AAA Issues Vote of No-Confidence

To the Editors:

We, the Asian American Alliance Officers, fully support the no-confidence vote petition pertaining to Dean of Students Peter Goldsmith.
Since his arrival at Oberlin in the Spring of 1999, Dean Goldsmith has not fulfilled either the job description or his proclaimed agendas. Instead, his presence has served to further aggravate the relationship between students and administration, while abusing his position of power within the institution.
From the very beginning, the hiring process for Goldsmith’s position was highly debatable. As the head administration member, with substantial power over all of Student Life, Dean Goldsmith has repeatedly betrayed trust with students, first asking for their inputs in administrative decision making processes and then completely ignoring all the suggestions. This concern was highlighted during the hiring process of the director of Residential Life and Services in Spring 2000, when Senate input was completely ignored by Dean Goldsmith. He acted upon his executive decision making status to pursue the candidate he believed was suitable for the position. This tendency of Dean Goldsmith is extremely problematic and inconsistent with his initial goals for the Oberlin community.
Especially in the cases of the recent intern cuts and the reduction of the Protestant Chaplain’s position, all decisions were made at the discretion of senior administration members, without consulting the greater student body and the junior administration members. It was only after serious grievances and strong resistance from the student body, did Dean Goldsmith invite student input and dialogue/listening sessions. In the case of the Multicultural Resource Center, student leaders provided very clear demands on the future hiring process and restructuring of the MRC in the form of a contract. On Thursday, May 2, in front of the Standing Committee of Pluralism and Equity, Dean Goldsmith had verbally agreed to the list of demands presented to him, given he had time to reword the contract if necessary. Unfortunately, when meeting with the student leaders on Friday, May 3, Dean Goldsmith presented his own letter and refused to sign the contract he had initially agreed to sign.
Dean Goldsmith’s blatant disregard of student concerns is absolutely unacceptable and intolerable. We encourage Oberlin College to carefully reevaluate Dean Goldsmith’s position and his competency as a student advocate in the administration.

–Jane Lee
College junior
Co-Chair, AAA
–Shahana Siddiqui
College junior
Co-Chair, AAA
–Melissa Francisco
College first-year
–Nancy Nguyen
College first-year
Co-Secretaries, AAA
–Tracy Eng
College sophomore
–Joo Kim
College first-year
Co-Treasurers, AAA
–Vivian Liao
College sophomore
–Sung-Mun Choi
College first-year
Co-Historians, AAA