Dear Members of the Â鶹Çø community,
Happy New Year! I truly hope that 2024 will be a year of flourishing and friendship across our campus, and well beyond.
As I do at the start of every academic term, I write today to recall the principles and expectations that ought to guide us in our academic and research pursuits, and in how we engage with one another. Each of the policies by which our university community is governed is anchored to Â鶹Çø’s foundational Principles: academic freedom, integrity, responsibility, equity, and inclusiveness. I have highlighted our policies most germane to this message, as well as related resources, below.
All of the work we carry out and all of our interactions with one another – whether as students, faculty, or staff – should reflect Â鶹Çø’s core principles. This requires acting and engaging with fellow members of the Â鶹Çø community in a manner that is accountable, open, and respectful.
We return to campus this January at a fraught moment for higher education across North America. Increasingly, universities are perceived as, and accused of, appealing to demagoguery through the exhortation of absolute, singular perspectives and the silencing of dissent and unpopular views. This situation is troubling. It endangers universities’ individual and collective institutional credibility. It further stands to undermine universities’ historic contributions to improving social outcomes through building and imparting knowledge via research and teaching.
A university thus can and must focus its energies on the pursuit of truth and advancement of knowledge through reasoned dialogue and debate, rigorous and relentless inquiry, and respect for diverse ideas, experiences, and perspectives. Â鶹Çø has, and must forever continue to, fashion itself in this institutional image.
Our university will always be a place that welcomes a diversity of ideas and argument, grounded in evidence and reason, and articulated with respect and integrity.
Over the coming weeks and months, difficult discussions and experiences like those we have had in the fall term related to the war in the Middle East will continue. As President Saini and I have before stated, colleagues and students have the freedom to express themselves individually or through assembly. However, the exercise of that freedom cannot violate the law or our policies, and in such cases the University will continue to take appropriate measures.
Even where actions or words fall short of a law or policy breach, they can inflict harm. Many members of our community continue to live with anguish and profound anxiety in relation to the devastating events that have occurred, and that continue to occur, in the Middle East. This is a crucial point we must bear in mind and behave accordingly, with compassion.
As we embark on a new year and a new semester, I invite us to reflect continuously on the five values that are Â鶹Çø’s bedrock, and to live by these through our choices, relationships, and actions.
Ìý
Best wishes again for the year ahead.
Christopher Manfredi
Provost and Executive Vice President (Academic)Ìý
Policies and Initiatives:
- Code of Student Conduct
- Policy on Academic Freedom
- Policy on Harassment and Discrimination
- Policy against Sexual Violence
- Initiative against Islamophobia and Antisemitism
- Action Plan against Anti-Black Racism
- Provost’s Task Force’s Report on Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Education
Resources:
- Wellness Hub (for students)
- keep.meSAFE (for students)
- Employee and Family Assistance Program (for faculty and staff)
- (for all)
- (for all: for inquiries or to report incidents of sexual violence, harassment, and/or discrimination)
- First Peoples’ House (for students)
- Black Student Affairs Liaison (for students)
- Muslim Student Affairs Liaison (for students)
- Jewish Student Affairs Liaison (for students)
- Student Accessibility & Achievement (for students)
- Accessibility Advisor (for faculty and staff)