Campus Discernment 2.0

Invitation in March 2024 | Gleamings (Newsletter)

Campus Discernment Committee Wants to Talk With You

 

Cutting to the chase

 

In 2017, University Friends Meeting convened its first ad hoc committee for discernment about the future of our campus. That group identified four main options, which Friends considered in a retreat on September 16, 2017:

1. Sell our property and relocate.

2. Stay and retain the Meetinghouse, Quaker House, and parking lots as is.

3. Stay on our property and redevelop it entirely.

4. Stay on our property and redevelop part of it.

There are many non- and for-profit institutions that UFM could partner with for options 3 and 4.

Before we offer any possibilities other than the status quo, the current Discernment Committee wants to hear the ideas of every member of the UFM community. We will begin making phone calls to you in the next few weeks, once we have the most recently updated Meeting directory. We anticipate conversations of 15-25 minutes, so we'll make appointments to talk if necessary. Please do not contact the committee by email; we want to talk with Friends.

 

Here are the questions we would like to discuss with you:

1. What role do you think our campus should play in supporting the root work and purpose of University Friends Meeting?

2. What are your thoughts about any or all of the four options? Is there anything you're particularly concerned or excited about?

3. As UFM discerns what to do with its property, and when to do it, what do you think is important for us to keep in mind and pay attention to?

We look forward to hearing how everyone in our community feels about the future of our campus.

Campus Discernment Committee

The Committee Gratitude and hope.

RantWoman has omitted names because she does not feel like printing names without asking permission and does not feel like asking for permission to use names

RantWoman is also cautiously grateful about Friends willing to serve on this committee, with a couple observations.

RantWoman does not know whether to be relieved or chagrined to see that this round of discernment includes none of the people involved in the previous round of discernment. The majority of the previous committee was well under 60 at the time. The previous committee was clerked by a daring mom who thought that clerking 3 committees would definitely be doable on top of raising 3 young kids and a schedule that always to RantWoman seemed so entangled with Seattle traffic that RantWoman just found it impossible even to figure out mutually feasible timeline for communications.

RantWoman is happy to acknowledge challenge on her part, although RantWoman also notes that RantWoman speaking of her transportation realities generated what RantWoman interpreted as a blank stare from a member of the vaunted Care and Accountability Committee.

 

RantWoman has come to understand that, although the previous small  committee produced some very useful research, RantWoman is not the only person who felt excluded, disrespected. RantWoman would have started out what was certain to be a multi-year process differently and bitten into scope and range of topics to be considered differently.

RantWoman is particularly hot about the previous discernment not even touching major changes in public transportation in the area, both in terms of opportunities and very real concerns about physical safety and relation to transportation issues RantWoman sincerely hopes that the new process will take steps to engender more trust and to engage about transportation issues for a worship community.

RantWoman also noted a Friend on the previous committee whose name appeared in many places on the Meeting roster and probably continues both to be very good at gatekeeping and oblivious to how exhausting and silencing that can be. If that Friend recognizes their behavior, and is interested in talking further, RantWoman STRONGLY urges that Friend to see whether we can come to a mutually agreement about a clearness process for appropriate assistance.

RantWoman does note that all but one of the names on the current committee are Friends well past 60. RantWoman hopes that people new to the community will have more of a sense thant RantWoman had last time that their concerns and insights are at the very least heard, and preferably taken seriously and valued.

RantWoman notes the passing of several much older weighty Friends since the previous discernment. RantWoman feels no call to hide frustration with younger greener Friends attached to previous discernment. RantWoman also sincerely hopes for a much better sense of mutual learning!

 

Invitation accepted!

RantWoman received this invitation through one of the communications channels she is permitted to interact with. So RantWoman is going to interact!

Readers may already y have noticed, RantWoman has A LOT to say. RantWoman may or may not say it all in one blog post.

IN PARTICULAR, RantWoman will be VERY happy to interact with one or more of the current committee members named in the communication RantWoman received.

While RantWoman contact information has probably been erased from as many resources as possible, RantWoman is quite sure that people know how to reach her. In the absence of outreach, Readers are to expect continued commentary in this blog. RantWoman will TRY to work with followup phone calls, with the following additional comments.

