Education without representation

Since we are over halfway through the semester and are all highly focused on our academics during the push towards finals, I thought I would use this week’s column to discuss a recent article in the Spec (titled “Black Enrollment at Columbia Tops Ivy League for Third Year in a Row” from Dec. 8, 2008) about the student body and the Core Curriculum. I was so pleased to learn that half of the students at Columbia consider themselves people of color and that Columbia has more black students than any other Ivy League university. This news reflects what I see on campus and in my classes—that the student body is now much more representative of the national population. But ironically, even though the student body has changed, the education offered at Columbia has not evolved along with it.

To be fair, there is a graduate program in Latino Studies, and there is an African Studies department for undergraduate students as well as degree and language studies programs aimed at Asian students or those interested in Asian studies. The Core has evolved enough to allow room for Eastern music, Eastern art, and a “non-Western cultures” requirement, but I would hardly call the Core multicultural or postmodern in its allowance of a multiplicity of voices. Two required classes do not make for a global education.

It seems odd to me that Columbia focuses so much on the diversity of its students and touts the importance of building a global community but will not widen the Core to include canonical texts from non-Western cultures. What are the implications of a mandated Core that is Eurocentric, particularly when it is aimed at a student body that is no longer dominated by people of European descent?

I think this is where the relationship between the Core and the student body becomes tricky. The politics of education are murky at best. Columbia has a wide variety of elective classes and programs geared towards people of color and of non-Western descent, but these are simply electives. The Core, the mandated knowledge that we as students must all hold in common, is decidedly not diverse and is not keeping with the values that the University tries to purport. If Columbia strives to be global by recruiting faculty and students from diverse backgrounds, then it logically follows that part of that striving should also be reflected in the common pool of knowledge given to the students. For the University to have a core solely rooted in European culture with a student body that is racially and ethnically diverse is to imply that students of color are intellectually worthy of studying European culture but do not come from cultures that deserve the honor of mandated knowledge. The politics of the Core Curriculum create a power relationship between the students and the education offered to them that places the students in an inferior position. It suggests that students of color should feel grateful to be part of Columbia and to partake of the “classical” education that it offers, but they should not expect to have their own cultures and racial experiences validated except through the lens of European culture and history.

The Core Curriculum has been controversial for a long time at Columbia. As recently as last year, there was a hunger strike to try to spur President Bollinger to intervene and reshape the Core to reflect the values of global and multicultural education. As of today, the Core remains fundamentally unchanged. And I think Columbia will hold to this stance. Whatever change has come in the Core has come slowly and has lagged drastically behind the evolution of the diversity of the student body. Barring the occurrence of protests similar to those that took place on campus in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement, I do not think the administration will respond.

I am not advocating any kind of violence or disruptive activity on campus, but because the politics of the Core are an issue of power and control, I do not think any kind of change will be implemented unless students take a firm stand. The Civil Rights protests on campus brought the University to a halt, and I think an important lesson to be taken from those actions—that the University exists to serve the needs of its students, as students choose to attend and to pay tuition. Ultimately, it is our University and our education, and, to paraphrase Malcolm X, power is never given, but taken. If Malcolm’s words ring true and are relevant, then it is our job as students to remember the impact we can have and the importance of what we learn while we are here.

Nicole Winter is a student in the School of General Studies majoring in creative writing. Borderlands runs alternate Tuesdays. opinion@columbiaspectator.com