The Black House hosted President John DeGioia at their annual dinner on Feb. 10 at the Riggs Library to discuss a proposal presented on Feb. 7 to DeGioia by a coalition of minority group student leaders and activists on greater efforts to support minority groups on campus.
The dinner began with a meet and greet cocktail hour, followed by introductory remarks both by DeGioia and Black House President Aya Waller-Bey (COL ‘14) and concluded with a question and answer session with President DeGioia to discuss the student proposal.
The proposal, distributed at the dinner, primarily focused on a general educational requirement for all undergraduate students entitled “The Problem of Race and Class.” The class, structured to mirror “The Problem of God,” aims to engage all undergraduate students with the topic of diversity.
“What we are really trying to call Georgetown’s attention to is that if we are really trying to make global citizens out of people, if we are trying to make men and women for others out of people, it’s really essential to provide them with the language they can use to engage in these conversations thoughtfully,” said Tiffany Brown (SFS ’14), one of the co-chairs of the proposal. [Disclosure: Brown is a former Voice staffer.]
In addition, the eight-point proposal expresses concerns about limited funding for the Center for Multicultural Equity and Access and for minority heritage months, the lack of data transparency, and the absence of a formal minority alumni association, and suggests creating a database of minority students for networking purposes. The proposal also identifies the need to organize a student-faculty committee to address diversity issues and to establish a pipeline for minority undergraduate students to enter graduate study in exchange for returning to Georgetown to teach for three to four academic years.
The proposal was put together by six undergraduate students co-chaired by Waller-Bey and Brown. It followed feedback from Twitter protests sponsored by multiple minority groups in December, sparked by Waller-Bey’s initial #BBGU Twitter protest.
“It’s clear that we are all experiencing very common things here, and there are not enough of us in small groups to do it one by one. Latinos here, Blacks there, Asians there, we might as well get all of the support that we can and collect what we see as common concerns and make a formal proposal, which is what we decided to do,” Brown said.
When asked to comment on the proposal, DeGioia wrote in an email to the Voice that he and Provost Groves were “giving the proposed actions the most serious consideration” and aimed to “engage groups from across campus to make a demonstrable and timely impact on the issues that have been raised … very soon.”
“It is clear that students care about Georgetown and want the University to strengthen its efforts to mirror our core values of cura personalis, men and women for others and community in diversity,” wrote Vice President for Institutional Diversity and Equity Rosemary Kilkenny in an email to the Voice.
Overall, however, Neil Noronha (SFS ‘14), an attendee at the dinner, had the impression much of the dialogue was abstract, saying it was “high level” and that “nothing specific was mentioned.”
Maurice Jackson, professor of history and African American studies and another attendee at the dinner, concurred the students who presented the proposal would need a concrete timeline to better establish their goals. He additionally expressed concern over the mandatory nature of a diversity course in light of the already high number of general education requirements.
Marcia Chatelain, a professor of history focused on African American studies agreed, writing in an email to the Voice that “a new gen ed is hard. … [I would suggest] thinking about asking for a designated lecture fund or programming fund to dedicate speakers, workshops, or experiences for students that engages these questions via orientation/residence halls/retreats with campus ministries, etc.”
