I hear you.

Your pain, your fears, and your demands for change impacted me. As your provost, it’s my responsibility to listen — to hear your concerns, to be your advocate, and to ensure that your educational experience at UofSC is excellent. This last month has shown that we, as an institution, must continue to improve.

Over the last few days, I received numerous emails from students asking how I plan to respond to the recent sexual harassment allegations made against several faculty members. My aim is to support a safe environment for you to learn. To that end, I have responded to concerns by advocating to remove alleged harassers from the university campus and our learning community. We accomplished this in the most recent case. More is required of us.

In the coming days, months, and years, I promise to advocate for all University of South Carolina students. I am available to listen to you, and I will do everything in my power to support you. Just as you have these past few weeks, I want all students to feel comfortable sharing their thoughts with me. I want to know if you believe that the university is not upholding its promise of excellence made to you on your first campus tour. And, if and when I hear that, I want to be a driving force for change to ensure the words in that promise are realized.

As we consider the next steps for our university in addressing the challenge before us, I want you to know that change is already occurring, and much more is on the horizon. And, I encourage all of you to visit the Stop Sexual Assault web page we have created in an effort to help UofSC students acquire needed information and resources.

Again, thank you for voicing your concerns. I will continue to do everything in my power to ensure that the University of South Carolina’s classroom and academic environments represent the very best in safe learning spaces.

Forever to thee.

Sincerely,

William F. Tate IV
Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs