DULCE 4.20.2018

Meeting Minutes

Forum on Race

By Mark McGuire

• Dean Bartoli – Opening Greeting – emphasizes that this forum marks the beginning of a discussion and that the School of Diplomacy will continue this dialogue moving forward into next year and beyond
• Dean Bartoli – highlights the fact that the topic of race and ethnicity is a key global topic that those involved in diplomacy need to be familiar with and able to deal with constructively
• Mark McGuire – invites other attendees to introduce themselves and make a brief opening statement
• Jacob Abel – Diplomacy school can take the lead in the discussion in a more productive way coming off the school wide January forum and drive progress
• Alyssa Futa – Pleased that the School of Diplomacy assuaged concerns of many that Seton Hall would not live up to its pledge to continue the discussion on race begun in January
• Dean Halpin – School of Diplomacy is uniquely positioned to take on these issues; looks forward to students suggestions about how to make progress
• Tory Dorch – heard about race relations issues on campus and expresses eagerness to contribute his perspective to the forum
• Kai – contributing is important to open dialogue
• Ruby – hopeful that we can make progress for whole of Seton Hall
• Pallavi Shahi – race is highly relevant to education and the world; looks forward to everyone’s thoughts
• Erick Aglebeke – contributing is important but so too is listening; hopes everyone will truly listen to the experiences of others
• Seva Tsivgas – small interactions are important to this topic and this subject is at its core interpersonal
• Director Younger – want to keep in mind that excessive emotionality can decrease productivity and lessen effectiveness of the group goal; everyone should keep in mind history, have his/her eyes on our common goal in our dialogue, consider systems and how they factor into this discussion, and keep in mind intersectionality
• Seva – socialization prevents people from being willing to address this topic; 17 year olds will not be interested on their own, the university must make an effort to broach the topic
• Troy – some people do not think they need to change, others do not even know that there is anything they could change
• Kai – event hosted by Chinez would be useful for freshman orientation
• Erick – there is a need to promote a safe environment so that contributors do not feel attacked, can be open to hearing why what they said was offensive
• Alyssa – orientation features actors on the topic of consent, why not race too; key to consent skit was the reaction of friends in difficult / awkward environments
• Seva – online forum course on sexual assault and consent not effective; social experiment – skits on micro-aggression could be helpful
• Troy – journal entries may be helpful, particularly at orientation
• Alyssa – blogging is done in U-Life course why not have one be about this subject; poet on subject is risky because poet the university used for this year was negatively received
• Troy – agrees with blog idea and the need to promote introspection
• Erick – 6 month after orientation or U-Life what is the goal and desired effect
• Seva – personal experience – describes being liberal and ignorant, roommate took time to calmly discuss subject and explain the issues, KNOW MORE does excellent job on sexual assault education, a similar organization or program on race could be helpful
• Director Younger – does Seton Hall do enough for non-colored persons to educate them
• Seva – In response to a professor’s question if there can be too much diversity some students said “yes”
• Adol – Being only person of color in a class – difficult to address the topic in a way that doesn’t turn off others because they perceive they are being lectured; hard to put all responsibility on black people to explain; race affects far more than just feelings; discussions on race can occur between groups that have no people of color present and should occur
• Kai – better training of teachers so that there isn’t a hesitancy addressing the topic
• Director Younger – there is a need for all people to care; a responsibility to care is not encouraged
• Adol – describes the need to be careful in word choice, cites example when someone used word “retarded”; if discussion is not uncomfortable then no progress is likely being made
• Seva – condescending nature of certain comments makes it hard to address these linguistic issues without seeming to overreact; school can create conduct norms, SGA is in a key position to facilitate change, ASA and Diplomacy apparatus can further diversity and mutual understanding
• Troy – teachers asking about diversity need to define terms, need to discuss assimilation versus integration
• Jacob – SGA, college has been a growing experience of learning from others, labels and trigger words are unhelpful, there is a need to address such things with others that makes them want to listen and continue dialogue
• Ruby – Do white people need more education; expresses viewpoint that she thinks they do
• Troy – Diplomacy organizations and multicultural clubs and institutes can work together to address race and plan events
• Mark – idea of cross coordination can be facilitated by morphing Liaison Initiative into such an apparatus
• Troy – seminars on conflict resolution and bias workshops would be useful
• Kai – organizations and professionalism ought to go hand in hand, administration could promote Africana Studies, need to promote diversity not tokenism passing as diversity
• Kai – elementary school designed event to teach compassion and empathy using things like eye color to teach idea of privilege
• Seva – tokenism is using students of color in marketing material without permission to give impression of authentic diversity, need to promote such students as per their value for what they bring the university not use them to value the university bottom line; love to throw around 44% diversity statistic in marketing
• Dean Halpin – what media would help to promote events, to get word out to students
• Erick – in personal experience professors he has class with have been successful in promoting campus events, the fact that Dean Bartoli elevated this topic to this forum proves he cares and got me to take note and attend
• Adol – Social media – students message organizations all the time about events; use evaluation forms to add thoughts i.e. P.I.L – add discussion on Libyan slave trade which was absent from class; what is diplomacy – discuss background by reaching out to more students to draw diversity in through increased awareness
• Director Younger – partnership with outside organization has allowed 15 students to experience diplomacy courses, 3 were accepted to the School of Diplomacy
• Erick – Diversity among faculty members should be encouraged
• Dean Halpin – diplomacy student body and faculty – are they diverse or what is the student impression
• Erick – can do better on both fronts
• Troy – faculty not bad relative to other schools but can do better; Euro-centric perspective on diplomacy in school generally
• Mark – Liaison Initiative, Ambassador Program, and Mentorship Program can be utilized to achieve these goals; will speak with Dean Bartoli on implementing these ideas