Dear Meredith Herald Readers,
The Meredith Herald Editorial Board is issuing a corrections article following the publication of the “Recap On the October Meeting with SGA and ELT” article. The corrections in this article are intended to clarify mistakes made in the primary article, not to replace the article in its entirety. President Jo Allen’s statement from the article still stands.
The initial article stated that “the main issue brought up by the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) during the meeting was the De-Lux Brunch and changing the names of buildings.” However, this was one of several issues covered during the meeting between Student Government Association (SGA) and the ELT. A week prior to the meeting with the ELT, SGA members convened to decide what topics would be raised to the ELT. Discussion topics included campus security efforts (including improved lighting on campus) and further efforts to change building names.
Our previous article mentioned three separate meetings, including the De-Lux Brunch held on Oct. 5 in Lux Auditorium. The primary focus of this meeting, according to the Meredith College Black Student Union’s (BSU) Instagram, was “a conversation series informing the history of Meredith College and the changes to come.”
This meeting was a source of conversation for the separate SGA meeting with ELT that occurred on Oct. 11. This was the meeting in which Jenkins, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Board (DEIB) vice chair, stated, “Conversations [are] great, but students [are] interested in action and wanted to know why the same principles for renaming Lux weren’t being applied to other buildings.” Jenkins said that the meeting on Oct. 11 was where, “according to other SGA members, Jo Allen immediately shut that idea down when Howlett suggested it at the meeting.” This was in reference to the quote, which stated “President Jo Allen interjected and said that [changing the building names] wasn’t possible because of accreditation laws…” The latter quote was misinterpreted by a bracketing error. The original quote from Jenkins stated, “President Jo Allen interjected and said that it wasn’t possible because accreditation laws prevented the Board of Trustees from interacting with students in that way.”
The final meeting referenced in the article occurred on Oct. 18 and was the SGA Open Body Meeting, open to all Meredith College students. It was in this meeting that SGA shared with the general student body the events that occurred in the previous meeting.
Additionally, there were other miscited quotes from the article, where interviewees were quoted as sharing statements with The Herald, instead of the actual source from which these quotes were received.
It was initially stated that Charlie Hatch, The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Board (DEIB) chair, told The Herald, “We should have been properly trained for this meeting, we didn’t even know the dress code for the meeting, let alone whether or not the questions were. So, we didn’t know if we should stick to the questions that were created... that left us in a very vulnerable position to the point where we were targeted, specifically black and brown people.” This was a quote not shared with The Herald through an interview but spoken by Hatch during the SGA Open Body Meeting on Oct. 18. The full quote shared in the meeting was “We should have been properly trained for this meeting, we didn’t even know the dress code for the meeting, let alone whether or not what the questions were. So, we didn’t know if we should stick to the questions that were handed in or what the questions even were and that left us in a very vulnerable position to the point where people were targeted, specifically black and brown people were targeted.”
Aminah Jenkins’ quote, “I was attacked specifically for my identities and for what I know are assumptions about the other identities that I carry,” was specifically stated at the SGA Open Body Meeting on Oct. 18.
The initial article states that “students can get involved with these and other issues on campus by submitting facility reports, emailing their Student Life Committee Chair or contacting SGA Executive Board members using the email address sga@email.meredith.edu or any of their personal emails.” The Student Life Committee Chair is Reagan Doucette.
Beyond content errors, there were additional AP Style errors we wish to address. The date Oct.18 was written out October 18. The Meredith Herald as the title of a news entity was not italicized.
As a staff, we are dedicated to journalistic integrity and work diligently to provide the most accurate information in everything we publish. We appreciate you taking the time to read this corrections article. For future articles, if a correction is needed, you can Submit a Tip through our website or email us directly at themeredithherald@gmail.com.
One of the sources for this corrections article is The Herald's editor-in-chief, Aminah Jenkins. Because of this conflict of interests, they participated only as a source and did not contribute in any way to the writing or editing of this article.
By The Meredith Herald Editorial Board