Student Leaders Discuss OMA Flowchart
Exeter’s dormitory proctors and student listeners are currently participating in discussions about the school’s Attack on Personhood flowchart. After these sessions, the school will place the flowcharts in common spaces around dorms and academic buildings.
The flowchart details how students can respond to an attack on personhood. The chart defines personhood as “the seen and unseen self, including one’s human and civil rights. Attacks can take the form of shaming, slurs, microaggressions and/or physical harm.” These four methods of response include responding in person, seeking outside advice in person, seeking outside advice anonymously and sharing information with an adult or student leader.
Dean of Multicultural Affairs Sami Atif, Associate Dean of Multicultural Affairs Hadley Camilus and Office of Multicultural Affairs Administrative Intern Jessica Alvarez drafted the flowchart last year. Since then, it has undergone several revisions. Though he originally hoped to release the flowchart in April, Atif pushed back the date until the beginning of this term to ensure that “student listeners and proctors know their responsibilities when it comes to providing support.”
Atif said, “There was no need to rush the flowchart.” He added, “I’d rather take time to work with students and talk about the nuances of it.” Proctors and student listeners had an introductory meeting with Atif about the flowchart at the end of last term, and were reintroduced to it at the beginning of this school year. “Whenever the dorms are ready, we will go for it, but they have to be ready,” Atif said. “The expectation would be after one or a few sessions within each dorm, whatever is needed, I’ll send it out to them.”
Atif hoped that students will fully appreciate the utility of the flowchart, as well as its detailed points of emphasis; he encouraged all to reach out to him should they have any questions.
Dorm heads also had a separate meeting with Atif to discuss the flowchart at the beginning of this week. “No one brought up any concerns that I knew of,” he said.
English Instructor and Head of Kirtland House Courtney Marshall expressed her excitement about the release of the flowcharts, describing it as “phenomenal” in its clarification of ambiguous terms. “I always say that issues related to personhood or attacks against personhood should be as widespread and ordinary and as boring as the fire drill,” she said. “We should be as familiar and as comfortable both talking about what happens and getting people the help they need.”
On the other hand, some expressed misgivings about the flowchart. “I have some reservations, the chief one being it having a chilling effect on speech and expression potentially, making relationships more difficult between students and between students and teachers,” History Instructor Michael Golay said. He further explained that when people feel “like they’re on edge,” it is not healthy for the environment because Exeter “relies on the exchange of ideas.” He is especially concerned with students’ new ability to submit anonymous complaints to trained students or the Dean of Students’ office, as well as the chart’s use of weaponized language such as “microaggression” and “attacks on personhood.”
Golay added that he wished there had been more discussion among faculty. “I’m not happy; as a faculty we haven’t had more time to discuss this. We only had a few minutes last spring,” he said. “There’s a lack of transparency; we need to have more discussions on why it’s necessary. I’d like to think there’s still time to talk this through.”
Biology Instructor Townley Chisholm said that he would prefer that Exonians confront inconsiderate comments in person. “I hope that, when members of our community receive an insensitive comment, they will immediately engage in conversation with the person who made the comment, either one-on-one or with an advisor’s or teacher’s help,” Chisholm said. “These conversations should bind us closer together and help us understand each other better and are best done soon and in person.”
Chisholm acknowledged that when comments are more pointed, the personhood flowchart procedure is more suitable. “When an offensive comment is made with clear intent to do harm, then the other avenues of the flowchart seem more appropriate,” he said. “Of course there are situations in which harm was clearly intended, but I hope and believe that most insensitive comments are made without harmful intent.”
Marshall, however, feels that giving students the ability to decide how they want to combat an attack of their personhood can help them gain autonomy over the situation. “Giving younger people the sense that there are options and that they can choose allows them to gain control of their experience—I think that’s a great thing.”
Marshall further elaborated that this flowchart can have an impact not only on the present, but also on the future of Exeter’s campus. “I always think about not what the effect is today but what the effect is 50 years from now, 100 years from now. It’s not so much about us, it’s about five generations later, this school could be a really different place,” she said.
Classical Languages Instructor Matthew Hartnett, despite expressing support for the flowchart, nevertheless worries that its presentation may encourage students to make an anonymous referral to the deans before trying to have a conversation with their peers. “It plays against the idea of having a community atmosphere by encouraging people to have anonymous referrals to an authority,” Hartnett said. “I wish it was formatted in a way that makes it clear that an anonymous referral was a last resort as opposed to an option one might choose right from the start because it’s easier or more convenient.”
English Instructor Mercy Carbonell discussed the positive impact she hopes this flowchart will have on campus. “My hope is that this is a further gesture within an institutional commitment towards acknowledging and valuing the dignity and respect everyone can offer and can receive in a healthy community,” Carbonell said.
Marshall shared similar goals. “I’m hoping what will happen is the students that need to be affirmed, are affirmed. The students who have questions about what things mean, get to ask those questions,” she said. “I think the flowchart begins a dialogue where people can get their questions answered but also know that there are real consequences for the the things that we say and we do.”