derelict in providing the ORLL with the leadership and resources it must possess in order to propagate the tendrils of comprehensive student development on the campus. No living/learning community can be sensibly envisioned without first founding and cultivating the ground to receive its roots.
Leadership of a robust residential program provides a significant supply of personal and professional satisfaction. As one of the de facto leaders at the ORLL during protracted periods of multiple fallow staff positions, I encountered from my colleagues a quotient of mettle and professionalism so capacious, that our over-compensation for those departed not only maintained every service and provision previously offered to students, but developed and enriched operational, logistical, pedagogical and programmatic components of the office. Printed claims to the contrary are dishonorably spurious. During the past two years such enrichment and growth was chilled, dismantled and when replaced, substituted with inferior alternatives. Change can be positive; however change is not a priori positive, and demands a commitment to collegial interaction, institutional research and industry best practices comparison. This combination has been absent, and the policies and procedures that precipitated in this absence are a discredit to the Tufts community.
I terminated my employee relationship with Tufts University last October. This decision was professionally and personally undesirable. After much internal debate, I chose to cite health reasons as an unassailable, convenient reason to offer for my mid-year departure. The convenience was not meant for me, but for Tufts. I appreciated the administrators' acknowledgement of my love for this institution, and the topic at hand will never spoil my affection for the scholarship, personal growth and worldview from which I have benefited during my tenure. Tufts must redefine and reestablish its relationship with its own residential life mission. Place more high falutin' aspirations aside and reconnect with the fundamentals that support the vigor of the intellectual, physical, psychological, spiritual and social aspects of our students. Those who have contributed to this dialogue must continue to do so. You are stakeholders. Those of you who have been observing should remember that you, too, are stakeholders. Let's galvanize as a campus community to ensure that we enjoy every opportunity we might dream to exist that represents a plurality of positive gains for this wonderful school we respect and nurture.
Dean J. Gendron (LA '96) is the former Assistant Director for Experimental Learning, Office of the Office of Residential Life and Learning.
