institutional antichange in open letter

By Amanda Yen

conversation,” the board stated. “This is part of our overall initiative to build a stronger sense of community for our organization.”

The board noted that these policy changes are not universally shared, however. “Although these changes and conversations happen at the board level, they’re not always communicated to the rest of the organization,” the board explained. “While we’re putting in the work and putting in the hours, it’s contained to a small subset of people who are aware of this.”

Bossous’ letter interpreted this dynamic as a systemic lack of transparency around the credit union’s efforts, even within the organization itself. One of the problems with creating institutional change in an organization staffed by college students is the unavoidable turnover rate that occurs with graduation. Long-term cultural and structural shifts are difficult when frequent personnel changes lead to institutional inertia, which is why Bossous emphasized the need to keep GUASFCU’s new teller classes informed of its organizational history.

The credit union recently established affinity group Slack channels for interns of color, and LGBTQ+ interns as well. While there are groups for women of color, Latino, and South Asian interns, Bossous confirmed there is no organized space for Black interns specifically. Moreover, whereas GUASFCU’s comments to the Voice represented interns of color collectively, Bossous’ letter took special concern for the experiences of Black and Latino interns in the credit union. In the most recent teller classes, Black and Latino interns have been less represented than other non-white racial groups.

“What credit union leadership has tended to do is to confront issues without exploring the complexities of the issues themselves,” Bossous explained. “They use the language and the vernacular of ‘We hear you’ to anyone who is not white. But not all interns of color’s experiences and issues are the same. My experience of being Black is not your experience of being Asian. The nuances of being non-white cannot be addressed in one fell swoop of ‘interns of color.’”

The credit union’s long-standing reputation as a deliberately exclusive group has hindered its current efforts toward inclusivity. GUASFCU has reached out to Black affinity groups for guidance, but according to leaders in these groups, the credit union seems to lack an understanding of the role they aim to play on campus.

“It’s not the job of Black student groups to solve the inclusion issues of Georgetown clubs,” a senior member of one of these organizations, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. In their view, Black student groups at Georgetown are concerned with building community spaces for Black Hoyas, not with solving the anti-Blackness of other clubs.

Bossous’ letter enumerated concrete recommendations as well as concerns. He suggested that at minimum, the credit union host targeted information sessions during recruitment with groups that serve marginalized students, such as BSA, Latinx Leadership Forum, the Georgetown Scholars Program, and the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access. He also recommended yearlong partnerships with other finance and banking groups at Georgetown, such as Georgetown Aspiring Minority Business Leaders & Entrepreneurs and BlackGenCapital, to help teach financial literacy to more students on campus. These suggestions aim to expand GUASFCU’s outreach to historically underrepresented students, working against its reputation as an exclusive, fraternity-like group.

Bossous explained that he pitched these ideas while applying to work as part of GUASFCU’s summer crew in 2022. However, he was not chosen for that role, and the ideas were not implemented.

Regarding the structure of GUASFCU’s leadership, Bossous called for the creation of a Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) position to lead and oversee diversity and inclusion efforts. While wary of tokenizing the few interns of color in the credit union, Bossous explained that the creation of this position would ultimately help alleviate some of the strain on the chief communications officer, a board of directors executive who oversees three other credit union operations in addition to diversity and inclusion.

Despite having had discussions about creating a CDO position for the past two years, the GUASFCU board said that it hasn’t fully envisioned what the role would look like in terms of how it would work with other board positions or what departments would fall under it.

“It’s a position that we know we want to add at some point. But we want to make sure that when it is implemented, it is implemented correctly,” the board commented. “We didn't think it was the right time to institute a CDO position on the board.”

While the board has met with external consultants, such as a Georgetown graduate student who specializes in diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, its members do not expect the CDO role to be instituted anytime soon. “If we decide to do so in the future, we want to do so in a way that is not rushed or tokenizing, and the timeline this year did not give us the opportunity to proceed in that way,” they said.

Past structural reforms that targeted diversity and inclusion have been short-lived in Bossous’ experience with the credit union. In 2020, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the national attention on the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, GUASFCU established three standing committees aimed at improving equity in recruitment and creating a more inclusive culture. These committees achieved some success––for example, they eliminated the resume requirement in GUAFSCU’s application––but have since been dissolved. According to Bossous, after the initial momentum of BLM ebbed, GUASFCU’s efforts to diversify their organization faded as well.

Last fall, the credit union held an Inclusive Leadership Strategy Session to open conversations around DEI initiatives in the organization. Now, as a new board begins its leadership term, the organization is once again facing calls for movement on those plans and vision statements. Bossous and others believe that although it will require constant evaluation and risk-taking to define what the path forward looks like, action is the first step.

“We are unmoved by the keywords and catchphrases, the jargon, and the language of change without its production,” Bossous wrote. G