Dear Rhodes Community Members,
We write the campus community this afternoon with a heavy heart, concern, alarm, sadness, and condolences. As you may know, on June 12, 2016 around 2 AM a gunman entered an Orlando nightclub that catered to an LGBTQAIP clientele and opened fire killing approximately 49 people and leaving 53 people injured, some of them critically. Any loss of life is cause for reflection, compassion and empathy. When those lives are lost as a result of hate and the devaluing of human beings as human, we have cause to respond. We hope as a community our response is one of support for those around us who are grieving and a renewed commitment to making sure that every member of our campus and surrounding community feel safe and welcome at Rhodes College.
We understand from current events across our country that hate crimes are on the rise and cannot be ascribed to any one particular social, religious, or national group. As a Liberal Arts College, we have a vested interest in education, scholarship, and service. Our community must pull together to redirect those around us toward empathy and building a human condition that improves our world. For our community members who are on campus this summer, we encourage you to engage in difficult conversations around this incident in your classes, labs, and residence halls. Regardless of where you are this summer, we hope that you will commit yourselves to being kind to those who are suffering the most and to being good allies in their healing. We look forward to the fall semester when our community will be back on campus to discuss this tragedy and the cultural climate that allowed it to happen.
Milton Moreland, Noelle Chaddock, Michelle Mattson, and Brian Shaffer
The Office of Academic Affairs