Diane Chang

o prospective could possibly mistake the message: diversity thrives at Columbia. Every page of Columbia's admissions material is a studied arrangement of multi-colored faces and references to niche institutions and organizations that perfectly reflect the statistics listed online: we are among the top five universities in America in international student enrollment, and forty percent of undergraduates identify as students of color. Columbia is a diverse campus, the pamphlets tell prospectives. Columbia aggressively sells the message that each student can find their niche here because he, she or zhe will keep the student body diversified until the next round of recruitment. Many current students came here in clear recognition of this symbiosis, and under the assumption that Columbia would provide specific services and support for minority students. But do the available services reflect a genuine commitment to provide a welcoming community to everyone at Columbia?

This question was brought to the fore two years ago when a series of incidents prompted a group of students to make public the long-existing sentiment that Columbia was not as diverse and tolerant as it purported itself to be. The most visible legacy of the silent demonstration of 2004 is the Office of Multicultural Affairs. Through advisement to student organizations, facilitation of dialogue with student groups, and as a liaison between students and administrators, the OMA has proved to be a great resource and ally in the student body's continual push for a truly diverse and open campus. Current developments that mark the OMA's continual growth include the Under 1 Roof program for new students, and the hiring of staff members, including an advisor for queer students.

These developments mark an exciting step toward progress, spurred by grassroots student efforts. In response to various incidents of hate that took place on campus in the Fall of 2005, including the incendiary racist and homophobic graffiti in Ruggles, a group of concerned students formed an ad hoc organization called Stop Hate On Columbia's Campus. SHOCC's demands were not completely new some of its senior members had participated in the demonstrations that led to the formation of the OMA. Many of the concerns that they had vocalized earlier continued to be ignored, such as poor administrative support for the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, the Core Curriculum's exclusion of marginalized voices, and the lack of organizational space for students of color. Last fall, President Bollinger created the lackluster Committee on Diversity, composed of student leaders, faculty, and administrators, in which many students felt discussions were unproductive and concrete change was never instilled.

Feeling that the recurrence of hate incidents in 2005 indicated the campus community's failure to examine and address the way students think about race, class and sexuality, SHOCC aimed to “create a more safe and inclusive community for all people.” The group put forth eight demands that would help accomplish this goal, such as more resources for the study of ethnicity, race, gender, power, and privilege; more open access “safe spaces” like the Intercultural Resource Center; and a reexamination of the Core Curriculum to include more diverse perspectives.

The institution of some of these demands will be setting a new tone on campus this fall that, at the very least, the incoming class of 2010 experienced firsthand. In addition to the Community Forum segment of the New Student Orientation Program, which informed new students of key campus issues throughout the past three years, this year's new students were invited to engage in community dialogue in a new program entitled “Under 1 Roof: your role in our community.”

“Students are at very different levels of understanding diversity and social justice,” says Assistant Dean of Multicultural Affairs Melinda Aquino, who has been leading the development of this program since the spring. The goal of Under 1 Roof is to teach each first-year student “how individuals have been socialized to view and interact with other communities, to demonstrate the power of the individual in shaping a community. The program will be meeting students where they're at.” Aquino adds, “This is not just an event, but the beginning of progress and dialogue that will lead to an understanding of shared social responsibility, and personal accountability to each other.”

The purpose of the program is not to preemptively condition the next potential Ruggles graffiti artist or East Campus homophobe, but to compel everyone minority or otherwise to reflect on their individual identity and their place in a community. The program is predicated on four tiers: the education of self, which requires students to examine the elements of their identity, including race, class, gender and sexual orientation; the education of others, through inter-group dialogue; ally development, which entails building on those communities with those who may not necessarily identify within a specific identity group; and social justice education, or taking action in newly-formed alliances to address social inequity.

To highlight the seriousness of this dialogue, students must sign in the only other NSOP programs with required sign-in are the CUIT introductory session and the academic advisor meeting. “Anything that's a forced dialogue will not be effective,” says Aquino, “but this is part of an expected conversation here when you're joining the community.” The OMA will email no-shows to inform them of opportunities to connect with the office. The dialogues that begin in Under 1 Roof will be extended into various settings, such as the first community meetings that are led by RAs in residence halls, and the OMA's subsequent fall programs. Aquino hopes that Under 1 Roof will help students realize, “these aren't just skills to use in the residence halls or on campus, but important life skills necessary to be engaged as campus leaders or afterwards.”

CHRISTOPHER GLENN

Although the OMA has actively worked with student groups in community building these past three years, structural inefficiencies and the lack of resources hinder its ability to fully serve students' needs. In addition to running leadership training programs and developing educational programming, the advisors to student cultural groups are faced with a tremendous amount of paperwork each day. Signing off on the budget forms and space requests for the forty some organizations that it advises diverts time away from causes that would be much more beneficial to the minority student population, such as exploring possible public spaces for student use. To the dismay of many campus leaders, two valued members of the OMA staff left Columbia at the end of the past year, making the staff shortage even more apparent.

In addition to filling recently vacated positions for Associate Dean of Multicultural Affairs and Assistant Director of Multicultural Affairs, the administration has partly met SHOCC's spring demand to institute an LGBTQ advising center by creating a position for an Assistant Director of Multicultural Affairs in charge of LGBTQ student advising. The new advisor will work closely with student leaders in campus-wide education, continue the safe zone program from last year, and support ideas for new programs. Over 75 people have applied for each available position. “We've had a very strong pool of applicants from across the country,” says Aquino.

On August 25, Dean Colombo of Student Affairs announced in an email that Dr. Ajay Nair will head the OMA as Associate Dean of Student Affairs starting September 1. Dr. Nair is leaving his position as a faculty member and Associate Director of the Asian American Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also previously served as Director of the Pan-Asian American Community House. He is currently working on a book called Desi Rap: South Asian Americans in Hip-Hop. Dr. Nair has addressed issues of Asian American identity as an Assistant Dean of Students at the University of Virginia and a Multicultural Resource Center Counselor at Penn State.

His experiences in Asian American scholarship could be a valuable added asset to Columbia, since the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race only has the capacity to provide one or two Asian American studies courses each semester. However, it remains to be seen how Dr. Nair will apply his Asian American student development experiences to helping students of various cultures, ethnic identities, and sexual orientations to address the issues they face everyday. As of press time, the Office of the Dean of Student Affairs was not available to comment on the new appointment.

With the understaffed OMA working hard on planning Under 1 Roof and recruiting new staff all summer, other projects have been put on the backburner. There is currently no discussion on increasing the number of staff members for cultural clubs and the investigation of expanded space for the Intercultural Resource Center has barely moved beyond the preliminary stages. While the institution of Under 1 Roof is momentous, the program only partially addresses SHOCC's demand for mandatory anti-oppression training for all staff, students and faculty. Laying down ground rules to new students without engaging the entire Columbia community in simultaneous dialogue would create no more impact on campus than the CC course-wide lecture. The OMA is a resource that, with the administration's wholehearted investment, could significantly change the current climate of apathy toward inclusion at Columbia.