Experience Manifesto

Incident at Fran's House

My daughter, Sydney, is a sophomore at Bucknell and like many students, she has had a tough year. Between suddenly having all of her classes go remote, the food program being really hard (at least last semester) and the lack of social experiences, it's been a hard year for her. But one thing that was awesome, is her experience at her residence hall, Fran's House.

But last week, she had an experience that no one at college should have. Her house was attacked by a group of graduating seniors, members of a fraternity that had previously lived in the building that she now lives in. As reported on the Bucknell website:

As reported to Public Safety, a group of male students approached the house at 825 Fraternity Road, which formerly housed the Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) fraternity until that group's removal two years ago. In the events that ensued, these men allegedly harassed and intimidated the residents of Tower House while attempting to enter the building. We note that TKE does not formally exist at the University, is no longer a recognized student organization, and is banned from campus operations. It is clear from multiple accounts that the students violated the physical space and, far more importantly, the residents' sense of place and security. Further, it is equally clear that Bucknell Public Safety's response to the incident was lacking in myriad ways.

Fran's House RA, Tyler Luong gave more details about what happened when the campus security in a note to the President of Bucknell:

When Public Safety arrived, they laughed at the situation. President Bravman, the officers bonded with our offenders, reminiscing their college days and calling them handsome young men. President Bravman, the two officers didn't even speak to me. Neither of the two officers came up to us Fran's House residents to ask if we were okay. AND THEN THEY PROMISED TO TALK TO THE CHIEF OF PUBLIC SAFETY TO GET THEM ACCESS TO OUR HOUSE WHEN FINALS WEEK WAS OVER, SHAKING EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEIR HANDS.

This was an outrageous act on the part of campus security, ignoring the victims while volunteering to do what they could to help the attackers. TKE was banned from the University and has no official presence at Bucknell at all. But that apparently didn't stop this group of people from coming back to what used to be their house and terrorizing the current residents. And make no mistake, that was their goal. To make the current residents feel unsafe in their home.

Not enough people understand what it is not to have a safe space. I certainly don't. I, like many other, live in a world where all of their spaces are safe. So we don't understand the big deal. I've seen the comments of people who said Hey, they were just being stupid kids, don't make it such a big deal. Someone on Twitter actually asked:

Ask yourself: Would you rather the world was run by these drunken louts or by the students who wrote these letters? I'd pick government-by-Neanderthal over government-by-Cultural-Revolutionaries every time.

Only someone who has lived their lives in constant safe spaces would even dare suggest that the world is better off being ruled by drunken louts over people asking to be treated equally and to have a safe space to live. It's amazing how many folks seem to think being held responsible for your actions is a cultural revolution.

Fran's House is an incredible haven. During this awful, stressful year for all students, my daughter has found a support system in Fran's House that quite frankly should serve as a model for all residential living at Bucknell. For that matter, every university should be thrilled to have a housing community like they have at Fran's House. We are grateful every day that Sydney has found her people who support and love her. 

While this attack has been terrible on so many levels, I would be remiss if I didn't commend the faculty/staff who created their own sign-up system to sit at Fran's House and let the residents know that they are loved and protected. When I arrived Friday evening, it was just so encouraging to see a dozen plus people, on the front lawn, there to protect all of the residents of Fran's House. And while I didn't stay there all night, my understanding is that there were people there throughout the night. The faculty/staff who both organized and were there should be the example for everyone on campus and they should be recognized publicly for what they did.

 

Every parent wants a safe college experience for their child. They should never have to worry about being safe in their own space and they certainly shouldn't be made to feel unsafe by campus security staff. This incident helped me to truly understand the need to have safe spaces for everyone.

 

At the end of the day, change will not come from those that need the safe spaces, but from those of us who've never even thought about needing safe spaces. Until we change, incidents like this will continue and those involved will never be held accountable for their actions.

 

I look forward to hearing what Bucknell will be doing so that my daughter never has to go through what happened last Thursday.

 

Official Bucknell response and the letter from Fran's House residents.

 

Articles about the incident can be found here, here and here among others.

 

The residents of Fran's House

Bucknell MIDE Program & The Future of Retail

Earlier this summer, after Sydney was accepted to Bucknell, we learned about a program in the business school there called MIDE, their Markets, Innovation & Design program. I thought it was a pretty cool program and reached out to connect during one of our visits with Sydney. That started a conversation about ways we could work together during the school year.

Later in the summer, once we had the folks from Jisp move in, that started many conversations about how the store of the future would be designed if you didn't need cashiers and checkout lines, particularly at grocery and convenience stores. Our internal teams started thinking about it as well, exploring the entire checkout process that exists today and what would be done with that space once the checkout lines were removed and it spurred some great conversations.

In late August, I had the chance to meet with Collin Smith and we both thought that the idea of recreating the front end of a grocery store would be a great project for his class. Since they had to explore a topic and then actually design and build something, the ability to use our manufacturing resources at Unified to actually build some prototypes was pretty exciting.

Collin described the class and its process:

“Creative confidence is about believing in your ability to create change in the world around you....the ability to come up with new ideas and the courage to try them out.” - Tom Kelly, IDEO

Our design studio at Bucknell's Markets, Innovation & Design program is building creative confidence by having students bring new ideas to life through prototypes people can actually experience and interact with to really feel what the future might really be like. We fill our studio space with supplies for very rapid and rough prototyping (ex. pipe cleaners, felt, fun foam, Play-Doh, popsicle sticks, tape, hot glue, etc.) so our design teams can think with their hands and physically build on each others ideas.

This collaborative project with Brand Experience Lab builds on these making experiences by giving these students real opportunities, tools, and mindsets to envision, design, and demonstrate possible futures of retail experiences. By bringing these ideas to life through low and high fidelity prototypes these students will be able to really ensure that what is designed makes sense in the future lives of people, bringing truly meaningful and differentiated consumer value.

Let’s make the future awesome, together.

I had the chance to meet with the class in late September and kick off the process with them. Throughout the semester, we'll introduce them to other designers and technologists who will give them more ideas to work with over the semester. There will be a variety of times throughout this process to see what the students are doing and we will update the blog whenever we can.

You can email me if you'd like to know more about the program and participate either as a technology or retail partner. We anticipate this to be the first of many programs and we couldn't be happier to be partnering with Bucknell on this first initiative.

More on MIDE:

As a Bucknell markets, innovation & design major, you'll learn to recognize what consumers want — before they even know they want it — and build a career developing the products, brands and messages to meet those desires. But you don't need to wait until graduation to get started. Whether you want to help entrepreneurs launch their first websites or start your own magazine, you’ll have freedom to follow your passions here. When you are ready to enter the job market, those experiences in and out of the classroom will make you stand out. Leading employers around the world actively recruit our graduates, who hold jobs with organizations as diverse as Tommy Hilfiger and the Philadelphia 76ers.