Administration on track: President Gaber initiates community and transparency at UT

A recent student assault has made it in the spotlight after an explosion of tweets pushed it into everyone’s attention, including the UT administration’s. Rather than choosing to turn a blind eye or sweeping the incident under the rug, President Gaber’s initial response was to reply directly, and the administration’s response didn’t stop there. Gaber and other administrators have reached out to students via email and social media, even holding diversity forums, where students were given updates on the incident and also given the chance to speak their mind on the subject.
However, these diversity forums weren’t a part of a triage strategy or emergency response. They were scheduled weeks before the incident even happened as part of Gaber’s diversity plan for the university, including the hiring of Dr. Willie McKether. Gaber saw what was happening with the University of Missouri protests on racial issues, and wanted to work on any similar issues at UT before they had a chance to emerge on campus. Simply put, the administration is being proactive for the first time since our editors came to the University of Toledo, and for some of us, that’s four years or more.
This is very different from anything we have seen in our time here as both students and reporters. For example, the Title IX issues of 2014’s fall semester sparked an enormous response from the UT community. Our Student Government kicked off the “It’s On Us” campaign, and several community members and students held a protest against how a sexual assault survivor’s case was handled. The administration also took action by revising the sexual assault policies and hiring new people to handle sexual assault incidents. But they did this only after they received pushback from the community on the incident.
It felt like exactly what it was — a reaction. While these were all very good changes, they happened because they had to, and we were all left to wonder and speculate as to whether those changes would have happened if the case hadn’t gone public. It doesn’t seem like that anymore.
Following the student assault, one of our editors interviewed Gaber and we could see taking care of the situation and having an informed campus were personally important to her, rather than being just an apathetic, administrative duty. This falls in line with her inauguration speech, which strongly emphasized unity and community. What better way to create a sense of trust and unity than by being open and honest?
The diversity forums also gave a similar amount of attention and value to student opinions. This was evident as McKether took notes on what students said, and the information gathered from those forums is supposed to be the foundation of the future diversity plan. A student survey is also coming in the following months, which will give additional opportunities for students and UT staff to give their input.
Both the president and administrators are acting more transparent and student-focused, and we like it. But why are we so surprised that they would be willing to interact with the UT community? Shouldn’t this rapport be natural at universities? We thought about this, and it wasn’t long before we came up with an answer — Lloyd Jacobs.
Under Jacobs’ time as president of UT, he refused to discuss important issues and often punted the blame off into left field without explanation or owning his choices.
A memorable example is when Jacobs cancelled a transfer agreement with an abortion clinic and decided not to renew a transfer agreement with another abortion clinic. The Toledo Blade reported that “Ohio Right to Life today shared copies of letters it received from UT President Lloyd Jacobs indicating the university has notified Capital Care Network in West Toledo that it will not renew the one-year transfer agreement when it expires on July 31.” And yet, Jacobs is quoted in the April 23, 2013, issue of The Independent Collegian as saying, “I never knew there was such as a thing as the Ohio Right to Life until pretty much after the fact.”
A culture of fear and apathy formed and spread rapidly. We would try to interview people for stories and they would refuse, telling us they were afraid they would lose their jobs.
This fear carried on from the Jacobs administration to former interim president Nagi Naganathan’s, but Naganathan began to try and breach the divide between administrators and the UT community. He reached out to students with his Walks with the President and by attending Student Government and Faculty Senate meetings. He got the ball rolling on being more involved with students and getting students more involved.
Gaber, however, hit the ground running. From her initial address to now, she has made every attempt to interact with the community and remain transparent. She has sent students email updates and responded on social media, both in the student assault incident and in the past, showing that she is making an effort to reach out to the community. For the student assault case she has been especially active on Twitter, sharing updates every couple days and directly tweeting at two students who reached out to her via twitter.
From what we can see, it’s working. Students seem to feel like UT cares about them, and so they have started to care about UT. They are becoming more involved, attending forums and taking stances on university issues.
They are also more willing to speak now because the administration has, proactively, put into place ways to do so. Students know there are people to talk to about things like diversity issues or sexual assault issues. Most importantly they know who those people are.
The administration is finally taking an active role, watching national trends and preparing for them ahead of time. It’s not just luck the diversity forums were scheduled before the assault case. These discussions are being held nationally, and UT decided to get ahead of these issues instead of being late to the game.