It is never easy for college students to implement lasting change on their campuses. Every year there is student turnover as freshmen are welcomed, seniors are sent away and juniors run back and forth between Boston and abroad adventures.
Freshmen in the Tufts Emerging Black Leaders (EBL) may not even be aware that there was an outpouring of support for more campus discussion on race just fifteen months ago. These calls were made by many students and professors in reaction to the publication of the parody Christmas carol "O Come All Ye Black Folk" in the Primary Source. The initial fury and student desire for censorship of the magazine was overwhelmed by a unity rally that December at which speakers expressed their hopes for frequent and open discussion of racial issues.
The TCU President at that time, Mitch Robinson, planned a string of dialogue events for the following semester to realize those hopes. That was just one year ago.
But the momentum faded and racial discussion has not captivated campus like some had hoped it would.
Now that presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) speech has put race back into the limelight, the EBL are trying to get the discussion going again. EBL president and junior Jennifer Bailey told the Daily yesterday that the group has preliminary plans to start with small roundtable discussions.
But dialogue efforts did not endure the attention spans of students last spring and there's no reason to think they will fare any better now.
Despite the fickleness of the student body, there are some things that students are continually interested in. One of those things is academic credit.
Professors should take advantage of this unique opportunity and make seminars about race in America or how a black president would affect the social makeup of this country available to as many students as possible. The ExCollege and freshman orientation courses offer other incentive-based outlets for students to honestly discuss issues of race. In classes, moreover, students should feel less fear to speak openly about race as their words will stay in the classroom.
Another perpetual student interest is funding for research. If academic departments, the Institute for Global Leadership or the Tisch College geared more of their scholarships towards domestic racial studies, studies that would be very intimately relevant to the lives of students here on campus, the discussion would be richly enhanced.
Race is neither a black issue nor a white issue, but an American issue. Honest discussion, whether about affirmative action, or if the recent crime on campus increases racism among fearful students, needs to be led by more than just the EBL. And it needs creative outlets.
