BOT Report, June 2022
NIA Report
Elena Chin, NIA President
October 2022
NIA Report
Content Advisory: This report speaks broadly about mass shootings, sexual harrasment, and descrimination. No names nor graphic details are included.
Before we begin, I just want to recognize the space that many of us are in now, at the time of writing. In the last two weeks, the United States has seen three mass shootings. The grief, loss, numbness, anger, frustration, confusion sit heavily with many of us. To list all the ways in and reasons that people are hurting right now would take more than this whole Board Report, and I hope to just acknowledge these realities and the many others that shape the contexts of our lives right now. Please take space if you need it, and take action when you can.
For this report I’d like to draw our attention to two different, yet similar, employee concerns, and explore ideas that have come up in the time our communities have spent grappling with them.
In late March, a former employee posted an article on the NOLS Talking Facebook group about alleged gender-based descrimination against one of his male students. The discussion that followed included some amount of healthy dialogue, and a large amount of comments that either approached or were hate speech. Furthermore, deletion of certain posts brought up conversations of censorship, free speech, and the balance between non-work and work spaces in the NOLS community.
In early April, a group of NOLS field instructors posted a petition asking for more transparency and accountability in addressing organizational harm at NOLS. This petition was downstream of concerns about how NOLS handled a sexual harassment claim, and alleged that NOLS retaliated against the employees who reported. Discussions on Facebook and in emails grappled with the question of systematic vs individual accountability, transparency, and harm.
These concerns, and their subsequent social media posts, came from what many would call opposite sides of the “political” spectrum. As I sifted through the comments, it seemed like staunch supporters of one post were often staunch opponents of the other. In both posts and from all “sides” I saw frustration, anger, and a lack of trust in NOLS systems.
I would like to pause for a moment and say that I do have opinions and perspectives on the two situations. These opinions are rooted in my values, and my values are an important part of the work I do for the NIA. I have no desire to legitimize any of the hate speech posted on social media forums and/or spoken elsewhere. Affinity spaces (ex: spaces where everyone has the same values or identities on a certain topic) have helped me and others heal from some of the harm of these events.
At the same time, coalition-building and change-making is best done across groups and across values. We are most powerful when we connect with the largest cross-section of people who agree on the single action at hand, especially when that group has members who disagree in other ways. While I fundamentally disagree with many of the things posted, and appreciate the affinity spaces I’ve been able to process that in, my focus as the NIA President is on the trends of things that employees were in agreement on.
And there was also a lot of agreement. Many people, from many different “sides” were expressing feeling unheard by the NOLS administration, that their concerns were not taken seriously, that the NOLS process for disciplinary action is opaque and confusing. Many were asking for systems change. Many were asking for third-party oversight.
When I zoom out, I see a lot of alignment on the “whats” that need to change, and less alignment on the “hows.” I hope that both the NOLS Executive Team and NOLS Board of Trustees are aware of this, taking it seriously, and investing in avenues to explore the “hows” of these common employee concerns.
And there’s still a part of me that's hopeful. When we sat down and brainstormed as a partial NIA Board we came up with a list of places that we are currently seeing NOLS working either directly on the “hows” and/or creating spaciousness to allow employees to address the “hows” down the line.
We’d like to acknowledge the Field Faculty Development Department and the work they’re doing to build out career-development pathways that support field instructors in their full humanity, in their developmental needs, and, at times, in their healing from harm at NOLS.
We’d like to acknowledge the positive impacts of the digital transformation, particularly in its support of Wilderness Medicine in-town employees having increased job capacity by decreased technological frustrations.
We’d like to acknowledge the efforts in building out the Human Resources Department and that, while adding a couple positions may not seem like a lot, the increased capacity in that department is already directly supporting many employees, particularly ones who need support in crossing national borders to work for NOLS.
And we’d like to ask, is there space for mandatory, paid HR trainings for all employees? Is there capacity to either expand our relationship with SpeakUp or work with another ombudsman organization so as to have more third-party support for workplace concerns? Can we break away from corporate-style HR systems and include more restorative-justice practices as we often do on expedition courses and elsewhere at NOLS?
With this, the NIA would like to reaffirm our support for all NOLS employees below the Executive-Team Level, and acknowledge that, while our capacity may be limited at times, we hope to provide continued advocacy and support for systems changes that help NOLSies as people and as employees.