In the coming days and weeks we will again enter into the process of welcoming the newly admitted members of the Class of 2010 to the Colgate community. With these new students in mind, this moment seems an appropriate time to think about what it means to be part of this community; and what it means to be welcoming.There is no question that being of Colgate is something in which most of us take great pride, and part of that is very much about extending ourselves to newcomers. Sadly, though, we do not always succeed in making people feel welcome and supported here. In particular, those students who either see themselves or are seen by others as being “different” often feel unwelcome and unwanted. There are, of course, many explanations for how and why such things come to be, ranging from instances in which people of good intentions either unknowingly or unwittingly cause harm to others, to those in which members of our community are confronted with deliberate acts of intolerance. The line between careless insensitivity and intentional cruelty is often hard to distinguish, but in the end the damage that is done is frequently the same regardless of intent.Ours is an era in which shrill incivility is in vogue, bigotry is passed off as humor and the most common means of lifting oneself up is by tearing others down. We’ve come to accept these things as part of our daily lives. Watch 10 minutes of prime time television; read the Op-ed page of any newspaper; look closely at the email messages you send and receive on a daily basis. We need to do better. At Colgate we need to hold ourselves, our classmates and our peers to a higher standard.The truth is that too often members of our community – students of color, international students, LGBTQ students, students of modest socio-economic means, students with devout religious beliefs, to name just a few – are told in ways both subtle and overt that they are not valued, that they don’t belong, that being different is not okay at Colgate. We who are truly of Colgate know better. We know that when any individual member of our community is marginalized, we are all diminished. So in the days ahead, all the days ahead and not just those on which we welcome visitors and new students to our community, we need to raise our expectations of ourselves and each other. We need to be the thoughtful, critical thinkers that Colgate expects us to be. And we need to place our understanding of humanity and kindness at the forefront of who we are. Jim Terhune Dean of Student Affairs Mark Thompson Director of Counseling and Psychological Services

Kim WaldronSecretary of the College/Secretary to the Board of Trustees

Sincerely,

Jim Terhune Dean of Student Affairs

Mark Thompson Director of Counseling and Psychological Services

Kim WaldronSecretary of the College/Secretary to the Board of Trustees