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Good Morning, my name is Anton Reese. I'm director of the Student Success Center here at UT.
I also co-chair the Diversity and Interculturalism Council.
I'm also a member of the Chancellor's Task Force for Civility and Community.
Today is a historic day at the University of Tennessee.
Today we begin the work that will change our campus culture forever.
In the last few years, incidents of bias, intolerance, and narrow mindedness have
unfortunately become more prevalent on our campus.
Our Chancellor believed this was unacceptable and began actively working with staff, faculty,
and students to address the problem.
As a task force, we identified 10 principles that define civility. And they are as follows:
Inclusivity, diversity, dialogue, collegiality, respect, knowledge, integrity, learning,
awareness, and responsiveness. We hope that each member of our campus community
will take these values to heart and live by them. If you would like to learn more about the
the task force findings, visit civility.utk.edu
Today is also a historic and important occasion because of the visionary that made this all happen.
And I said in my notes, be nice in my introduction. It gives me great pleasure to introduce
our Chancellor, Dr. Jimmy Cheek. Put your hands together. [applause]
Thank you very much, Anton. It is certainly a pleasure for me to be here and thank each of you
for being here today. This is certainly a special day for us.
As Anton mentioned, he's been actively involved in the efforts we're talking about today
First, he serves on the Council for Diversity and Interculturalism and he's also served
on the Task Force for Civility and Community task force.
And these are groups that will help make us a much stronger campus in the future.
This task force spent some time talking about what civility actually means on the campus,
defined some principles about civility, and I think if you think real simply about civility
it is treating others like you would like to be treated. And that's certainly an important
part for us as Volunteers. And I would actually hold our campus up as an example of civility.
But there are some instances that occur on this campus that should not occur and that's what
we're working against. But in general, this is a very civil campus.
If you think about the golden rule, do unto to others as you would have them do unto you.
That is the essence of civility. Civility means respect. It means treating others with respect.
It means treating others like you would like to be treated. It means being a welcoming environment,
and an environment that's hostile to no one. It's about celebrating differences.
As I walked up, I saw two performers on this mat in front of me. They can do some things that I can't do.
They can probably do some things that you can't do. And they make us a much richer campus because
they're here doing the things that they can do. That's what civility is about.
[applause]
We're all created equal. And we need to treat each other like all of us are equal.
The civility task force came out of a situation that occurred on our campus last year.
And I want to tell you a little bit about it. There had been some instances of incivility on the campus.
But the one that was brought to my attention, and the one that went before our committee on civility
and interculturalism was an instance that should have never occurred on this campus.
We had a group of students here visiting from Memphis, and their parents and counselors from school.
And as they walked across our beautiful campus, somebody threw some bananas into that group.
It was principally an African American group. And that committee came to me through Margie Nichols
and said, "Chancellor, you have to do something now." And so I wrote an email
to all of our students, our faculty, our staff, and our alumni about that situation.
I quite frankly left out the part about the bananas being thrown. There was a student on that committee,
as this letter went back to them [the committee], that said to Margie [Nichols],
"You tell Chancellor Cheek he has to include the statement about the group on campus and the
bananas that were thrown." And quite frankly, I didn't really want to include that in the statement.
So I'd known this student for a while, so I called him on the phone. And he said, "It's fact. And you
need to report it." And I said, "It doesn't make us look very good." And he said, "Chancellor,
it's the truth. And you must stay the truth." And so if you go back and read the email that I sent
to our faculty, staff, students, and alumni, it had that sentence or two in there about that incident.
And quite frankly, of all the emails that I've sent on the campus since I've been here,
that's the one that I have received the most positive response from from our alumni, our staff,
our students, and our faculty. And it's because of that statement being in there.
Civility is also about listening to what people have to say, from different perspectives, and
paying attention to that. And so I'm glad that you all are here today to kickoff this civility
initiative for this campus. Our faculty and our staff need to know that this is an important
aspect of our life here on this campus. We need to take a stand against behavior that's inappropriate.
And we need to make sure that our campus is welcoming to all, and hostile to none.
And if we all pledge ourselves to that, we will be a much better campus.
Welcoming to all, and hostile to none.