Campus Currents—Winter 2009
Go Ahead, Say It! Frank Talk About Tough Topics
In a plugged-in, battery-charged, Bluetooth kind of culture where we are all consumed with the desire to communicate, the one thing you’d think we’d be good at is dialogue. Not so much.
Turns out that active listening and respectful sharing, especially when it revolves around the issues of race, class, and sexual difference, is hard work and takes a lot of practice. Three campuswide discussion groups at MHC aim to help us polish this desirable skill set.
Naima McQueen ’11 went to a public high school in Brooklyn, New York. She was one of the few black students there from a professional family and found herself “frustrated with who I was. I didn’t know how to go about addressing the issue.” When the opportunity came up last year for her to train as a peer facilitator for MHC’s Intergroup Dialogue Project, she took it.
Initiated in 2001, the project is intended to “be a supportive space in which participants can come to a clearer understanding of their relationship to structures of oppression.” Translation: freedom means being able to choose your own path in life rather than behaving according to your assigned role.
McQueen says the weekly two-and-a-half-hour sessions that focus on race, class, sexual orientation, and white identity (a gathering offered for students of color had few takers and was canceled) offer “a safe space to ask questions; it’s not about choosing.”
Tanya O. Williams, coordinator of multicultural affairs, has been involved in the project on and off since 2003. “There is both content and process going on,” she explains. “We ask questions, and then ask, ‘What do we do with the information we have gained, in our own life?’ and ‘How do we take it into the world?’”
The number of people interested in the Dialogue Project and two other offerings—“Taboo—Extreme Dialogues,” one-time discussions where students explore testy subjects such as the value of virginity, voting your faith, and the death penalty; and “Let’s Talk About It!” a monthly forum open to the campus community that focuses on social justice, diversity, and community issues—has been small. But Williams isn’t worried.
“I take the viewpoint that whoever needs to be there will be there,” she says, adding that she is hearing the word “dialogue” on campus more often. Facilitators and participants learning and practicing dialogue skills are taking them into the world, multiplying their benefits, she explains.
Williams, who is finishing her doctorate in education with a focus on internalized racism among African Americans and the process of liberation, was hired to provide an array of resources to students of color. But she says she can’t do that without being available to white students, too, who often are unaware of how forcefully—and subtly—they have an impact on people of color.
That lack of understanding is what Emma Fialka-Feldman ’11 sensed during several open forums about race organized last year on campus. “The white students couldn’t understand that [the students of color] had real concerns and issues, and that they were speaking to truths they knew personally.” White students were perpetuating stereotypes by not knowing what was behind the feelings of students of color.
In her Dialogue Project group on sexual orientation, Fialka-Feldman says, “We’re not just talking about our feelings but about morals, books, institutionalized racism, and class. The idea is to create a level playing field. You will be challenged but respected.”
That’s exactly the kind of world Williams hopes to build. “I’m trying to work the human family into understanding we cannot exist without each other. We can talk to each other and it’s okay. Nobody is going to die.”—M.H.B.
MHC Residence Halls Go Wireless 
Mount Holyoke students arrived in the fall to find wireless computer access in every residence hall on campus. The project began with Mead Hall two years ago and was completed last summer with the Mandelles and Abbey Hall.
“Students coming in expect to have wireless in their dorms,” said Kevin Slate, LITS network and systems manager, who was the technical lead on the project. “They have it at home, so they want it here. You’re behind if you don’t have wireless dorms at this point.”
Retrofitting existing buildings for wireless is an intricate process. The older Gothic buildings are structurally challenging, while newer buildings contain lots of metal and concrete, materials that do not conduct the wireless signal well. Most of the construction was completed during the summer months to minimize inconvenience in the residence halls during the academic year.
Creighton Supports Debate on Drinking Age
President Creighton is one of more than 100 college presidents who have signed on to the Amethyst Initiative, which calls for public debate over the real effects of the twenty-one-year-old drinking age.