Processwise, RantWoman cannot deal with the request above to handle everything with phone calls. RantWoman WELL understands that email can be problematic. RantWoman’s experience with oral communications is that she frequently feels unheard and like very important insights are simply blured out of oral conversations, particularly one on one, and particularly if the point of contact has a strong tendency toward gatekeeping or is simply at sea with unfamiliar concepts. RantWoman sometimes finds one on one interactions exhausting and really appreciates moments where shared wisdom lead to something greater than any individual brings alone..

Further jumping up and down about matters of disability, first, RantWoman needs to speak in practical terms, not just in floods of intellectualized rhetoric. RantWoman reminds readers that there are many reasons besides need for shared discernment why written communication can be FAR preferable to phone. So, SORRY not to respond as requested but also wanting to make VERY clear the fact of this response.

 

Responding to the questions:

1. What role do you think our campus should play in supporting the root work and purpose of University Friends Meeting?

2. What are your thoughts about any or all of the four options? Is there anything you're particularly concerned or excited about?

3. As UFM discerns what to do with its property, and when to do it, what do you think is important for us to keep in mind and pay attention to?

 

RantWoman considers a Quaker worshipping community is a valuable presence in the University District, both for the value of worship and as a voice of conscience amid many economic pressures and societal upheavals.

 

RantWoman is VERY excited that UFM is ready again to take up questions of property stewardship which have been kicked down the road several times over past decades.

 

RantWoman is concerned that discernment recognize the need for professional resources, including financial management, urban planning, and administration of whatever results.

 

Regarding option 1, Sell and move: Work done previously suggests this decision could have large dollar signs attached to it, with need to discern about how to steward the resources. RantWoman thinks a Quaker presence in the University District is really important. RantWoman thinks an interesting question might be what if some of the community calved off and went elsewhere? RantWoman has no clear leading to discern about that but is open at least to listening to others’ opinions.

 

Regarding Option2: speaking plainly, a DUMB idea, at least without taking a serious look at financial projections. Lots of old building issues. Need for greater accessibility. RantWoman is intrigued to know that after many bumps with previous tenants and then pandemic, the Friends meeting now has a long-term rental sharing space with a Buddhist congregation. RantWoman wonders how that would figure in any financial analysis.

 

Options 3 and 4: Honestly, if UFM is going to endure all the clamor that would come with any redevelopment, RantWoman would prefer to do all of the following: design in a worship space, perhaps on the top floor, redevelop the whole property, with a strong emphasis on housing, green building standards, and gardening or green space, and finally as one person previously suggested, get a variance to allow even more usable space than current zoning does. RantWoman would at least like to hear more about why the suggested variance would not work or would be a long shot.

 

Composting old HURTS

RantWoman DOES NOT APOLOGIZE for interacting in a way that composts A LOT of old hurts and DOES hope that her observations will be beneficial to the whole process.

RantWoman REPEATS her LONGSTANDING  concern that it is just GHOULISH to someone who has gone through a life-changing medical event in midlife that in the future the only thing in a community that she will be permitted to interact with is memorials. RantWoman in fact, can easily become INFURIATED that this stance is considered a KINDNESS. There have been quite a few memorials. RantWoman misses several Friends who have passed away. RantWoman does not know how to say kindly, though, that RantWoman is not going to miss a sense from some beloved figures that if they could not deal with a topic themselves, it does not need to be dealt with.

RantWoman also gratefully notes that some concerns have been handled just in the course of technological evolution and community adoption of new technologies. Still, RantWoman persists in her call to create an environment that MIGHT be more able both to welcome the gifts and contributions of others like her and to adapt to changing realities in the future.

RantWoman gets that for the sight-dependent, interacting with someone who just CANNOT DO all the things that sight dependent people take for granted is challenging Further, in the realm of a single standard of Truth, while modern workplaces come with strong expectations that people will at least BE WILLING TO LEARN how to work constructively with many different disabilities and life circumstances, no one is born knowing how to deal with such challenges. Sometimes RantWoman can be forgiving. Sometimes RantWoman is simply persistent. Add philosophical about concerns that afflict many parts of her life and for better or worse are not unique to Friends.

 

RantWoman thanks readers who have the fortitude to make it all the way through these thoughts and offers sincere good wishes for a productive process.

 

In Light and faithfulness

 

RantWoman