Racial differences are more complex than class, religion or ideological differences because race can be determined before ever having talked to a person. It is one of the only differences that is visible—skin color can be physically seen, but class differences or differences of opinion cannot be. Making students aware that they are different racially in any way can create a larger racial divide than may already exist. At Trinity College there is a visible divide between Minority and Non-minority students that is very visible. Orientation programs, fraternities, misconceptions, and a lack of understanding all contribute to the divide, but they can all be changed to be part of the solution.
Orientation programs are present at every college throughout the country, and many colleges offer orientation programs specifically for Minority students separate from the regular orientation. Many of these orientation programs were designed in the 1970s and 1980s and have seen little, if any, broad reforms. Marking students differences right from the start, especially the racial differences, creates a gap between students from the start of the school year. Some minorities feel that the orientation programs are somewhat insulting, because they assume that since they are a minority, they do not know how to perform tasks that White college students can do. Yale’s Minority orientation program, PROP, requires Minority students to spend a certain amount of logged hours working on writing, reading, and computer skills during the orientation. One Minority student from the suburbs who attended PROP named Victoria said, “It is a little bit insulting. But I think they mean well.”[1] The Yale Dean thinks that PROP is not as successful as is suggested and said, “Any program powerful enough in one week to alter the way people think about things would have to be one hell of a good program”[2]. Many school administrators have thought about revamping their programs, or getting rid of them all together. In 1997, Amherst College did away with a two-day orientation program for minority students that had been around since 1970. Tom Gerety, Amherst President at the time, said, “Amherst risks a serious misunderstanding of our principles by asking students to arrive on campus in the first instance on the basis of differences among them”[3].
In contrast there is also the group of people who claim the Minority Orientation Programs they participated in were vital to their development as a student, and that they could not imagine their college experience without them. The defenders of these programs explain that they create an environment for minority students to talk about issues that they would normally not get an opportunity to address in a general orientation session. Many administrators feel that Minority students would be uncomfortable to bringing upissues of race in a general orientation setting because, in most cases, a majority of the students they would be talking to would be White. At the Minority programs, they are surrounded by students who have more then likely experienced the points they are trying to make. Many Minority students feel uncomfortable talking about issues of diversity in a group of predominantly white students because white students cannot always see things from a minority’s perspective. Ryan Jean-Baptiste was a PROP counselor and his used this metaphor to describe what adding white students to the program, “If you are a professor and you are discussing your research, it would be a hindrance if you had somebody who had never heard of your field trying to understand what you are saying. That’s what it would be like.”[4] Ryan does make a good point, but how will White students learn of Minority issues if they are not involved in the conversations.
Another viewpoint is that the Orientation programs do not create segregation, but rather subtle misconceptions toward Minority students throughout campuses across the nation are the cause. For instance, security will stop a minority student at a school play or sporting event to make sure that they are actually a student. This is also a problem at Trinity due to our urban neighborhood surroundings. The Raether library staff has been known to do “random ID checks”[5] on minority students to make sure they are students. The strings of recent robberies on campus that are becoming more frequent and bold are not helping the racial climate. More and more students are jumping to conclusions when seeing a minority student they do not recognize walking towards them, or taking the same path, and the students who say they are not are more then likely lying.
Many solutions have been proposed to fix the schism in Trinity’s racial relationships. One has been to make PRIDE a part of the general orientation rather than a minority pre orientation. If PRIDE was a mandatory part of the normal Orientation it would force both minorities and white students to talk about social issues on campus, and how they would want their next four years at Trinity to be. In a circumstance like this, the minority students would feel more comfortable bringing up racial issues and the white students would become more aware of issues that have unfolded on campus. As freshmen on campus we are basically oblivious to racial incidents around us unless we learn about them in class, such as our seminar. If PRIDE was a part of Orientation, they could give a history of things like the protest last spring and the incidents that occurred further in past, so students do not make the same mistakes twice.
Trinity’s orientation is only one factor of the problem. The racial divide shapes the entire social scene at Trinity. There has been a lot of talk recently about the possibility of getting rid of the Fraternities and replacing them with theme houses. President Jones describes doing away with the Fraternity and sorority scene in his White Pages, which he sent to all students earlier this fall. President Jones makes the point that Trinity is one of only three NESCAC schools to still allow Greek organizations on campus, and that the list of schools that have dropped Greek organizations is a very prestigious one.[6] President Jones goes on to argue that the themes houses, that take the place of the on campus fraternities, will be less exclusive then the fraternities and bring more of the campus together. I don’t feel that getting rid of fraternities is the answer, but there are changes that can be made to Greek life that can help lessen the racial divide. The allure to Greek life at Trinity is the connections that it forms, whether is be to students at other colleges in the same organization, or the connections to potential employers who were in the same organization. When describing fraternities at Dartmouth college Ben O’Donnell said, “Fraternities bolster collegiate friendships more than any other social organization…That type of immersion—usually not at the expense of extra fraternal friendships—does create a special type of camaraderie.”[7] Theme houses would not create the same connection because they do not have the national recognition that Greek organizations do. Fraternity also has members in the sophomore, junior and senior classes. Themes house will most likely only be made up of the few students that actually live within the house. The cultural houses that do exist on campus now are barely relevant to the social scene at trinity and very few students actually attend the events they have.
I suggest that instead of adding theme house we add more fraternities and sororities. This way more minorities cannot only experience what it is like being a brother or sister of a Greek organization, but they will also benefit from the connection that are formed from being a member. When Jenny Stuber, author of Inside the College Gates: How Class and Culture Matter in Higher Education, visited my first year seminar to talk about her book; she said the through her research for her book she found that the students she talked to who were involved with Greek Life had a better college experience then those who did not.
Fraternities should not be looked at as part of the problem, but a vital tool that can be utilized to help bring about the solution. With more Fraternities on campus made up of both Minority and Non-minority students, they could be required to partner with different community service, and racial groups on campus, and hold certain number of joint events to make sure that they are helping close the divide. Greek life clearly holds a lot of influence on our campus, and its reach and resources would go to waste if Trinity decided to do away with them.
The Racial schism at Trinity is not going to disappear overnight. It will only be fixed through hard work and making the whole campus aware that there is even a problem. Through adjustments to the social climate and administration understanding the gap can begin to be lessened. There is a way to make Minority and Non-Minority students come together in harmony, and the PRIDE program, Greek Life, and more racial education need to be utilized correctly in order to reach our goals.
[1] Ben Gose, “Do Minority Orientations Encourage Segregation?,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 4, 1998, sec. Students, http://chronicle.com/article/Do-Minority-Orientations/2236/.
[2] ibid
[3] ibid
[4] ibid
[5] Alfonso Bui, Some Place I Call Home (Kingsbridge Productions, 2007).
[6] James Jones Jr., To Reweave the Helices: Trinity’s DNA by Our Two-Hundredth Birthday, 2011, Trinity College Archives, http://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/trinarchives/5.
[7] Ben O’donnell, “What’s Right With Fraternities,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, December 6, 2009, sec. Commentary, http://chronicle.com/article/Whats-Right-With-Fraternities/49331/.