On several campuses around the country, students of African-American, Latino, Asian, and other racial/ethnic backgrounds, joined by those from low-income backgrounds, are raising issues about the culture of their universities both inside and outside the classroom. Georgetown is among these. Through social media, we have been able to hear the words of those affected (on Twitter #BBGU, #BAGU, #BLGU, among others).
Reading through the tweets from Georgetown and other students, sadly, brought back memories of decades-old issues. It is true that the numbers of students of color have increased over the years at Georgetown. It’s true that Georgetown’s need-blind, “meet full need” admissions increases wealth diversity among students. But greater diversity in numbers does not magically or immediately change the inter-group experiences of those who come to Georgetown.
Georgetown seeks to educate leaders in the global, racially-, ethnically-, culturally-, linguistically-diverse world. They cannot be “men and women for others” if they cannot take on the position of the “other.” I’ve written on this in the past (See: Diversity is the One Thing We All Have in Common with insightful comments). But what we’re doing on this score is clearly not working well enough.
The 140-character stories told in the tweets are instantly clear: Questions posed to students of color that assume they are poor, less well-prepared for Georgetown, or less serious scholars. Perceptions that faculty value the comments of majority students in classes more than those of others. Asking a student of color to speak on behalf of all students of color, depersonalizing him/her in the process. Assumptions of homogeneity of experiences of all students of the same race or ethnic group.
Some observations in the tweets seem to report the actions of naïve, clumsy attempts to communicate across color lines. Some behaviors seem to lack self-awareness when making assumptions about privilege. Some comments appear to be insults stemming from ignorance of the speaker. Others are easily labeled directly offensive to almost all hearers.
While race/ethnicity is often visible, class is often less so. Georgetown strives for wealth diversity, but that doesn’t necessarily imply that students understand what it’s like to be born into a different economic status. For poorer students there are feelings of isolation when discussions among students reveal the privileges and benefits of those students coming from wealth. The stigma of not having discretionary money for the social scene is real.
However, the tweets also have positive, prideful aspects: The confidence of academic abilities. The assurance that one is here at Georgetown to absorb the best education possible (and that these issues are an impediment to that aspiration). Deep attachment to Georgetown, commitment to cura personalis and “women and men for others.”
In short, the tweets and actions of these engaged students have illuminated a feature of the Georgetown culture that is a weakness. We’re stumbling on race and class, failing to take advantage of the diversity we have built at Georgetown.
We need to do more to bring issues of engaging differences to the foreground of our educational community, curricular and co-curricular. Many of our students of color and some of our students from low-income backgrounds have had years of experience dealing with those different from themselves. Some of our students, however, have grown up in environments more isolated on race/ethnicity and class. Georgetown needs to provide experiences that give them understanding and skills to thrive in a multicultural environment. We can’t assume that diversity in numbers automatically produces rich inter-cultural, inter-racial, and inter-class interactions.
Our “Designing the Future(s) of the University” effort is a wonderful opportunity to ask ourselves about new models for building a culture with an inter-class, inter-culture environment. I suspect that success on this requires real engagement from faculty, students, and alumni. We all have a race, a culture, and an ethnicity. We are all part of the solution.
Getting better on this issue requires all of our attentions. A set of student leaders on this issue has been identified; a set of administrators and faculty has pledged their energy to work on the issues. Engaging alumni needs to happen. When Georgetown people work together toward a common goal, wonderful things can happen. This is a time to do so.
This blog raises important issues that will become even more important with the demographic change in the student population. Below are some comments and suggestions that may be helpful but do not solve the problem entirely.
1. The proposal of adding an ethnic studies program which would at least offer a minor should receive serious consideration. In recent years the number of professors in the African-American studies program has gradually increased, which is great. But the number of Latino/Latina Studies professors and Asian-American studies faculty members has not increased noticeably. Such professors are important as they provide role models for minority students, makes them feel at home, and allow them to learn more about their legacy.
2. There are an increasing number of students who are first or second generation U.S. citizens and many of whom would like to learn more about their heritage/legacy. Last year I interviewed an applicant whose mother was born in India. He wanted very much to learn Hindi and was disappointed to learn that GU no longer offered that language despite existing demand for it.
3. The cost of living in D.C. and in the Georgetown area in particular, is high, and campus social life still seems geared towards well-to-do students. Student organizations should make a serious effort so that events such as the Diplomats’ Ball and the Senior Auction are not price as to be out of reach for many students. The Financial Aid Office should also try to adjust student living stipends to the cost of living in DC so that students on scholarship should at least be able to meet their basic needs (just as faculty salaries at universities in large cities understandably are generally higher than those out in the woods). Campus student service departments and organizations should also try to ensure that students’ basic needs, and even some entertainment, can be met at reasonable cost on campus. Lower income students should be consulted in that respect.
4. There is a growing number of students who classify themselves as ethnically or racially mixed. These students should be recognized as a distinct category and their viewpoints and experiences heard.
Last summer our own Center on Education and the Workforce issued a report, “Separate & Unequal,” charging that selective universities like ours contribute to the intergenerational perpetuation of white privilege because of the populations we choose to educate. This is indeed an issue for the Future(s) of the University, as well as for the future of the country.
