My senior year in high school I conducted an extensive college search. I went on at least three different trips up and down the East Coast looking at multiple schools on each voyage. I looked at public schools, private schools, universities, colleges, conservative campuses, and liberal campuses, all in search of a community where I would be able to learn, grow, and trust.

It may seem odd to some that a trusting environment was one of my top criteria when choosing a college, rather than things like class size or social activities. However, I think trust is a crucial element in any community. So I asked my tour guides questions about trust: Do students really take the honor code seriously here? Would you leave your dorm room unlocked? Can you talk to your professors and advisors about your problems? Do you see your classmates as competitors or teammates?

The Guilford students I talked to during my two visits to campus gave what I thought to be all the right answers to these questions.

Now, three years later, I stand on the threshold of graduation (yes, I’m an over-achieving dork who is graduating in just three years) and I can’t help but stop and think about whether or not Guilford lived up to my expectations.

Is Guilford a community where students learn, grow and trust?

Recent events have led me to believe that perhaps it is not. In particular, student response to college personnel changes has demonstrated a huge lack of trust within our community.

I have to admit that the student demonstration in Founders lobby last week and the related propaganda that circulated around campus disturbed me. The protesting students cited institutional racism and lack of concern by administrators for student wishes and welfare as major factors affecting personnel decisions regarding former staff members such as Rebecca Saunders and Joe Vereen.

This protest took place just a day and a half after Saunders left the school, before, I believe, students had adequate time to reflect on and discuss the incident and how their response to it would impact the community.

Before serious accusations such as the ones made by the protestors are publicly espoused, I believe serious thought and investigation is in order. After all, Guilford isn’t that large of an institution, which makes accusations of racism and aloofness among administrators deeply personal. But rather than taking time to cool off and weigh the situation rationally, the protesters reacted with a knee-jerk response.

Had they taken time to reflect on the situation more carefully, I hope a few things would have become clearer to the demonstrators.

First of all, many other staff members have left positions at Guilford over the past year, including Phil Manz, Jim Vroom, and James Minton, all of whom are white. Few students have questioned the circumstances surrounding their decisions to leave. No one has asked if their removals were “dehumanizing experiences,” as some allege Saunders’ was.

The bottom line is that a number of staff members of all ethnicities have left Guilford over the past year, and, due to privacy laws, we have little information about any of these removals. Why then did we automatically assume race was a factor when African American staff members left?

Unfortunately, if we are too quick to cry racism in situations where race turns out not to have been a factor, the community may become desensitized to this very serious charge, and complaints about actual incidents of racism at Guilford may, in the future, fall on deaf ears. Additionally, these accusations are likely to be extremely hurtful to the individuals they are made against. Therefore, claims such as these should not be made lightly, without careful consideration and proof.

Secondly, losing a staff member means that all remaining administrators must take on additional work and endure increased stress. (Anyone who has been up to the Campus Life suite recently knows what I mean … everyone there is working all hours to make sure nothing slips through the cracks). I would not, therefore, imagine that decisions regarding personnel are made hastily or without good reason. I believed Randy Doss when he said in his e-mail to the community that staff members are given second and third chances to improve their job performance.

Lastly, Guilford is not a school where the administrators are nameless and faceless. In fact, most of us, particularly those of us who are involved with one club or another, work with staff members in the areas of campus life, enrollment, etc., on a regular basis. These staff members are highly accessible: They hold open office hours, they attend community events, and they stop to speak with students on the sidewalk. They make every effort to obtain input and to build a sense of rapport and trust with students.

In short, despite various frustrations I may have had with policy decisions from time to time, very few Guilford administrators have ever given me a reason to distrust them, or to feel that they were indifferent to student concerns.

This is a facet of student life that I believe is unique to Guilford, and one which I believe many students take for granted.

Nevertheless, students can not expect to run the school. Staff members must weigh a variety of student opinions as well as other factors that affect the health of the college when making administrative decisions, including those regarding personnel changes.

The details of these decisions should not always be public knowledge. Both departing and remaining employees of the college are entitled to a certain degree of privacy, and that right to privacy is protected by law.

Please do not misunderstand; my main point here is not that Guilford students should blindly support the decisions being made in our community or in the world around them. My point is that a certain amount of trust is needed within our community for it to thrive.