By Rowan Utzinger
Dr. Gordon,
When I wrote to you in January, I was grieving, and I was furious. I was watching my friends grieve for someone they loved, and I was watching my community reel from a tragedy that was obviously senseless. More immediately, I had just attended the Campus Investigation Community Webinar held by the administration on December 15th, advertised as an information sharing session on the death of Jonathan Rodriguez. I attended the webinar to feel that my anger was acknowledged, to make sure students were being heard, and to see those in charge take responsibility for the death of a student under their care. Instead, as I sat in a zoom meeting waiting a full 10 minutes for the webinar to start; and as I sat in my living room, listening numbly to the words you spoke that could have been lifted directly from one of the so-called “community updates” sitting in my inbox, what I felt was devastation. And as I waited in that Q and A session where our questions were not visible and answers were not given; in a meeting where I could not see or hear my fellow students, and I could not talk to those in charge, what I felt was fury.
That is the fury that went into the letter I wrote you. But along with that fury, there was grief. I was furious at the institution that had failed me and my friends, but I knew that institutions care very little for the fury of just one college kid. I saw in you someone who I wanted to trust, but instead, you betrayed that trust in the name of this institution. You had given in to the weight of all that administration demanded from you. You left behind Dexter Gordon, the man, and became Vice President Dexter Gordon; The Institution. So I sent you my fury, and my grief for the man that I thought you were.
When we met in person after Christmas break, I remember seeing for the first time how much my letter had wounded you. Your discomfort did not come from a place of embarrassment, or anger that I had called you out in front of an audience. What hurt you was the fact that my first option had not been to come talk to you in person. I had never considered you to be someone I had access to: never considered that I could have walked up to your office, sat down at your desk, and asked you these questions to your face. You went on to tell me about your crushing realization that all of us students felt the same way. You told me about the weight of walking through campus, through housing, and into the Mods the morning after Jonathan had died and two other students had been hospitalized. As we sat, face to face in your office, surrounded by your mountainous walls of books, you told me about your realization that the first time many students would see you in housing would be in response to a devastating tragedy. That instead of your arrival to the MODs that morning being that of a man that we trusted and knew– a relief and reassurance– instead we saw a stranger. A man pulled out of place to be put among the homes of the students of his school, addressing students that he did not know in the wake of the death of their friend. Unavoidably, you recognized that somewhere along the line, you had failed to become someone we felt we could trust.
It is going to be a long process building our trust, Dr. Gordon. There are still problems. Police still remain a hostile presence on our campus, ever expanding in their bids for more weapons, surveillance, and officers. Aramark has complete control over our access to food, and while the costs for students in every corner of the Evergreen have increased, our deteriorating student housing and basic needs have been neglected for years. Students (yes, students, plural) have died as a result of administrative actions, or lack thereof. We will not forget. It will take work to penetrate the miasma of willful obfuscation that has shrouded the operations of this college since at least 2017, maybe longer. But from what I have seen, you are ready to start this work. You invited me into your office, and you listened to me. Since then, as I write this, we have had two more meetings, with more to come. Each time they grow. The last Thursday morning I spent in your office was with my knees bumping up against your table, and the arms of my chair wedged against the upwards of 13 people we managed to cram into your office. Each student showed up to discuss the pain and love that we feel for Evergreen as we watch a place with such a beautiful vision fail the students who love it time and time again. We came through the door of your office feeling angry and abandoned. After listening to us tell stories filled with our pain and our love, you heard us. And you reminded us: “Institutions cannot love you. In fact, institutions are often most suspicious of those that love them the most.”
Fellow students of Evergreen; friends, comrades: This is a feeling Dr. Gordon knows well. Three years ago, he left the University of Puget Sound, a place that he had loved and taught at for decades. He left because he could no longer stand the disconnect between students and the administration; no longer stand watching student needs be overlooked and student voices ignored. He came to Evergreen because he believed that here, he could make a difference. Instead, he arrived on the scene of an institution floundering. He arrived at Evergreen hopeful to make change in partnership with students. In fact, one of his first requests was that he be allowed to teach one class per quarter, to make sure he never lost touch with his student body. But as he was buried trying to guide the school through disaster after disaster, he slowly retreated. He became, just as we have seen from every other administrator, an impassive, uncommunicative representative of The Evergreen State College. Dexter Gordon, The Institution.
Right now, we have all been shaken to our core by Jonathan’s death; this act of violence by an impassive, uncommunicative administrative body. Nothing after this can stay the same. We have made it clear that there is no place here for institutions in the place of people; and Dr. Gordon has been listening. If we want to make change, Dr. Dexter Gordon is a man who has said that he will stand with us. So far, I believe him. But I’m not asking you to believe me. I’m no student representative; not a leader in the student body, no ties to any organizational structure. I’m just some guy who can’t keep her mouth shut. What I’m asking you to do is to come see for yourself. Walk into his office, crowded with chairs pulled from other rooms to accommodate the crowd of students who have decided that our future is worth fighting for. Come listen to these students. Bring your voice; bring your betrayal, your hopes, your plans. We are all here to listen. What I hope you will find in this room is a crowd of people who are united because they care. Vice President, science student, artist, in open conversation around a plate of pastries and one of the most crowded tables I have ever seen. An unstoppable force. What I hope you find is the spark of the Evergreen I have always believed in.
We have encouraged him, too, to seek us out. To be available on campus; to show us that he is a human being. The next time you’re in the CAB on a Wednesday, drop by the second floor entrance. Most likely, he’ll be sitting alone at a table, waiting to find students who are willing to make their voices heard. Or, if he takes our advice, you might see him lingering at the Smoke Pit; the most reliable social hub of this mixed-up campus. He won’t be smoking (“In the name of full transparency,” he said, laughing so hard there were nearly tears in his eyes, “when I was young, I sat with a group of my friends passing around a cigarette. The cigarette got to me, and I took a draw. I coughed, and they laughed, and that was the last cigarette I ever had.”) but he may be there, speaking with his soft Jamaican accent, ready to talk with the students that he has sworn to serve. Next time you see him, look closer. I hope the man that you see will no longer just be Dexter Gordon the institution: instead, I hope you will see Dexter Gordon, the man who has fought for students his whole career as a professor, and is learning to fight for students again.
With that, I conclude the last open letter I will write to you, Dr. Gordon. I will extend to you the same respect you are extending to us: now that the student body is aware of your response to my letter, our meetings, or any meetings with interested students, will no longer be mentioned in any material coming from Marketing. And when I am furious, or grief-stricken, or frustrated or annoyed with this institution that we operate within, the Cooper Point Journal will never be the first and only place you hear about it. With this promise, I want you to hear the full weight of the responsibility you are accepting. You must drag the power of being the institution into line with beliefs you have always fought for as a man. I can promise you that it won’t be easy. But hey, what are they going to do? Fire you? For standing up for the voices of students? I don’t think so.
We are all waiting.
