The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Racism at UConn leads to frank discussion
One University of Connecticut student recalled her first month on campus, walking home with friends, when “a group of white boys drove by, and screamed ns at us.”
“It wasn’t until I came to this institution where I have experienced blatant racism this way,” she said.
“I’ve literally been here for two months two months and I’ve already experienced so much crap,” one freshman said, including people touching her hair, treating her “like a petting zoo,” and using racial slurs.
Conversations about these experiences of microaggressions, isolation and overt harassment, took place across the Storrs campus, including at a recent studentled march and town hall meeting. The spike in attention to racial issues on campus was ignited by a video of students yelling the Nword outside a campus apartment complex on Oct. 11, and allegations of another racist incident at a fraternity party, which is under investigation.
Those incidents were described by students as examples of underlying issues in the environment and culture on campus where African Americans have felt isolated and unsafe. Of the nearly 20,000 undergraduates at the flagship school, 6 percent are black. As of Nov. 1, 2019, the most recent data available from the university, African Americans made up 2.3 percent of UConn’s faculty, and just under 3 percent of all employees.
While the most recent incidents drew attention because they circulated quickly on social media, “imagine all the incidents that were not talked about in the public,” student Chris Albert said.
He and many others said administrators need to take a strong, vocal stance against racist speech and actions. “If consequences are put in place, and if it is made clear by the president and everyone else in the university that it is not tolerated, then people won’t feel as comfortable expressing these thoughts,” Albert said, addressing a crowd of several hundred on campus.
During the recent rally, Oluwakemi Olajumoke Balogun said that when she came to UConn as a freshman, she was looking forward to finding a community of other black students. That same year, she repeatedly had to tell her white classmates why they should not use the Nword, she said.
“All of us come here to get our degree, to learn, to get our education, to be in a
better situation after we graduate,” she said. “We all deserve the same amount of respect.”
Students have protested and called for changes in the school’s policies and campus culture in past years, and drawn attention to the issues for “decades,” said sociology professor Noel Cazenave, who has taught at UConn for 28 years. When tensions have peaked in the past, “administration puts out the fire and goes on about their business,” he said, creating a campus environment that he described as “hell.”
That’s left some of the burden on the students themselves to address the issues, a source of frustration for several of the students who spoke out.
UConn’s NAACP organized a Town Hall on Racism, where students spoke for more than an hour about their experiences and concerns. Several students questioned why no administrators addressed them, though a few attended and listened as students fielded questions.
“It is so disappointing that you have to stand up there, when administration is sitting amongst us and saying nothing,” said one student, who declined to give her name. “They’re not here for free, we are paying tuition. This is their job, they are paid to make us feel safe,” she said.
Other students said UConn touts the school’s diversity without responding to black students’ problems.
Cazenave, who teaches and studies racism, said colleagues “make me feel as if they are hostile to my very existence,” he said. As a tenured professor, he can speak out about that, but other professors without that protection cannot, he said.
“We have young scholars, particularly young women of color, who are intimidated,” Cazenave said, and for staff, who have even less job security, “it’s very, very stressful.”
“We’ve been working on it for a lot of years,” said Willena Kimpson Price, the director of UConn’s African American Cultural Center. “Unfortunately, we’ve had kind of a revolving door for a whole bunch of reasons.”
Students, who may be in large classes where they’re the only person of color, turn to Price and other African American professors and administrators “for advice, support, and wise counsel,” she said. She and others “spread ourselves thinly and do everything we can to help out.”
While white faculty members can support black students, there can be a “lack of understanding,” Olasubomi “Mini” Ajayi said. She “instantly” connected with a professor in the Allied Health department who is a black woman working in public health, “because of that commonality we have,” she said.
“That is something that a lot of students don’t really have as of right now, because of the lack of black faculty,” Ajayi said. “Hiring more would definitely help students feel more supported.”
UConn President Thomas Katsouleas addressed that Friday during a meeting with about 30 students at the African American Cultural Center, which left some feeling more encouraged about future changes.
“I was hoping to see the president really try and address the concerns and feelings of the students, and I was hoping that he would have ways to really combat this issue,” Ajayi said. “I did feel that he addressed most of those concerns, and students really brought up a lot of questions that are very important.”
“His responses seemed genuine, from the heart,” Nicholas Mayne said, and were “specific to the question.”
Katsouleas opened the meeting with an apology to the students for his delayed response to the Oct. 11 incident, Price said. She effusively praised his willingness to meet with and speak directly to the students about their concerns.
He talked about responding more quickly in the future, and about implementing an educational program for incoming students, similar to the mandatory AlcoholEdu prevention program, Mayne said.
Katsouleas said students brought forward “a lot of creative ideas,” including a universitywide celebration of diversity and a database to connect students of color with mentors. They also discussed retention of black faculty members, which he said is “about nurturing faculty, making them feel appreciated.”
“There are some things that department chairs can do, some things I can do,” he said, adding that he expects deans to start brainstorming ways to recruit and diversify the faculty at an upcoming strategic planning retreat.
Price, who has worked at UConn for 26 years, said there has been an “ebb and flow” in the university’s response to racial issues. She called the president’s conversation with students “extraordinary.”
Students from the NAACP met with Katsouleas last week to share a list of demands, which included hiring black faculty, administrators and employees, and other student groups, including the Undergraduate Student Government, have responded to the incidents with by planning events and launching a task force.
Cazenave has sent a list of recommendations to Katsouleas and the to the Board of Trustees, which includes a call for “specific educational, research and other programs, institutes and centers that focus specifically on social justice,” and for a “longterm project for fundamental change at UConn” that includes “the diversification of faculty, administration, the Board of Trustees, staff, students, and curricula.”
“At the march on racism, I heard from a lot of people how there were marches like this in the past and nothing was done,” Ajayi said. “I think the people right now are very passionate, obviously, about it... and I think that having a lot of different student groups across campus really get involved in this will help to continue this fight to really make our campus climate better.”