Phil Knight to step down as Nike board chair 06/30/2015
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The UO Board of Trustees got an unscheduled lesson Thursday from members of a newly formed Black Male Alliance student group.
During a public comment period in the trustees’ daylong meeting, alliance members said black students tend to lack a feeling of community, miss the guidance of black faculty and advisers, and cope without having the specific life skills to succeed on a predominantly white campus.
They said they wish there was a place on campus where they could gather and feel sufficiently comfortable to let down their hair — and that more people realized that not all black students are athletes.
Christina Jackson, a black/African American student retention specialist, told the board that one can tell an institution’s values by where it puts its time, effort and resources.
“The University of Oregon does not spend its time, effort or resources to promote adequate equity and inclusion,” Jackson said.
UO’s black students need black professionals who are present and visible, Jackson said.
Over the past decade, the number of black students, faculty and staff has been stuck at 1 to 2 percent of their respective campus populations, according to the UO’s Office of Institutional Research.
In diversity rankings, the UO performs in the bottom 10 or 20 percent by the UO’s own performance yardstick, which is its public university peers in the Association of American Universities.
In April, meanwhile, Oregon State University in Corvallis opened its new $2.4 millon, 3,500-square-foot Lonnie B. Harris Black Cultural Center. The new center replaces a cramped center in an old house at the same location.
“White advisers will never understand what it feels like to be black,” Fevean Siyoum, an ethnic studies major and president of the Black Women of Achievement, told trustees. “They’ll never know what we experience. You don’t know how to guide our futures and the things that we will face.”
Students said they need a space of their own where they can talk, relax, encourage one another — and answer questions that would be too awkward to ask in other settings.
“What we don’t have is a dedicated space for African-Americans. We don’t have a place where we can take our mask off,” said David Spencer, a senior accounting major, alliance member and Churchill High School graduate.
Desmond Harvey, a business administration major and residential assistant, said black students need a dorm community with an academic component that teaches African-American history, ethnic studies and a life skills class to help them transition into the UO’s general environment.
Trustees’ responses varied.
Ginevra Ralph said that, if she suggested such a dormitory structure, “They’d say, ‘Oh, there’s a white lady segregating everybody.’ ”
With such a model, “We’re never going to be talking to each other,” she said.
Trustee Andrew Colas, a Portland businessman, said students who come from Atlanta or Washington, D.C., have culture shock when they arrive on the Eugene campus.
“They’re used to seeing more black people, and you don’t have that here,” Colas said. “We need to have a place where you can, as a black male or female, say this is your home. ... (Diversity is) so critical to our mission of becoming a top university.”
Colas graduated from the UO 15 years ago. He is the only black member on the 14-member Board of Trustees.
He told the students: “They (trustees) hear and care about everything you are saying. They may not know what it is to be a black person, but I’m on this board and I’ll help communicate that.”
Follow Diane on Twitter @diane_dietz . Email diane.dietz@registerguard.com.
The Oregon Coast
