Pretty fun..I remember my own experience coming to university.
Needless to say. I was excited. Anxious. Nervous. I had just gathered my whole life into two suitcases. Somehow managed to stay under the airline weight restrictions. Boarded three different planes to get me across the Atlantic to Richmond, Virginia. Dragged my stuff back and forth across the entire campus to get my key, ID card, and welcome materials. Settled into a foreign place. Foreign school. Foreign city. Foreign country. Survived hundreds of welcomes and hellos, and three days of heavy downpours and thunderstorms. And here I was. About to meet the group I would be a part of for the next four years. The reason I was here. The group that was paying almost $50,000 in tuition and fees a year for me to be here. The excitement I held was that good kind of excitement, the kind where you don’t know what to expect but you’re fired up anyways, ready to go. My scholarship group was focused around social justice. I loved social justice. I’ll love these people. Let’s do this.
I opened one of the two doors leading into the meeting hall and froze. Time stopped. The rain beating down on the windows stopped. My breath stopped. My heart stopped.
I was still able to move. I looked around the open room before me. Some people, those who turned to see who was coming in the door, met me with their eyes. Others were engaged in conversation or on their phone. Despite their different preoccupations, all of us in that room shared something in common. Something glaringly obvious. We were all people of colour. In some shape or form, we were all black.
So there it is, I thought to myself. There it is. This was the reason I was here. This was the reason for my scholarship. It wasn’t social justice. It probably wasn’t even my academic achievements. My high school friend’s words rang in my ears. “You just got in and got the scholarship cause you’re black.”
This experience isn’t mine alone. Many students have experienced this as I’ve experienced it. The snide friend devaluing our achievements as something only made possible because of the colour of our skin. The university acceptance or scholarship premised on notions of diversity. The group labelled social justice but built along colour lines. Particularly at private schools formerly devoid of diversity, more and more schools in the US have increased their efforts to attract ‘diversity’ to their campus. At that has led to radical shifts, both within students and for the campus culture as a whole.
Campus cultures have changed. More and more students of colour and diversity are coalescing together to demand change to their campus environments. At Yale University, for example, students successfully campaigned for changes to promote more inclusivity and diversity. One victory was the successful campaign to change the name of Calhoun College, named after John C. Calhoun, a supporter of white supremacist and pro-slavery beliefs. The building was renamed Grace Hopper, a computer scientist, after student advocacy convinced the campus a change was needed.
These tensions between students of diversity and academic institutions, particularly ones that remain rooted in past traditions, also speaks to the tension between generations. One professor from Yale University was recorded stating that part of the tension was simply students learning and growing up to the realities of life. He clarified that students’ sensitivities should not be ignored, but that students also had to grow up in the sense that they would not always feel comfortable in the ‘real world’.
These comments do capture some of dynamic in these debates. Students on college campuses are certainly at the age where significant growth occurs, particularly in regards to identity. Growing to simply accept the status quo, however, is missing the point of the nature of growth. Growth is not only about changing the inner environment to accept the outer; it just as much entails growing the inner environment to affect and change the outer.
Take, for example, the Calhoun College issue. To many, naming a college after this man is offensive. It sends a message that his beliefs are valued at Yale University. Part of growing up would be to accept that our society can still offend sensibilities. But part of growing up is also recognising that all of us shape the world we are a part of. This means that sometimes, we don’t have to accept the status quo. That sometimes, we can change it.
More and more students of diverse backgrounds are recognising this principle of change and growth, not just in themselves, but in our society at large. They are coming together to understand and support each other. They are speaking up when they are uncomfortable, attacked, and threatened, and demanding the change necessary to address these occurrences. They are demanding societal and institutional changes to rectify past mistakes and pave the way for a more equitable future. They are asking our society to change its mind and open its heart to people of diversity.