Formed by a group of college presidents in June 2008, the initiative argues that the current drinking age is not working as well as people think, and that a dangerous culture of binge drinking has been met with few solutions.
While not advocating lowering the drinking age, Creighton said she did “support opening fresh dialogue on the issue.” No matter the drinking age, and from an institutional standpoint, “I think it is worth asking where we serve our students better—by devoting resources to enforcement, or to education and student support.”
Quick Thinkers to Arrive for National Debate Tourney
Advanced powers of persuasion, logic, and wit will be aptly demonstrated in April when more than 250 college debaters, judges, and their logistics teams converge on South Hadley for the National Championship Tournament of the American Parliamentary Debate Association.
Aviva Elzufon ’10, a varsity debater with the Mount Holyoke College Debate Society and codirector of the tourney, notes that rules forbid the host college from entering a team but that the honor of hosting the national tournament makes up for the spot they forfeit. “It’s like having the presidential debates at the college,” she explains.
Debate has a long history at MHC, which has the oldest collegiate debating society for women in America. Today, there are forty members of the society, which is open to anyone with a desire to hone her extemporaneous speaking and presentation skills.
It takes work. Novice debaters practice three times a week for two hours. More experienced debaters instruct beginners in how to prepare a case, take notes that best organize their thoughts, and become fluent in the debate style. “It’s like taking a fifth class,” says Elzufon.
Based roughly on the debates that take place in the British parliament, the APDA format pits two, two-person teams against each other. The “government” presents a case and the “opposition” rebuts it. Recorded evidence is not allowed. Each of the six speeches and rebuttals is made in less than ten minutes, placing a high premium on speedy analysis.
A broad knowledge base is also key. “You have to know US history, civics, all major events of the world, theoretical concepts, basic economic principles. There’s no book. You acquire [the knowledge] over time,” Elzufon says.
Tournaments are held weekly at participating campuses. The MHC team’s schedule first semester included trips to Smith, Boston University, Harvard, and Vassar, with points gathered on a cumulative basis. While they haven’t hit the top-ten winners listing yet, “we’ve been up there,” in the top twenty-five, says Elzufon. —M.H.B.
Fishing for a Room
Each spring, a little yellow fish helps determine where students will live the following academic year. The animated animal lives in the Office of Residential Life’s housing-lottery Web site and jumps out of a bowl in response to students’ clicks, offering a housing number. That influences a student’s chances of getting her first-choice residence at room draw. Some love the fish for the luck it brings; others blame it for picking a bad number; some even pray to it (“Please come out with a good number …”). However it performs, this little fish gets a lot of attention each March and April.
Brainstorms
Chaos in the fourth estate
Newspapers are so over, the common wisdom says. But is journalism?
The explosion of information on the Internet certainly is redefining the field. Podcasting. The Huffington Post. Blogs. Matt Drudge. It ain’t your granddaddy’s journalism anymore, and if your granddaddy happens to be Ben Bradlee, former editor of the Washington Post, the advent of citizen journalism is about as welcome as citizen surgery. But not everyone is writing the obituary of the Fourth Estate—yet.
Chief among improvements for reporting is the instant accessibility of government and corporate data, from political campaign records to CEO salaries, thanks to online databases. “In the old days, if you wanted federal or state information you had to go to the government offices. Now it’s online,” Bass points out. “To research the book, I turned to the [US Food and Drug Administration] Web site a lot. I only went to [Washington,] DC, once. The Internet,” she adds, “has helped reporters do their job better.”
The Internet has also spurred citizen involvement in breaking news like never before. Vacationers, city residents, and mountain climbers used video cameras and cell phones to capture and post pictures of the tsunami in South Asia in 2004, the London terrorist bombings in 2005, and the killing of innocent Tibetans in 2006. Universal access to technology has made it more difficult for totalitarians to oppress people, Bass notes.
