Adding Color

Past Imperfect

The Climate Today

CRE and Curricular Initiatives

Student Recruitment

Affirmative Action

Office of Multicultural Affairs

What's Next

The Climate Today

"I have never seen this type of segregation as a bad thing," says Gabe Gonzalez ’02. "Being together with people from somewhat similar backgrounds helps you to preserve your identity, which is very important when you are so outnumbered. And anyway, you mix with other groups when you are in the classroom."

Which is precisely why Ithaca College’s limited number of ethnic studies courses may represent a missed opportunity to begin a much-needed dialogue on the uncomfortable issues of race and culture. With the arrival of a new provost whose research and academic priorities focus on issues of race relations, and the addition of many diversity initiatives, the College appears to be readying itself for such discourse. In the meantime, however, some ALANA students feel that they are the ones who have to pick up the slack.

"Whenever some topic of Latino culture comes up in the classroom, everyone turns to me, like I am the token authority on everything Latino," Gonzalez says. "That’s insulting and, frankly, ignorant. As a Puerto Rican from a ghetto community, how am I supposed to speak for a wealthy Guatemalan?" Business major LaToia Hosey ’04 has also felt pressure to speak on behalf of African Americans in class, but even worse, she says, is what "majority" students don’t say or ask. "I actually feel bad for white students sometimes because they feel they have to censor what they say in class so they don’t offend me," says Hosey. "But I would rather they speak truthfully, say what they feel even if it sounds bad, and then we can really have a discussion."

Ironically, the majority of racially motivated bias-related incidents on campus are likewise voiceless. During this past school year, 9 of the 50 reported bias-related incidents on campus were racist in nature, most taking the form of hit-and-run graffiti and notes slipped under doors. There were, however, a few cases that were more confrontational: a physical and verbal altercation, including a shouted ethnic slur, between two groups of students, and a racially biased telephone call at home received by a faculty member. Jessica Pagan ’04, who is of Native American descent but not readily identifiable as such, is uncomfortably privy to hearing jokes or casual remarks about "alcoholic Indians."

Several ALANA students feel that a mandatory diversity awareness course could help defuse hostility and open up a much-needed discourse. "What gets lost in this discussion of diversity," says Roger Richardson, director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, "is the 90 percent of so-called majority students. In a few years they are going to be in positions to make a difference, and if they are not properly educated, they could go out into society and continue to perpetuate racial stereotypes or discrimination."

Héctor Vélez-Guadalupe, associate professor of sociology, says that for the past 15 years students in his Race and Ethnicity class have consistently suggested that the course should be a requirement for everyone. Currently, a subcommittee of the Diversity Awareness Committee is preparing a proposal for the provost to create a diversity course that would be an all-College requirement for graduation. This is not as simple a task as it seems, as Eric Lieb ’04, chair of the subcommittee, explains: "We’ve been told that some of the academic curricula are so strenuous there’s hardly room to squeeze in a one-credit course, let alone a full three-credit course. We still feel it’s possible. However, there will have to be a fair amount of give-and-take among the faculty to make this concept a reality."