The chair of the faculty at UNC – Chapel Hill is encouraging graduate students and teaching assistants who have said they will without final grades in protest of Silent Sam to continue to be heard but “without further jeopardizing the students that we know you teach and care about.”

Members of the group have said they will withhold final grades to protest the plan approved last week by the UNC – Chapel Hill Board of Trustees regarding the Confederate monument on the Chapel Hill campus known as Silent Sam.

Faculty chair Leslie Parise wrote in a letter Friday morning that faculty leadership “support the goal of this action, but many have expressed concern that withholding grades will do much more harm than good in helping us reach this goal.”

The graduate students and teaching assistants who are participating in the protest have said their action will continue into 2019 unless a series of demands are met, including rescinding the proposal to build a new $5 million facility to house the monument and provide teaching and exhibit space to tell the full history of the university.

“We care about you, appreciate your passion, and want you to know that you have been heard,” Parise wrote. “We encourage you to continue to be heard in ways that can have impact, but without further jeopardizing the students that we know you teach and care about.”

Parise wrote that other avenues would be effective and “not harm either you or your students.” She said one of those avenues was a meeting that occurred on Thursday with UNC – Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt, UNC System Board of Governors chair Harry Smith, UNC System president Margaret Spellings and campus provost Bob Blouin.

Smith, according to Friday’s letter, acknowledged that Folt and the campus Board of Trustees would prefer an off-campus location for the monument.

“We all want to provide an environment on our campus in which all of our students, faculty and staff can thrive. Many on campus are in agreement that to provide this environment, the Confederate monument must be moved off our campus permanently. As we work together toward that end, we must all the while ensure we are protecting those for whom we work, our students. Please do not jeopardize their futures by failing to document and turn in the grades they have earned.”

You can read the full letter from Parise here.

The UNC System Board of Governors is expected to discuss the Silent Sam proposal at a meeting on Friday.

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