Some Students Criticize Barnard Diversity Forums

A format and attendance policy of Barnard’s diversity program for first years which requires, among other things, students to guess the ethnicity of the person to their right, has drawn fire from some students.

The hall sessions, which were reinstated this fall after a one-year trial of a class-wide diversity event, bring staff from Barnard’s Office of Multicultural Affairs into each first-year residence hall to facilitate discussions of diversity on Barnard’s campus and in the residents’ backgrounds.

But the format has upset some students, who say the optional attendance policy and the nature of programming limits the effectiveness of the sessions.

The sessions typically open with an icebreaker, followed by a student-guided discussion of diversity’s role in the campus climate.

Several students have complained about the session’s most common icebreaker, which is a game in which students guessed the ethnicity and race of the person to their right.

“We got some apprehension, we got a lot of laughs,” said Sherisse Butler, UTS ’09 and one of the graduate assistants in the OMA who facilitates the discussions. “We had a few students who didn’t want to participate in that.”

“People got pretty heated in that discussion,” Maasha Kah, BC ’11, said, “because essentially there were two African-American students in the room, and everyone went around and said, ‘Oh, you’re Italian, you’re German, you’re this nationality,’ and then they got to this one girl, and they were like, ‘Oh, you’re black.’”

“I refused to participate,” Devon Stewart, BC ’11, said of the icebreaker and ultimately the entire session. “I was so disgusted by that that I was really turned off of the whole meeting.” She was also frustrated that the discussion was terminated by a fire alarm, which she said demonstrated a lack of planning and commitment on the part of Barnard’s administration.

Some of the events organizers defended the activity, saying that though it was challenging, it opened lines of discussion.

“I could tell it was very hard for some of the students just to label someone,” said Muzna Ansari, BC ’10, resident assistant, and Barnard Office of Multicultural Affairs employee, “but I think ... it really opened up the dialogue, and it led into further discussion of how, even though we don’t mean to, we do label people.”

Some students said they thought mandatory sessions would be more effective, particularly in light of the recent recent string of bias incidents.

“Everyone needs to know,” Rajkaran Sachdej, CC ’11, said. “Cultural issues are not a light thing to talk about, as we’ve seen on campus over the last three or four weeks. The people who are committing those acts obviously didn’t attend their Under1Roof session.”

“I think the Columbia program would have more of an impact, because people were forced to go,” Hairin Bahren, BC ’11, said. “But at the same time, if people are forced to be there, they aren’t going to participate as fully. At Barnard, all the people who are there are speaking and sharing their opinions.”

OMA administrators emphasized that optional sessions ensure that students do not view diversity training as a chore.

“We don’t want the experience to be punitive,” said Dean Sonny Ago of the Barnard Office of Multicultural Affairs. “You don’t learn like that.”

Some students suggested that both schools’ programs could be improved by moving away from discussion and towards activity. “I felt like everyone went around and got stuff off their plate, but didn’t really learn anything new,” Kah said. “I think people will have more incentive to be involved if it’s more fun. It’s been one long conversation, and that can get boring.”

Both administrators and students said that interest in the training has spiked since the appearance of a noose on Teachers College professor Madonna Constantine’s door and other recent campus bias incidents.

“We must have had 75 percent, 80 percent attendance after these incidents,” Butler said. “Before that, it was bordering on 50 percent.”

“I actually had only talked about it with my roommate, so it was great to hear what my peers had to say,” Allyza Lustig, BC ’11 said.
Mary Kohlmann can be reached at mary.kohlmann@columbiaspectator.com.