Chancellor’s Update: Care, Respect and Expression Task Force Recommendations

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Dear UWM Students, Faculty and Staff,

Since its launch last June, the Chancellor’s Care, Respect, and Expression Task Force has worked with great compassion and urgency to create recommendations that foster a campus community where all feel welcomed and supported. This group has done so by incorporating feedback from members of the campus and greater communities, investigating practices at other institutions and working collaboratively across multiple work groups. I extend my utmost thanks to all who contributed, to Dr. Lane Hall for authoring the report, and for the co-leadership of Dr. Joan Prince, Vice Chancellor of Global Inclusion and Engagement, and Chief Student Affairs Officer Kelly Haag.

I am pleased to share the task force’s outcome, a report with a series of recommendations for moving forward. Much has changed in society and higher education and all of your voices have been essential in determining how we steer UWM’s future with care and empathy. Collaboration and actions will continue and expand in many cases; our work is not yet done. A link to the final report can be found here. A complete list of task force members is included in this report (see appendix on final 2 pages).

While each work group had a different focus, some consistent themes emerged regarding steps for UWM to improve our actions when confronted by hate speech and hateful actions.

  • We must be more emphatic and timelier in our communications when such events occur.
  • We must utilize official language that is less detached and legalistic and is more personal and empathetic.
  • We must utilize a system so that the reporting of incidents is more transparent, clear and simple.
  • We must have follow-up procedures regarding such incidents that are more coordinated across relevant units.
  • We must revamp forms and reports to ensure that they are easier to locate and navigate.
  • We should aggregate, review and analyze data regarding hate and bias incidents with an intent to focus on change. These data should be available to both internal and external communities.
  • The consequences of perpetrating hate and violence should be made clear to all in the UWM family so that there is greater understanding about the importance, limits and legal dictates surrounding freedom of expression and First Amendment guarantees.
It is also important to work systemically and proactively in order to build resilience into our campus communities so that when such incidents occur there are clear guidelines for staff, administration, faculty and students to be effective in their respective roles.

It is essential that we establish a comprehensive crisis-response plan that anticipates such events and outlines support teams, media responses, police procedures focusing on de-escalation, and rapid community outreach.

We should facilitate the education of these complex ethical and civic issues through audience responsive, dynamically engaging performances, workshops, lectures, games, discussions, exhibitions, and classroom integrated content.

Finally, we should address our own systemic resilience through a renewed and serious commitment to increasing diversity among administration, faculty, staff and students. It is in all of these ways that we can model, as an institution, the world that we want to help create.

I have accepted and endorse the recommendations of the Care, Respect, and Expression Task Force. The Task Force co-chairs are finalizing a detailed plan to enact these recommendations beginning later this month. In some cases, like the revamped hate/bias reporting system, work is nearly complete. In other areas, the recommendations are an extension of the mission and functions of a given office or unit, where other items will be assigned to working groups. In all cases, I am asking that Joan Prince, Kelly Haag, and Vice Chancellor Tom Luljak serve as executive sponsors to convene assigned individuals and to monitor and report on the implementation of these recommendations.

I hope you join me in my commitment to the work and recommendations the Task Force have advanced. Our campuses and communities will be improved through their implementation.

Best regards,

Mark A. Mone
Chancellor
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee