Community Responsibility

• Community Responsibility
• Conditions of Free Inquiry

Community Responsibility
To enter Mount Holyoke College as a student is to become a member of a community. Choosing to become a member of this community implies a commitment to the notions of free inquiry and free expression that are central to a liberal arts education. It also implies a commitment to maintaining an environment in which these goals may be attained. Being a member of this community is a privilege; sharing in the maintenance of this community is a responsibility.

The Mount Holyoke College community believes in the necessity of maintaining an environment in which every individual may pursue the lifestyle of her choice. Toward this end, it is the community’s responsibility to protect individual rights, and it is the responsibility of every member of this community to respect the rights, opinions, beliefs, and feelings of others.

Our community is committed to maintaining an environment in which diversity is not only tolerated but celebrated. Therefore, each member of the Mount Holyoke community is expected to treat all individuals with a common standard of decency. Discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, ethnic or national origin, sex, age, physical or mental handicap, or sexual orientation by any member of the Mount Holyoke community will not be tolerated.

We are drawn together by a common desire to further our understanding of the world, ourselves, and each other. Every member is encouraged to explore the opportunities and challenges that this unique institution provides and is expected to share in the responsibility of maintaining an environment guided by mutual respect and understanding. Conditions of Free Inquiry
The following statement, adopted in 1971 by the Mount Holyoke College faculty and student legislature, serves as an explanation of and a model for the working of the College’s institutional machinery.

1. Principles
   As an institution dedicated to seeking intellectual enlightenment and amelioration of the quality of life, Mount Holyoke College believes in the right, indeed the necessity, of free inquiry and free expression of every member of the College community. The College aims to provide an environment hospitable to open interchange of knowledge and opinion in terms of reasoned discourse. The citizen’s right to free speech, free movement, free association, peaceful assembly, and orderly protest extend to every member of the College. So do the civilized person’s obligations to respect the rights and feelings of others.
   
   The College is not a monolith but a living organism. As such, its structures ought to be as flexible as is consistent with effective operation, its phases and practices capable of constructive change. Avenues of communication among all segments of the community must be clear and of easy access. All of us must hold ourselves available to reasoned expression of the formed wills and opinions of others. Advocates of any serious concern are entitled to a hearing by persons in authority and to a reply as prompt, full, and specific as due consideration will allow.
   
   These principles of rational and humane relationship suggest that temperate and cogent persuasion is the appropriate voice of will in an academic community and that demonstration of opinion will not take forms that are coercive or seriously disruptive. Violence against persons or property cannot be allowed, nor can action that interferes with the rights of others or prevents the orderly practice of the processes by which the College pursues its normal objectives be tolerated indefinitely.
   
   
2. Institutional Mechanisms for Inquiries, Suggestions, and Complaints
   In addition to various regular institutional channels, the Faculty Conference Committee and the Student Advisory Committee to the Trustees are accessible in unusual circumstances as clearinghouses for inquiries, suggestions, and complaints from members of the College community. These committees will identify existing mechanisms appropriate for the consideration of unusual problems and bring them to the attention of the appropriate agencies.If existing institutions are not working effectively, these committees may stimulate changes to enhance effectiveness.If issues arise that are outside the jurisdiction of existing mechanisms, these committees may stimulate the creation, by the faculty or other appropriate bodies, of ad hoc arrangements for dealing effectively with these issues.
   
   
3. Procedures
   If behavior occurs that is contrary to the principles of Part I of this statement, it will be met first by persuasion to cease such behavior, then by warning from the appropriate College official as to College or civil consequences of persistence.
   
   If further steps appear necessary, the president may, after consultation with the Faculty and Student Conference Committees when that is feasible, authorize measures to restore normal functioning of the College and to apply established disciplinary procedures of the College.
   
   In extreme cases that exceed the competence or control of College authorities, the president may, after consultations with the Faculty Conference Committee and/or Student Advisory Committee to the Trustees, when that is feasible, make recourse to civil authority.

(See also the Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Communication and Decision Making, published in 1975, available in the library.)