In a multimedia, 24/7 information landscape, it is harder to figure out what’s true and what’s credible. But most consumers seem to be savvy enough to separate the amateur gibberish from the trustworthy copy. And trust and well-crafted stories are what it’s all about, she says. “Ventures that tried to rely solely on citizen content haven’t worked … A gatekeeping function is necessary. Training is necessary.”
What is most troubling for newspaper journalists is the breakdown of their business model. Paid classified and display ads have migrated to free sites on the Web, gutting revenue. Wall Street never has liked newspapers because of their poor profit margins, and management in recent years has been directed to slash editorial budgets, leading to an estimated loss of 4,500 jobs and the near demise of in-depth or investigative reporting.
“When I worked for the Boston Globe, if I got an investigative tip … that was really solid, my editor would let me follow it and take me off the news cycle for a couple of weeks to nail it down. That doesn’t happen anymore,” notes Bass, who was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for her investigative series on psychiatrists who sexually abused their patients.
Still, Bass recommends students interested in the field get their first job at a small daily paper, many of which are holding their own with online versions. While higher-paid, older journalists who are less adept at the new technologies are being let go, others who are more facile with podcasting, html, and videocasts are in demand. “I try to give my students a taste of all those mediums.”
Alternative news outlets and funding schemes, including the foundation-supported investigative Web site ProPublica; the notion of pay-as-you-read news sites; and making newspapers nonprofit—are also in the works, she adds.
What may be, in fact, more troubling than the demise of traditional journalism is our culture’s pervasive focus on celebrity. “People … are not necessarily reading the news at all,” anywhere, notes Bass. To make her point, she points out that while her students at MHC are studying the ethical quandaries posed by new media platforms, their favorite Web site is perezhilton.com, a Hollywood gossip blog.—M.H.B.
Learn More: Check out Alison Bass’s blog; read a synopsis of her book in Off the Shelf section of this issue; or read what’s new in nonprofit investigative journalism by visiting Pro Publica.
Student Edge
Leadership with a small “l”
When Erin “Erna” Wilson FP’10 (above, center) wants to unwind on the weekend, she gets together with friends to play board games, which, she explains, is a really good way to get to know people. You quickly learn who’s a cheat, who’s a strategist, and who’s a “rulesmeister—that’s me,” she admits.
Fairness and a level playing field figure prominently in Wilson’s view of the world as she serves concurrent terms as president of both the Student Government Association and the Frances Perkins Scholars Association. She’s the first FP to head student government, and her campaign platform was one of inclusivity and shared opportunity.“For a long time, SGA has been leaders with capital Ls,” Wilson points out. “I sort of felt like giving other students leadership opportunities, through being a senator or head of an organization. That’s just as important as being SGA president. I’ve don’t even have a vote in senate.”
Wilson stresses to her constituents the validity of every voice on campus. “Maybe you got here in a nontraditional way—as an FP, a first-generation student, a transfer student—those are all things that are true for me. I have a full ride [scholarship].
“Or maybe you went to a boarding school and your parents are paying your full tuition. It doesn’t matter. Either way, there’s a space for you, and your voice is just as important as the next student’s.”
Every day at lunch and dinner, Wilson sits in Ham Hall and encourages students to sit with her and express their concerns. She has canvassed students in Blanchard with the simple question, “How do you feel about MHC?” The insights come in handy at student government meetings, faculty meetings, Five College Coordinating Board meetings, and FP association meetings, all of which she attends.
An American-studies major and film minor, Wilson’s background is particularly eclectic. Before coming to MHC, she worked as a governess, wedding coordinator, forklift driver, and Barbie-doll specialist. Say what? “It was great,” she exclaims of her time spent at the toy store FAO Schwarz. “I worked with the [doll] collectors.”
Her focus these days, however, is instituting a holiday airport van to Bradley; rewriting the student government organization’s constitution to make it more accountable to students, and providing support to FP students who are having trouble negotiating school, childcare, and dorm living.
What’s in Wilson’s future? “People say I’d be great in government, but my heart lies in advertising,” she admits. Now that’s something Barbie could understand.—M.H.B.