I fully endorse Ricardo Ortiz’ challenge–and will add another emphasis. While increasing the diversity within our student community, Georgetown has made modest progress in recruiting African-American faculty, generating courses engaging African-American issues, and sustaining an African American Studies programs. Those efforts must continue.
The University has made no serious (read funded) commitment to recruit faculty rooted in the diverse Latino communities within the United States and offering courses that address the origins, politics, social relations, and cultures of those communities–from which so many of our students come, and given demographic projections, so many more will come in the future, if we offer a welcoming environment and curriculum.
The diversification of our faculty and curriculum requires leadership and coordination with department as well as funding. It can be done one faculty member at a time, and each diversifying teacher scholar will on arrival multiply new diversifying courses and research emphases. A few faculty can generate a meaningful change for our students–within many departments and programs.
And once here, they can help lead us in larger diversifying transformations.
We have discussed this for so long–it is time to recruit.
Thank you, Provost Groves, for this post and for your efforts at this early stage in the process to move this dialogue along.
As a faculty member who for the 16 years that I’ve been at Georgetown has worked on these issues and listened to student testimonies about their experiences, especially in Georgetown classrooms, it really breaks my heart to learn from them how vulnerable they can still be to seriously unconscionable forms of insensitivity, and from not only their peers but even their instructors.
I’m also someone who believes, borrowing a phrase from former President Clinton, that there’s nothing wrong about Georgetown that can’t be fixed by what’s right about Georgetown. On these matters, the LGBTQ and Women’s Centers, CMEA, GSP, the Community Scholars Program and the Doyle Initiative are all examples of Georgetown successes on issues of diversity, though some of these entities could certainly benefit from increased support.
But I really don’t think that a core dimension of this challenge will shift until two related issues receive more focused and proactive institutional attention.
One is faculty diversity: it would be very helpful to know how Georgetown compares to other comparable institutions in the racial/ethnic/gender/class make-up of its tenure-line faculty who are US citizens; it would also be helpful to know how those demographics then affect the make-up of our representative faculty bodies, from the Faculty Senate and MCEF to individual departments, from hiring committees to the University Rank and Tenure Committee. Without having to generalize about any given race or ethnicity, my sense is that the lop-sided dominance in numbers of one group at all levels of faculty life, from governance to research to employment, would be striking and unnerving to many of us.
The other is Georgetown’s commitment to research and teaching in the fields dedicated to the study of especially American cultural, social and political life, past and present, in all its complexity and diversity. To give you one example, if a Martian were to land at Georgetown today, he would think that the only contribution our country’s largest cultural minority has made to its history, that Georgetown deems worth researching and teaching via a tenure-line position, is literary.
I agree with you that our chief concern as an institution should be to work together to make Georgetown a community that celebrates, respects and protects the human dignity of each member of that community, starting with the students we invite to join us on our campus in order to realize their better selves through what they learn and how they grow here. But that’s a goal we’re likely to reach more effectively and more genuinely if we enlist faculty as fully as possible in this work, and if we make a stronger commitment to reflect this vision of representative justice through difference and diversity in the forms of knowledge we produce through our research and offer in our teaching.
Thank you.
I really enjoyed this post. (Sidenote: It’s interesting to hear that the Sociology Department is sponsoring a discussion on income inequality on college campuses. I hope that the session is moderated with a high level of sensitivity to our OWN students’ socioeconomic diversity. Involving Dean McWade from Financial Aid would be a good move in planning this event if they’re curious about our campus’ demographics.)
I’m hopeful that change is a-coming! I am eager to help.
Right here on campus, A Different Dialogue is enabling a few of us from diverse backgrounds with diverse ethnicities and diverse ages, to discuss the impact of SES on our daily lives and how we can address it. (http://adifferentdialogue.georgetown.edu/dialogues/)
As the university continues to pursue greater diversity, not just in terms of race, ethnicity, and SES, but also in non-traditional students (like me), I hope these dialogues will spark greater efforts by students, GUSA, and the school administration to help these new types of students adapt more smoothly to being at Georgetown and to college life in general.
Yes, discussing race is still a tricky/ sensitive topic at Georgetown but discussing socioeconomic class is even trickier and more sensitive. At other universities student groups have formed to discuss economic inequality on campus. The Sociology Department is sponsoring a discussion of economic inequality on college campuses on March 19 at 2:00 pm in 550 ICC. Richard Kahlenberg of the Century Foundation has written about this issue extensively and it in touch for college groups that are dealing with it. He argues that affirmative action should be based on wealth not race. The colloquium is open to everyone.
That should have been way OLD not way ALL ! Oops! Typo can,t type here. My apologies.
Important topic.. I remember one book we discussed in my Child Psychiatry training that i thought was very thought provoking. {altho its now probably way all as am i].
i believe it was and still may be “The Nature of Predjudice} by a psychologist Gordon Allport. Hope i,ve got that right. Would be interested in others thoughts and whether they have ever read that book.