Op-Ed: The Asian American Center needs a director, not an external review

We write as a group of Asian and Asian American students concerned about the future of the Asian American Center (AAC) and other Group of Six centers. Shortly after this semester, Linell Yugawa will retire from her position as director of the AAC. Her departure follows the recent departures of Women’s Center Director K. Martinez and Latino Center Director Julián Cancino in April and December 2018, respectively.

No job listings for permanent director positions at the Latino, Women’s or Asian American Centers have been posted. Instead, Tufts University is only hiring for Interim Programming Administrator positions at the Latino and Women’s Centers — both of which are listed as a “limited appointment position" until Oct. 31, 2019. Currently, there is no posting for an Interim Programming Administrator position at the AAC. The precarious position of Interim Programming Administrator reflects the university’s lack of investment and support for the Group of Six.

The Office of the Dean of Student Affairs (DOSA) has often told students advocating for increased resources to the centers that a university-wide budget deficit makes their demands impossible. Nevertheless, DOSA plans to spend a starting cost of between $10,000 to $15,000 to hire external consultants to review the Group of Six’s operations. We were given this estimate during a meeting on Feb. 26 with Dean of Student Affairs Mary Pat McMahon and Assistant Dean Raymond Ou. We clearly expressed our concern with this spending. Nevertheless, they told us this report would give them "evidence" to "deepen support" to the centers, despite having many strong testimonies from Tufts’ own students and center directors about what types of support the centers need.

We are concerned that this review is being used to undermine and potentially dismantle our center's communities. It is an incredible oversight to go forward with this study without a full staff. In regards to the AAC specifically, upper-level administrators have intentionally decided not to fill Yugawa’s position while she is still here. This decision reflects ongoing administrative negligence and destroys any chance of a stable director transition following Yugawa’s departure. It is an act of blatant disrespect of Director Yugawa and the other directors and reflects a structural devaluation of the Group of Six director positions. The absence of directors at three of the five identity-based centers is a crisis — Tufts University’s failure to immediately fill these vacancies is a blatant disregard for racial justice on this campus.

We believe in preserving spaces for students of historically marginalized identities. We write urgently with a commitment not just to the centers as they exist now, but to the possibilities they hold for future generations of students.

We cannot let the university define our realities and possibilities. We do not need to be externally reviewed. Our centers are identity-based administrative offices that have often been unwelcoming to students; we understand from our own experiences that they have their faults. But job searches and external reviews conducted over the summer in the absence of directors and students cannot actually be about supporting students or addressing any of these historically continuous issues. Do not exploit the challenges that people of marginalized identities face in building community. This review is being conducted under the false pretense of deepening support while systematically devaluing our center's spaces and the legacy of decades of students and community members who fought for the centers and believed in us. Our centers are born and maintained by a legacy of resistance. It is important that we remember and uplift those histories.