I write today to address the integrity of Guilford and examine how integrity is a necessary part of community and growth. It is only by a lack of this integrity that terrible actions of fear and misunderstanding such as the alleged hate crimes of January 20th are possible.As many people know, there are two very divergent populations of Guilford’s community, and I believe they can generally be identified by the different ways they arrive at Guilford.

One group arrives at Guilford because of its reputation as a socially conscious Liberal arts school (yes, Liberal with a capital L). They identify with values drawn from the Quaker tradition, the ones we see upon banners on light posts throughout on campus. They wish to engage those values and experiment with ideas of community, justice, integrity both in the classroom and in their everyday interactions with staff, students, and faculty. These students make up the largest percentage of Guilford’s community, and they are trouble-makers in their own way (responsible for the vast amount of drug, alcohol, and noise violations).

Another smaller group of students arrive at Guilford each year who are generally unaware of Guilford’s cultural background and historically held values. They are excited to be at Guilford however, because they can follow their passion and earn an undergraduate degree. Their passions may include learning and engaging with community (similar to students in the other group), but the largest part of their passion is devoted to a team sport. It is likely that they did not find Guilford, so much as Guilford found them through scouting of their sport. Upon their accepting of an invitation to see Guilford, they tend to end up in tours of campus made up primarily of other athletes and led by someone already engaged in athletics at Guilford. They are taken to the aspects of the campus that appeal to their interest in team sports, and typically avoid direct introductions to Guilford’s non-athlete population, the Quaker tradition of Guilford, or aspects of campus life that pertain to Guilford’s touted values (for instance, the student-run coffee co-op, the Guilford Action Network, the anti-racist groups and initiatives, and never, ever the GLBTQ community). They are introduced to athletes who (generally) have been at Guilford for a number of years, and not first-year athletes, many of whom deal with feelings of deception during their first year at Guilford, and suffer the lowest retention rate of all Guilford’s population. Those prospective students hear positive things about how close the athletes are with their teammates (a typical result of being a minority in a community, and being encouraged to live together in Bryan or elsewhere). They miss out on alot of Guilford’s passion, but they don’t miss the message that Guilford is a place they where can follow their passion in sports, and also obtain an undergraduate education.

Our administration has known about these divisions and has investigated them. I myself was part of a series of dinners at the president’s house, where athletes and non-athletes were brought together to discuss this division. During our discussions, athletes spoke of how it felt to be in the minority, and also voiced that they just didn’t understand or “get” much of Guilford’s population, so they kept their distance. I voiced my own opinion, that I simply wish I could say hi and smile at anyone on campus and have that gesture be returned, regardless of how they got there or why they received their incentive grants (never, ever scholarships). The dinner was brief, the conversation terse, and after that one week of dinners in 2003, I never heard any discussion by the administration of the issue of the student divide again.

Fast forwarding to the present, Guilford finds itself in quite the pickle. A serious hate crime has been committed against two palestinian students and the perpetrators may have been members of our sports team. How could this happen? How could a place that prides itself on community, justice, diversity, and equality be host to such abominable behavior? I would attribute it directly to the fissure within our community, the two sets of very different motives that bring people to Guilford. The Palenstinian students found out about Guilford through their involvement at Ramallah Friends School with Guilford’s most tangible Quaker presence, Max Carter. The athletes (I venture to guess), have never met Max, know little if anything about Quakerism or its relation to Guilford, and were the target of sports recruitment efforts by Guilford’s administration.

WE NEED BOTH THESE SIDES.

Not simply to attract alumni donation through sporting events, but more importantly to be true to Guilford’s values. We as Guilfordians, need to be engaged in dialogue with people of different opinions and motives. It would be a pity for Guilford to simply become a true “blue” college. We must eliminate the double standard of how Guilford is presented to prospective students, we must integrate our two communities and seize the opportunity to grow through dialogue. Otherwise, our values are simply feel-good talking points for a sales pitch to prospective students. In order to have dialogue, there needs to be serious efforts at bringing these two sides of Guilford together. We cannot allow any student coming to Guilford to be isolated and treated as a means of obtaining alumni support; to do so would be reminiscent of indentured servitude. We must have active, mandatory events in Guilford’s community that make these sides talk, we must find new ways of raising funds and alumni support. Only through such programming can we foster understanding and break-down the walls of fear and blank stares that exist between people as they pass, silently with their heads-down, on the way to class. The people we must ask to make these changes are Kent Chabotar, Randy Doss, and Aaron Fetrow. If we fail to do so, Guilford will simply be a liberal sham, and a cynic’s dream.