By Olivia Montes
News Co-Editor
As the spring 2022 semester continues, several members of the Washington College Student Government Association, as well as the larger student body, are striving to further solidify and maintain relationships with the town of Chestertown.
According to Secretary of Service and Community Relations junior Maegan White, the SGA is planning to build “advocacy within [the] community” as a means of achieving further diversity, equity, and inclusion on and off campus, as well as to encourage other students to become more involved with and work alongside Chestertown.
Previous initiatives included co-hosting a community dialogue installment with Chestertown Unites Against Racism alongside Bayside H.O.Y.A.S. founder John Queen in spring 2021 and hosting an in-person meeting with the Black Union of Kent County regarding discriminatory housing practices at Brook Meadow apartments last fall, according to White.
According to The Kent County News, the latter of these meetings led to both White and other students creating a petition notifying individuals of the “abysmal living conditions” in Brook Meadow. The SGA unanimously passed “A Resolution Against Discriminatory Housing Practices in Chestertown Md.” on Dec. 7, 2021, according to the SGA Minutes.
Further encouraged by the results of this initiative and other events on campus — including the meeting between SGA, Black Student Union, and the Office of Student Affairs on Dec. 6, 2021 —White and other students were motivated to further connect students with the Chestertown community.
“[We wanted to] make sure that we were representing the voice of…our community members,” White said. “We are part of the community, [and] we are making sure that we’re in constant communication with members of the community, and then we are doing what we can as college students to bring awareness to those issues.”
According to White, one of the initiatives she and others hope to implement on campus includes hosting the Chestertown Chief of Police Ron Dixon to the College to try and hopefully “make the students feel [less] uncomfortable with his presence on campus” within the next few weeks.
“I feel very confident that he will be the type of person who when the students are expressing and telling him everything, he’s going to listen to it very intentionally and do his best to work on it,” she said.
“With the appointment of a new Director of Public Safety and a new Police Chief, the Memorandum of Understanding [the document which lays out the specifics of the relationship between CPD and PS]…is being revised and re-signed,” freshman Public Service Liaison and President of the Class of 2025 Stephen Hook said. “[We feel that] the town is an extension of campus, and we feel it’s crucial to form a strong bond between community officials, students, and administration to ensure students are provided with a safe and enjoyable college environment.”
Other students involved, including freshman Claire Garretson — who worked alongside White in several initiatives and currently works with Queen and the Black Union of Kent County — said that continuing to inform students about the ongoing acts of racism and discrimination in Chestertown, as well as having residents interact with one another, will further “help [those] who can’t always speak up for themselves.”
“When the community needs us, we can be strong allies and raise our voices, and when we need the community’s support, they’ve always been there for us,” Garretson said. “Collaboration between [the] College and community is essential for fixing the large-scale problems on either side.”
As of Feb. 6, the petition has garnered over 300 signatures, and currently sits on the desk of the Governor of Maryland Larry Hogan, according to Garretson.
With the establishment and rise of these and other related advocacy approaches, White said that she hopes the College and Chestertown communities will engage with and support one another in a more natural way. “We are part of the [Chestertown] community…[and] we would not be a strong College without Chestertown. And there would not be a strong Chestertown without the College,” White said. “There is such a co-dependence on the existence of both, and so many students don’t feel like they can be part of the community…which is incredibly unfortunate.”
“I think it’s important for our students to have [and be a part of these] meetings — it’s important for WC students to feel safe in Chestertown. It’s important for our students to know different connections in Chestertown to feel comfortable enough to go…and get involved,” she said. “I’m really hoping that the more we get involved in the town, the more town gets involved with us, [and] the more natural it’s going to be and the more it’s going to happen.”
Photo by Olivia Dorsey
Featured Photo Caption: After notable events regarding calls for diversity, equity, and inclusion involving both Washington College and Chestertown, several students are finding ways of binding these communities closer together.