Questions by OG&B staff and contributors, compilation by Addie Lawrence, Editor
Q1. What issues are important to you, specifically in regards to campus culture and student representation?
A1. My view has always been that changing cultures, campus cultures, is really up to the students. If it comes from the administration, from me imposing rules or sanctions, that’s coercion, and I’m not inclined to nurture positive change and growth in a coercive fashion. I am inclined to nurture positive change and growth by creating opportunities, particularly for student leaders to have conversations amongst themselves, with other campus leaders or administrative leaders to try and forge solutions.
Q2. How does the administration support students who want to make positive changes to campus culture?
A2. I’m a believer in governance and shared governance. I think we need to examine the governance processing on campus. We have Campus Union, we have a faculty and we have a staff advisory council – three distinct bodies of some form of governance. No one’s talking to each other. They don’t meet together, and they have different responsibilities and bodies of interest, to be sure, but there are certain campus-wide areas of interest but there’s nowhere and no place where people have that dialogue.
One of the things I think we need to do is to forge some kind of collegiate counsel, where we can have representatives of the students, faculty and staff together to identify and discuss and work out collegiate issues.
Q3. Do you have an example?
A3. Sexual assault is a big problem. We have rules and procedures in place that are consistent with the Title IX regulations from the Office of Civil Rights… I can lay down as many rules about this as I want and can have penalties as harsh as can be, but I’m not at the parties. I’m not making decisions for any one of you or your friends about how they’re going to treat their partner or…that friend of the moment.
The sense of respect and dignity that such relationships call for, I can’t legislate. It’s up to you folks to have those discussions amongst yourselves and act as leaders to nurture a sense of respect in these relationships, however fleeting they might be. I firmly believe that students can empower themselves, have an impact and foster positive change.
Q4. Do you have any comments about the University of Missouri case?
A4. It’s a terribly unfortunate situation on many counts. On the one hand, I think it reflects what is a real problem in this country. Sometimes it’s overt when we speak about it, such as the Ferguson case, or…the recent case of the police officer tackling that young girl in school. And very often when we don’t have those extraordinary and disturbing instances on film, it’s rampantly under the surface. Racism remains a major issue in this country.
I think it’s the responsibility of an institution of higher education to create that space for young people to deal with those issues and learn about those issues and think about responses to those issues. When you graduate, you are the leaders in society for the next generation. I also think what happened in the Missouri case shows you the empowering possibilities of student activism.
If we had a racist incident on this campus, we’ve got to get every student and every member of the community out on Campus Drive protesting. And I will be in the forefront of that.
Q5. Is it the president’s responsibility to step down if the campus culture isn’t inclusive? Would you step down?
A5. I’d try to do what I’d think is best, not for me, but for the institution and the students. Would I step down? I don’t think I would’ve gotten to the point where I should step down. I would’ve talked about it, and this is no judgement on what happened in Missouri, but let’s sit down and solve these issues and make this a better place for everyone.
Q6. Are there any efforts to bring democratic candidates to campus?
A6. I would love it. Any candidate that wants to come to campus, we are welcome to that. We’re working with a few folks we know on the democratic side to see if we can get a couple of candidates to campus. It just hasn’t been as easy as it has to get the republican ones, but I would embrace that. I think we all would embrace that.
Q7. Will Wofford be renewing their contract with Aramark?
A7. We’ll go out in the next year and a half or so for the bid, and it will be, I expect, competitive. I do think that in the past year, their service has improved dramatically with their new manager here on campus, but I know there were struggles for the first year and half they were here. Jason Davidson has done a fine job of leading and managing Aramark services, and I would at least like to acknowledge his work.
Do you have questions for President Samhat? Email them to [email protected]. Your question may be asked at our next editorial board meeting and may appear in a new edition of the Old Gold and Black.
