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Actually, I have met with the students. The protest began October 12; I met with them on October 14. I’ve also made overtures to them as recently as last night about being willing to sit down and have a conversation. I don’t have any apprehension about meeting with them. The takeover at Blackburn was at the tail end of a series of smaller protests. My team engaged with the protesters during that period of time. I also don’t want to engage in a public back and forth with the protestors. I don’t want to create a counter narrative on social media. I would much rather sit down and have a conversation. .

We conduct Summer readiness to get the entire campus ready. That involves us inspecting all of the rooms across campus and every building. We inspect every single room in the residence halls. The physical infrastructure of our residence halls today is as good as it’s ever been because of all the renovations we’ve done. Having said that, one of the issues that we have to be concerned about on an ongoing basis is deferred maintenance and preventative maintenance. If the upkeep isn’t at a high level, we’re going to have some of these issues. .

The board decided to go with a structure that would still have shared governance but would be deployed differently. One new mechanism is for the student, alumni and faculty representatives to participate as voting members on the board at a committee level. The second mechanism is to revitalize the board of visitors for every school and college, including student and faculty representation. There will also be listening sessions by the board for different members of the community to participate in. My advice is to give the restructure an opportunity, see how it works and provide feedback. .

We have to make more of an effort to engage. We have to think about how we are displaying that we care about the students. We need to do a much better job of communicating. We have a high-touch University; we have more students who get financial aid here than the typical university. And as a result, we have to have great customer service. We’re not great at it right now, and we have to be great. .

This is also a special place. But it’s made up of people, not just bricks and mortar. I know how much work the staff puts in. I know what they’re trying to do to serve our students and our University. We have to treat each other with dignity. I know who the staff are. They’re not just nameless people. We owe them grace. .

The issue of faculty salaries is a very pertinent one. We’re going to add $14 million to the wage bill for faculty beginning in January. .

 Decisions that we’ve made over the past couple of years reflect our need to support our staff. If you make $35,000 or less, we pay for your health insurance fully. Staff need to be rewarded, not just with more support, but with our financial support.