Staff Editorial: Faithful dialogue in trying times

As the school year draws to a close, big changes are headed Covenant’s way. Rightsizing initiatives and other key components of the strategic plan are set to be effected in May. Some very hard discussions have been held of late among administration, faculty and staff.
During the course of these discussions, Covenant’s philosophy of athletics and policy of recruitment have come under particularly critical scrutiny—especially regarding the prospect of athletics taking on an increasingly prominent role in the recruitment process.
Last week, the online publication Inside Higher Ed ran a story on Covenant College entitled “Broken Covenant.” The article, written by Elizabeth Redden, looks critically at decisions Covenant has recently made during the strategic planning and right-sizing processes.
The article relates Covenant’s issues to a wider struggle that many schools are facing across the nation: “whether an institution should build up athletics at the same time as it cuts academics.”
Redden’s article, and the frank comments that readers subsequently posted, displays the variety of voices and concerns being brought to the table about this issue. While Redden may have overemphasized or oversimplified some aspects of the tensions present in this discussion, the key thing to note is that her article finally brought these concerns out into the open.
Redden mentions the general hesitancy among faculty and staff to be vocal as she researched for her article. “In short, uncertainty is in the air,” she writes. “Faculty critical of the plan declined to be identified by name in news coverage. Multiple Covenant professors, meanwhile, declined or did not respond to requests for interviews.”
As the Bagpipe has sought to understand and cover the developments of this semester, we have encountered the same impediment. Unable to hear the full range of opinions on this matter has, in turn, made it difficult to find our role as students and reporters in the discussion.
The fact that information and meetings have been barred to students is, on one hand, understandable. These discussions are sensitive, tentative, and in the words of one faculty member, “sad.” We want to appropriately respect the privacy of the decision-making process.
Moreover, we have tried to avoid being overhasty in drawing conclusions about the situation. We have listened patiently as various outspoken individuals repeated the seemingly ubiquitous refrains of pitting “faculty” against “staff” and portraying the faculty as composed of sharply polarized warring factions. We sought out the voices of less vocal faculty, and began to discern that while there is certainly a significant polarization of views regarding these issues among more prominent faculty and staff, the dichotomy is nowhere near as stark or distinct as Redden’s article depicts it. There is also a strong middle ground, within which a significant portion of faculty and staff fall as they seek to let the issues develop and wait out these tense and trying times.
However, as a newspaper that seeks to help Covenant students keep the pulse of their school, we do not wish to turn our head from the hard consequences and controversies that have arisen from these difficult discussions.
We want students to know that we are conscious of these issues, but that a lack of information coupled with a desire to be sensitive to the nature of the discussion at hand is what keeps our reports from being as detailed and forthright as we wish they could be.
So, how is Covenant moving forward in this dialogue? The strategic plan has an action item to “review and update the philosophy of athletics,” and this is currently in the works. The administration has scheduled a pair of “town hall” meetings next week for select members of the Covenant community—the first step in the promised discussion process.
“The final goal of this process,” said President Niel Neilson, “is to ensure that we have a mission-driven philosophy of athletics at Covenant that undergirds and directs all that we do athletically.”
As the newspaper, we will continue to report on these issues as they develop. But what is our role as students in light of all this? It’s hard to say, but there are certain things we can do. Pay attention to these issues. Think about them. Pray about them. Do not be hasty to generalize and dismiss opinions that differ from your own. Recognize, as Redden reported, that there are many sides to this complex discussion—but do not let that discourage you from staying involved in it. And remember that in times like these, Covenant is not the only school in this position.