You spoke, GW listened — kind of.

Last week, University President Ellen Granberg published a report of the third-party investigation into the arming of the GW Police Department that she commissioned, corroborating former officers’ reports of gun safety violations from last fall. Granberg also told us something new: she and other leaders were sorry for failing to “adequately engage the community” before and after The Board of Trustees directed about 20 GWPD officers to carry firearms in April 2023.

Credit where credit is due, GW officials realize they made a mistake. By rolling out the arming program and deliberately choosing not to consult the community due to expected resistance, leaders hurt the trust that students, faculty and staff have in the administration. Previous and current editorial boards have thrice questioned the closed-doors decision-making behind the arming process, from its first announcement to today. Calls to examine the rationale and research behind the GWPD arming decision from students, faculty and staff members went unanswered. The communication disconnect has shaped our experiences at GW across University presidents.

Kudos to Granberg for realizing that. Her email last week was one of the biggest displays of transparency from a GW administrator that we can remember. She acknowledged where the University’s choices to disregard community feedback had gone wrong and caused harm. We’re happy to see officials take that meaningful step.

We’re also glad to hear that leaders are considering the implementation of reforms within the department, including hiring a dedicated training officer and forming a mental health response team and rapid response unit. The University has already named a new administrator for campus safety, and we look forward to the results of the search for a new chief to helm the force. But with that praise, we have to ask: What’s next?

When she took office in 2023, Granberg said she wanted to emphasize shared governance in her leadership by consulting GW-wide stakeholders in decisions. In last week’s email, she addressed criticism of the lapses in communication between officials and other community members that she said is “not new.” There’s clearly still more work to be done. Granberg commended the “high quality of community engagement” in the development of GW’s next strategic plan — including town halls and idea submissions — yet she made no offer for conversations about GWPD specifically, even after apologizing for failing to consult the community on the arming decision.

Even after acknowledging past missteps with the arming rollout, the University is still going ahead with the policy without offering a new chance for reconsideration. Former officers have voiced skepticism on some of the more sweeping recommendations that came from the investigation, like arming the entire force and dropping the hybrid model. In her email, Granberg emphasized that engagement is “not a guarantee” that community members will agree with GW’s decisions, but that it ultimately creates “better thinking and better decision making.”

So, we urge officials to solicit concerted feedback on the future of GWPD and the arming program before making more decisions. They must create opportunities to integrate the community’s views into University policies, even if they challenge those of trustees or officials.

That’s not an unreasonable ask. Look at what happened a few minutes up the Red Line at American University last week. The university’s officials said they were considering arming their police force last October and created feedback groups for staff, faculty and students to share their views. After those conversations revealed views against arming, American’s administration abandoned the proposal. GW still has time to take that approach.

In those conversations, we would want to hear why this program is continuing in the first place. Arming didn’t start with Granberg, but she and the trustees are still opting to continue it. She apologized to trustees for not sufficiently including them in decision making, but as far as we can tell, the Board continues to support arming officers as it did in February 2023 when trustees voted to enact the policy. We’d like to see the University explain to the community why we should still support arming after all the mistakes the investigation confirmed, some of them potentially dangerous.

If officials decide to continue arming officers, they must clarify who’s influencing the process. Since former officers reported that the University didn’t sufficiently act on their safety concerns for more than a year, we hope new administrative and departmental leadership will streamline internal improvements and reporting. But Granberg’s email last week only told us that “University leadership” had ignored community feedback on the arming decision — that’s an anonymous, ever-changing group of individuals that most students couldn’t identify on the street. GWPD Chief James Tate appeared to resign due to the program’s turbulence, and Granberg apologized for its hiccups, but neither one was solely responsible for the mistakes made. The community has little way of knowing that the same leaders who made those poor choices aren’t going to make them again. 

Officials must also prove to community members that their views are valued. It’s true the University asked for feedback right after the arming decision, but given that the program has plowed forward in the face of widespread concerns, we have to question how much that feedback factored in. GW last week welcomed feedback into its policies on demonstrations, posters, banning people from campus and equal opportunity. We’re hopeful seeing this invitation for input, but we can’t be certain of the extent that the results of the form will impact the final set of rules the University enacts. 

And if GW wants students to devote their time to giving feedback on these policies, they should create the same forum for the feedback on the arming decision. Maybe officials want to arm the force for any number of reasons. They’re allowed to have their views. But so are students, faculty and staff — the ones the policies are impacting. Now, leaders must prove that our opinions are heard.