Letter from Faculty Senate

Dear CSM Students, Staff, and Faculty,

We write to you as the elected representatives of the academic faculty at CSM. By now, as discussed at the recent faculty forum on January 27, many of you are aware of events surrounding alleged misconduct by one of our faculty that reportedly involved the mistreatment and harassment of students and university policy violations. Many more of you likely know of events at similar institutions being reported in the press. As Faculty Senators, we wish to convey a simple message in response: we wholly condemn this kind of behavior. As we said clearly at that gathering: This is not who we are.

More importantly, we wish to publicly extend our thoughts and support to the students who were impacted by the faculty member’s misconduct. We are truly sorry for the pain and stress they endured. It saddens us to know that this experience will forever color their memories of Mines. We want to help make sure that others do not face similar experiences at this fine institution.

Although the events described were troubling, we are pleased that our leadership responded assertively when definitive evidence came to light. We are grateful to the courageous individuals who spoke up and provided the information CSM needed to act. Their willingness to take a stand is an inspiration to us all. We are also proud of our many faculty colleagues, staff, and students who have shared with us their outrage that such things could have occurred on our campus, and pledged to work with the Faculty Senate to turn these unfortunate events into a catalyst for enacting positive change on campus.

As Faculty Senators, we earnestly believe Mines should be a supportive community, bound by a shared interest in pushing the boundaries of knowledge, personal growth, and understanding. As faculty, we believe that everyone among us – students, staff, faculty colleagues, and administrative leadership – should be treated respectfully and professionally.

The Senate is engaging our colleagues in all departments about how we can make Mines as supportive a place as possible. Beyond the most blatant forms of misconduct, which we can all agree are unacceptable, we are also discussing stress, mental health, workloads, and other issues that affect our overall campus climate. We invite all members of our community – students, staff, and administrators – to join this dialogue. Help us make Mines a better place.

If you have thoughts, ideas, or comments, we hope you will feel comfortable reaching out to representatives of the Faculty Senate (listed below).

It is important that everyone knows that Mines has resources to help those who may have experienced or witnessed misconduct. Please familiarize yourselves with the “SpeakUp@Mines” initiative, which provides resources for members of our community to address matters of concern: http://speakup.mines.edu.

To paraphrase the great Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, let us all be the change we wish to see in the world – here at Mines and beyond.

Sincerely,
The CSM Faculty Senate

Kenneth Osgood, President
Division of Liberal Arts and International Studies
kosgood@mines.edu

John Berger
Department of Mechanical Engineering
jberger@mines.edu

Jason Ganley
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
jganley@mines.edu

Dinesh Mehta
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
dmehta@mines.edu

Chuck Stone
Department of Physics
cstone@mines.edu

Chester Van Tyne
Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
cvantyne@mines.edu