As Gonzaga University updates its goals and initiatives as part of the ongoing "Grand Challenges" strategic planning process, the future of the Center for the Study of Hate is in question.
Founded in 1998 following an increase in racially motivated instances of hate at the university and in the region, the center aims to create an inclusive and just society.
But both the former director of the center and the law professor who leads the editorial board of the center's Journal of Hate Studies say the center has been left out of the strategic planning process and sidelined during the search for a new director.
Kristine Hoover, the director of the center from 2016 until earlier this year, says the center doesn't seem to be a priority for the university. She believes that hate studies will still exist at Gonzaga, but possibly as part of another program, such as a Humanities Institute that she says may be created in the near future.
"Although people could continue the work within the Humanities Institute, it is no longer a focal initiative of the university if that's the direction that the university goes," Hoover says.
Gonzaga's Board of Trustees will meet in July to vote on the strategic plan, but until then no decision has been made regarding the future of the center. University Provost Sacha Kopp says the strategic planning process "is in progress."
"Gonzaga is in the midst of updating its strategic plan and will remain engaged in leading efforts to combat hate regionally and nationally," Kopp said in an emailed statement.
Gonzaga is recognized as a founder of the hate studies field, especially as more universities create their own programs devoted to the issue, Hoover says.
"Higher education plays an incredibly important role in how we understand and develop knowledge so that we know what efforts are effective or ineffective when we're trying to counter the harm and the dehumanization that people experience," she says.
The Center for the Study of Hate employs one part-time director and allocates $30,000 to the program and $5,000 for the Journal of Hate Studies. Other staff and faculty volunteer for the center and work with the program's graduate assistants.
Hoover served as the center's director for two three-year terms beginning in 2016, during which past-Provost Deena Gonzalez created term limits that could be implemented for directors at the provost's discretion.
Hoover served as past director this academic year and says she doesn't know of other center directors who have been subject to term limits.
This April a search for a new director began, but Hoover says that process normally begins in the winter.
"I was involved in the search for a director that somehow was cut short without any real explanation to me at least," says Mary Pat Treuthart, who leads the editorial board of the center's Journal of Hate Studies.
The strategic planning process began last fall, but Treuthart says it's been difficult to receive answers from the administration about the long-term impacts the process will have on Gonzaga's programs and centers.
"When the center fully participated in the process and none of the materials, ideas, suggestions or work of the center were included in the strategic plan, it became very clear that it was not part of the work that was going to be moved forward as a part of the strategic planning process," Hoover says. ♦
