SAST Supports Petition For Goldsmith’s Resignation

To the Editors:

The Sexual Assault Support Team is writing to voice a vote of “no confidence” in Dean of Students Peter Goldsmith. Generally, we feel that Dean Goldsmith’s decisions over the past year, as well as the manner in which he makes them, demonstrate a lack of the integrity, good intentions and competence needed to provide adequate services as Dean of Students.
When Dean Goldsmith was first hired, he expressed interest and willingness to engage with students and behaved respectfully during his interactions with SAST. Unfortunately, his interactions with SAST members as well as survivors themselves became increasingly strained and problematic. Rather than respect SAST’s organizational policies, Dean Goldsmith has made a regular practice of privately contacting individual students, often at home, asking for representative statements about SAST. He continued this behavior even after SAST made clear to him that this is inappropriate because (1) it lessens our ability to hold him to his word, or even know when he is and isn’t speaking in his professional capacity, and (2) it places an undue burden on SAST’s collective structure and hinders our decision-making process.
From meetings we have had with Dean Goldsmith, it is SAST’s impression that the has refused to communicate with us properly because of his feelings toward individual members of the organization. Additionally, after SAST confronted the administration regarding several aspects of sexual offense policy and protocol last semester (Fall 2001), Dean Goldsmith was unwilling to support the inclusion of any SAST member on President Dye’s taskforce on Sexual Ethics, despite SAST’s 12-year history of doing sexual assault prevention and education at Oberlin College. As a result of this unprofessional and punitive conduct, many of SAST’s possible contributions as experienced peer educators, including ready-made curricula, resources throughout Ohio, materials from conferences and mailing lists, and other valuable information were lost or had to be re-created by this semester’s task force, which also has yet to issue any specific new policies or programs for next year.
Over the last two years, people who have been in contact with SAST about incidences of sexual violence at Oberlin report that their interactions with Dean Goldsmith have had a negative impact on their situation as a whole. Dean Goldsmith’s behaviors towards students have been unproductive and hurtful and include dismissive and rude comments, refusal to take remedial safety measures when students feel threatened and inflexibility regarding their personal and academic needs. As an organization concerned with supporting survivors of sexual violence, we are very concerned that the Dean of Students is not someone with whom the students feel safe and comfortable discussing issues of sex, violence or safety.
Dean Goldsmith’s unwillingness to help individual students in need is very disturbing; more disturbing, however, are the ways in which he has fundamentally compromised the safety of every student on this campus through his support for institutional decisions regarding hiring, firing and the creation of positions. The most recent of these decisions involves the elimination of the Community Coordinator intern positions. The Community Coordinators in the Multicultural Resource Center are essential to the personal and academic well-being of hundreds of students at Oberlin.
The coordinators provide invaluable leadership for student leaders and activists at Oberlin, providing contacts, workshops, financial support and constructive feedback. Although budget issues were given as the reason for this dismissal, and discussions had occurred long before the decision was announced, no students were given the chance to have input in this decision; in fact, Rachel Beverly, the director of the MRC, was not even informed that such substantial changes to her staff were being considered. Dean Goldsmith’s treatment of his colleagues and the students he is supposed to serve has been wholly inappropriate and unjustifiable.
The proposal to eliminate the MRC’s community coordinators has not been Dean Goldsmith’s first attempt to eliminate important resources this year. Over Winter Term, Dean Goldsmith eliminated the two positions for Sexual Assault Education and Prevention Interns. This decision came after a semester in which there were four reports of sexual assault, at least one report of domestic violence and hundreds of students received obscene and harassing phone calls. The decision was made without the input of students or the interns themselves and adequate explanation was never given. In an equally unexplained conflict over space allocation for the Women’s Resource Center, administrative decisions regarding this important campus office were only vaguely and inadequately communicated to students.
As Dean of Students, Peter Goldsmith is one of the only administrators whose job is to understand and advocate for the needs and demands of students. Not only has Dean Goldsmith not done this, he has failed to foster an atmosphere in which students feel that their concerns are even being heard, let alone given any real consideration in decision-making processes. Many students do not trust him, doubt his sincerity and good intentions, and are disappointed in the decisions he has made in his position as Dean. Due to this, the Sexual Assault Support Team calls on Dean Goldsmith to resign immediately, or be asked to leave by President Dye.

–Jessie Carr
College first-year
–Annie Gebhardt
College junior
–Lissah Lorberbaum
College sophomore

SAST Members