Diversity or Ignoring Our Needs October 31, 2009
Posted by acc73 in Uncategorized.trackback
Recently, all I can see in the Daily Sun and talk about with friends is the protesting over the removal of Ken Glover and different minority organizations not getting their voices heard. While I did have an afro, my militant days are far over and right now my main concern is graduating and getting a job, this is the year to be a little bit more selfish.
As far as what has been happening on campus, it’s definitely been a trickling down effect:
- The first event was the removal of Ujamaa Residential Housing Director Ken Glover from Ujamaa to High Rise 5. Students and even Mr. Glover wasn’t given advance notice about the relocation and to be honest, Mr. Glover is Uj! He has been working for Ujamaa for over 20 years. Literally generations of Cornellians involved with program houses know Mr. Glover, so to have a sudden removal was a deep cut to the minority community.
- Students first protested, and Mr. Glover was given an extension of an another year at Uj, but he still was going to move to High Rise in 2010-2011.
- Students still protested, talked to everyone who is anyone at Cornell and still received the same answer, NO. Susan Murphy, David Skorton, those within the office of housing, to no avail.
- Pretty much hasn’t changed then, but still students are willing to protest. They protested during Cornell Homecoming to gain attention, and trustee meeting weekend to address
* Picture from Cornell Daily Sun article, A call for right.
I understand the cries of the minority community, because we are facing an epoch at Cornell. While we recently let in the most diverse class in terms of racial background for the freshman class, we are starting to face shrinking resources for minorities: Office of Minority Educational Affairs is currently understaffed, program houses are reaching new lows as far as application process, the Asian American Center brought about last year has a small budget of about 5,000, and with the budget cuts it might get worse. The thing is it also matches a trend I’m starting to recognize over the years, minority students aren’t really interested in this minority program. Minority organizations are facing shrinking membership, even with the Minority Business Student Association we don’t know how to increase our attendance for our meetings.
Whatever happens I hope it’s in the best for the school, because I know when I was a freshman while I did live in High Rise interacting with alot of different people. It made me more comfortable about being at Cornell to know I had a community similar to the one I grew up.
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