Focus on Social Justice Issues
Board of Trustees
Committee on Campus Religious, Spiritual and Ethical Life
November 14, 2006
The Committee on Campus Religious, Spiritual and Ethical Life, meeting on Tuesday evening, November 14, 2006, discussed the YouTube party issue. We understand that part of our work is to "foster students, faculty and staff in their spiritual lives and to enhance their contributions to community, both on and off campus." Therefore, realizing that the particular incident is complex and by no means the only example of Willamette's need to work for a more truly diverse and multicultural campus, we nevertheless urge a prompt initial institutional response to this particular issue.
We support the administration and the various other groups of faculty, students and staff who are addressing this issue. Further, we urge them to seize the teachable moment and begin formal conversations (if not a full-fledged "teach-in") before the weekend, so that people have an opportunity to express their pain and fears and perspectives on such important issues as community values (the wider society's and the ones we try to nurture on campus), free speech (and its limits), satire and humor (and their limits), racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-religious bigotry, anti-Semitism.
Charlie Wallace,
University Chaplain and Co-chair, Committee on University Religious, Spiritual and Ethical Life
Committee Members
- Charlie Wallace, Co-chair/staff
- John Wittmayer, Co-chair
- Kate Conolly
- Melvin Henderson-Rubio
- Tony Hopson
- Robert Hoshibata
- Jeanne Clark, CLA Faculty Representative
- Juwen Zhang, CLA Faculty Representative
- Katherine Archibald-Woodward, CLA Student Representative
- Margaret Hake, CLA Student Representative
- Leroy Tornquist, Law Faculty Representative
- Kenneth A. Smith, AGSM Faculty Representative
- Oscar Jaimes, AGSM Student Representative
- Holli Davenport, Classified Representative
- Khela Singer-Adams, Administrative Representative
By Invitation
- Betty Anderson, Lifetime Trustee
- Maribeth Collins, Lifetime Trustee
- Dale Harris, Lifetime Trustee