Update to the community

Dear Northwestern Community,

Last week, we—along with other senior leaders—met with over 40 Jewish students to hear about their experiences at Northwestern. It was an enlightening experience, and we are grateful that the students were direct, honest, and open in sharing their experiences. We left with a commitment to continue to listen, to hear, and to be open to critique and encouragement. We are intentionally not sharing the themes of the evening because we have many other students to hear from and we want patterns to emerge in our engagements. Needless to say, Northwestern’s students are remarkable and generous.

The full committee also met last week to begin to get to know one another, clarify our work together, and reiterate our commitments to holding listening sessions (including with Arab and Muslim students), collecting multiple data sources to help us understand the larger context at Northwestern, examining policies and procedures, conceptualizing and building educational content, hosting dialogues across difference, and making recommendations to President Schill and Provost Hagerty. We understand that there is urgency to our efforts. We feel that sense of urgency. Our committee also believes that we need to take a measured approach to our processes. Everyone on the committee reiterated their deep commitments to ensuring that we center students and the larger Northwestern community in our efforts.

Thank you for your kind notes and your generous offers to support our efforts. We will draw on Northwestern’s many resources as this effort moves forward.

If you have questions or comments, please do not hesitate to reach out to us at presidentsadvisorycommittee@northwestern.edu. We will continue to listen and to be mindful of the responsibilities of this important work.

Warmly,

Effi Benmelech and Bryan Brayboy on behalf of the entire committee

For all updates, please visit the Committee Updates page.