When news broke that screenshots of a GroupMe conversation laced with racist language had been gaining traction in the Wolfpack Students Facebook group on Sept. 27, it did not take long before it reached Student Government, who moderates the group, and roughly an hour later, NC State administrators.
The next day, Student Body President Paul Nolan sent out an email to the entire student body containing the apology from the students involved in the chat as well as a response message from Chancellor Randy Woodson posted on social media. Woodson also released a Chancellor’s Letter on Sept. 30 where he addressed the topics discussed at a regularly scheduled town hall on Sept. 29.
However, faculty for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences did not receive any official statement from their department until Oct. 4, a full week after the initial incident, which put some in the awkward position of having to hear of the news from students and not being able to form structured class time to discuss the issue as it was happening.
Atilla Hallsby teaches a course called “Ethical Issues in Communication,” which he said he tries to focus on communication issues that are relevant to students’ lives, such as racism that is kept behind closed doors on campus.
“The GroupMe chats were a surprise because they were germane to these planned conversations but could not be addressed because of my own knowledge gap,” Hallsby said in an email. “I simply did not know the extent of what was going on in my students’ public lives.”
Cynthia Hyman, the head of undergraduate advising for the Department of Communication, said that she only knew about the incident because she is enrolled as a graduate student, allowing her to receive the email from Nolan. Hyman told several faculty members about what had happened, also alerting them to the town hall on Sept. 29.
The email sent from the CHASS Dean’s Office on Oct. 4 read as follows: “It has come to our attention that some faculty are not aware of the incidents that occurred last week regarding racist remarks made by some NC State students. We apologize if you did not receive the messages from the university regarding this issue and are working to ensure that does not happen in the future.”
Dean of CHASS Jeffrey Braden said that this was an example of a generational divide, which reversed the rolls between faculty and students.
“It has become clear that because of social media things can go viral so quickly that our faculty are unaware of it,” Braden said. “We’re not as nimble as we need to be in this changing media environment.”
Woodson released two Chancellor’s Letters in quick succession in the week leading up to the incident to address the ongoing racial climate discourse, one on Sept. 22 to address any concerns students may have over the Charlotte protests and one on Sept. 26 to address the die-in protest in Talley Student Union. His letter on Sept. 30 followed, addressing the Racial Climate Town Hall.
Chief Communications Officer Brad Bohlander said that Chancellor’s Letters are distributed via an email list called “All Leadership” which includes all the chancellor’s cabinet members, deans, department heads, directors, faculty and staff senate leadership and other faculty and staff leadership. Additionally, the Department of Academic and Student Affairs forwards the emails to a variety of student lists.
The same applies when something happens that affects a large number of people on campus, such as Hurricane Matthew. Justine Hollingshead, chief of staff to the dean of DASA, who composes these mass emails, said that it depends on the situation and the message whether it gets forwarded out. For example, the most recent Chancellor’s Letter titled “Value of Engineering Oval,” in which Woodson summarized the future benefits of the Engineering Oval on Centennial Campus, was purposefully not forwarded out.
“I can’t control who forwards it out,” Hollingshead said of the emails following the GroupMe incident. “This is unusual because Dean Braden and his associate dean are usually on it. While I understand that there’s a couple of faculty that should have gotten the information sooner, the information was there.”
Jessica Jameson, an associate professor of communication, found out about the GroupMe incident from a graduate student. The student asked, “Didn’t you see the message from the chancellor?”
“[The video from the chancellor] was there but I don’t know how I would’ve seen it if I hadn’t been told by my student,” Jameson said. “I was frustrated that it took that long for me to find out. I remember being annoyed, and I didn’t even realize how long it had been [since the screenshots were posted].”
Braden said that this has shown that the university needs to continue to improve when it comes to communicating.
“I think this incident has helped us realize that our protocols aren’t keeping up with the rapidly changing communication technology,” Braden said.
