By Ella Prieto, Assistant News Editor
On Thursday, President Bob Iuliano sent out a campus-wide email to inform students about new steps being taken to strengthen the bias reporting and response system.
The email began with a reminder of the mission of Gettysburg College to be a diverse and open community. Iuliano stated that the work to maintain this mission began with the College’s leadership, who worked to protect those values and advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) on the campus.
“While the College has well-established systems to respond to conduct that violates civil rights laws or College policy,” stated Iuliano, “our systems to respond to oftentimes unregulated, albeit harmful bias events are far less developed.”
Chief Diversity Officer Dr. Eloísa Gordon-Mora has been working to strengthen the system that deals with situations of bias and sent out an email in November outlining the planned future steps to do so.
The next step in this process has begun, and it involves “a broadly representative group of students, faculty, staff, and administrators from across the College” working with Gordon-Mora to evaluate the bias reporting system. The group will also make recommendations for a new bias reporting and response system that more adequately deals with the needs of the College and its students.
The group’s faculty members are Latin American studies chairperson and associate professor of Spanish Verónica Calvillo, physics chairperson and professor Bret Crawford, and assistant professor of political science Kevin Pham. The students include Allie Acero ’23, Hannah Repole ’25, and Colton Ward ’25. The support staff is represented by executive assistant for College Advancement Jesse Mains, gallery attendant Caleb Jones, and Dining Services coordinator Carrie Small. The administrators in the group are Title XI director Amanda Blaugher and executive director of Campus Safety Alex Wiltz.
The goal for the group is to have a Bias Response and Education Protocol in place during the Fall 2023 semester.
Iuliano ended the email by expressing his gratitude to the group of Gettysburgians evaluating the bias system and to Dr. Gordon-Mora for her leadership. He wrote, “I am confident that their work will make us a stronger and more equitable learning community.”
