Professor Taline Voskeritchian’s introduction to COM writing class is filled with almost as many accents as faces. Students hail from Mexico, Brazil, China, Pakistan and last but certainly not least, New Hampshire.
In a time of rapid globalization and international integration in the higher education industry, Boston University, according to Reginald Pryor, director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Multicultural Affairs Department, is faced with creating not only each year’s matriculating class lining Commonwealth Avenue with all shapes, sizes and colors, but ensuring those variously attributed students stay happy.
Pryor not only makes it his job to listen to the concerns of minority students at BU but also addresses them. To a student coming from a distant place, whether it be physically or ideologically, BU can be a daunting place.
Currently the Student Union Senate’s Multicultural Affairs committee is conducting a survey on minority flight from BU, according to Sen. Giovanna Loiotile. The committee organizes multicultural events trying to include all different ethnicities.
‘They are looking into minority enrollment at BU and why black students leave BU after their first year,’ Loiotile said.
Yesterday at the George Sherman Union, the BU Asian American club held a bake sale to raise money for its upcoming Asian-American conference. The conference will include speakers and workshops that will encourage young Asians to ‘move beyond our stereotypical roles as the silent minority,’ said club officer Lisa Lee, a College of Arts and Sciences junior.
‘Asian Americans make up the largest minority at BU, yet I know of none truly represented in major organizations at BU,’ Lee said.
According to Lee, the club strives to find out why Asian-American students are not active in their environments and finds out how to make them so.
Although the Asian-American club did not receive funding from the OMA because it was created after the deadline, ‘they provided us with a lot of support, information and resources,’ Lee said.
BU has a multitude of cultural clubs and organizations, to many of which Pryor acts as advisor. Although each organization is distinct from the other, BU officially encourages all of the cultural organizations to share their specific culture through interaction, according to Pyror.
The OMA does much more than just deal with clubs though. The Warren Towers and Towers residence halls each have a floor dedicated to promoting intercultural relations complete with specially trained resident assistants. Anyone, including freshmen, can apply to live on the floors.
The OMA advises the RAs on how to promote cultural activities both within and outside the residences.
Students who volunteer to be peer advisors or activity coordinators, undergraduates who assist in fall and spring freshman orientation, go through training from OMA to learn the importance of diversity and intercultural interaction. Any freshman can request a peer advisor, who may or may not be a minority student, although the majority are, according to Pryor.
‘BU looks at student ability, it admits students on basis of abilities,’ Pryor said. ‘It gives out funds based on need and ability. We look to try and let them know this is a welcoming community.’
He likes to cite the BU alumnus and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. as a testament that BU has always been on the frontier of social insight.
‘Martin Luther King, Jr. was able to grow and develop here,’ Pryor said. ‘He came here with something, and left here with something … and he gave his life for it.’
To commemorate King’s birthday on Jan. 20, there will be a Common Ground meeting from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in Metcalf Hall of the George Sherman Union, Pryor said. The theme of the event will be ‘The American Dream.’
Pryor said the ‘American dream goes beyond apple pie, a house in the suburbs, having a wife and kids. It is what America is working toward.’
He went on to say the American dream, as King understood it, has been adopted by other countries around the world.
Had more non-white Americans been educated in the 1800s and 1900s, their sons and daughters ‘would have been able to afford better education, to become leaders … and captains of industry,’ he said. ‘We would have had a stronger economy, more ideas for curing diseases, more computer advances and better world relations.
‘But that doesn’t mean that no black people were largely successful. Rather than dwell totally on that,’ Pryor said. ‘We have an opportunity to become better. The genius to come from minorities and women is a great plus for the American intellectual engines.’
When Chancellor John Silber was officially BU’s president years ago, according to Pryor, ‘he supported equal opportunity and affirmative action. What he doesn’t guarantee is equal outcome, equal achievement. This place allows them to [develop].’
To combat the fears minority students may have, BU greets them at freshman orientation with the offer to take part in a program every Wednesday of the summer orientations called Common Ground. The program is hosted by The Howard Thurman Center of BU and provides students with a chance to discuss racial and cultural topics at BU, as well as supply them with a support system that carries them on throughout the year. In the fall, the students who attended the Common Ground session are invited to a reception to reconvene.
Pryor said although he is here at the university to see minority students learn about their cultures, he doesn’t stop there.
‘The OMA means a lot to minority students, but it can mean a lot to non-minority students as well,’ he said. ‘Not many students understand that Irish-Gaelic students can get support here … there is nothing written at BU that says the OMA is a non-white organization.
‘It would be good for Irish students to explore their culture, to talk about their history,’ Pryor said, citing Britain’s treatment of the Irish. ‘It would be good for groups from different countries to share.’
Although the OMA advises minority students once they arrive at BU, some students feel the overall diversity at the school not just how students interact is lacking.
‘When I was looking at facts about BU before I came, I thought it would be such a diverse place, but I don’t think it is,’ said College of Arts and Sciences junior Tigist Mogus.
She said she thought the appearance of limited diversity could be because BU is so spread out, but she said she still believes BU is not diverse enough.
‘I think we’re lacking in it, and we’re one of the most diverse campuses in the country,’ Mogus said.
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