Interim Vice Chancellor Chuck Henson Says Working Group is Working

March 7th, 2016

This video is available for broadcast-quality download and re-use. For more information, contact Nathan Hurst: hurstn@missouri.edu.

Interim Vice Chancellor Chuck Henson in a video statement:

“The working group is working, and the protest that happened on our campus today was unfair and might leave a wrong impression about the amount of progress that we have made and the climate on our campus, today.

“You know, I’ve been in this job for one hundred or so days and the working group has met three times and that’s simply not enough time to assess how well we are moving forward. But I will tell you this: we are moving forward and the point of the working group is to move forward together. That’s why the working group is composed of student leaders from student groups all across this campus: to engage in a respectful way and have serious conversation about what we are doing to move forward.

“Everybody who comes to the working group needs to come with an attitude of patience and extend grace to the process and to each other, because we’re dealing with issues that took more than one hundred years to develop here and are certainly going to take more than one hundred days and three meetings to address. The idea is to build the relationships because that’s how the work gets done and to commit to the hard work it’s going to take elbow grease and work over the long haul for us to make the progress that we are going to make.

“I have every intention of continuing in my work here at this University to work on those relationships, and I am excited to meet with everyone who wants to come to a respectful conversation and help with the solution. The working group is working and we are moving forward.”