This week, shouts of solidarity coming from the EMU Fir Room last week from the UO Truth Coalition@@http://uotruth.tumblr.com/@@ have been drowned out in a sea of other controversies surrounding the EMU referendum.
The Emerald thought it important to see if we could step back, spread the issue out a little and set up why UO Truth has stated opposition to the Office of Multicultural Academic Success’ soon-to-be-possible adoption by the Center for Multicultural Academic Excellence.
The initial article sets up what seem to be the three main arguments against changing the location of the office: A larger center might compromise the office’s intimacy with students it advises, students feel like this came out of nowhere and the planning process for this hasn’t involved student input.
Intimacy with students
Some students are concerned that as the office transitions, it will have too many more responsibilities — the amount of contact with students may be lost and some priorities misplaced. The FAQ published on UO Truth’s Tumblr page includes a fear about multicultural programs becoming lost in the shuffle and inappropriately being turned into “melting-pot” organizations.
We have assessed that the primary concern here is, according to them, “whitewashing.” They seem to be afraid that the term “multicultural” might be used as a buzzword, as the center is planning to give assistance to nontraditional or disabled students. In this case, they could claim to be helping more multicultural students while relatively helping fewer.
Coming out of nowhere
This issue popped up on a lot of people’s radars quite suddenly. Dismay has been expressed at not being informed about this issue until shortly before it went into effect. We can definitely see where they are coming from.
We can see why a five-page Tumblr site has been created. If they feel as though something has been sprung upon them, it’s reasonable to expect an outpouring of text to try to gather a consensus among people.
Lacking student input
Considering students are complaining they were not made aware of this change early enough, this concern seems obvious. Essentially, the students are upset they were not able to get involved with how this new center would look before it was announced.
And that appears to be a common concern lately. We don’t want to try to link this story and the EMU referendum, except that it’s clear in both cases that students are feeling they are not being heard.
And maybe their concerns might be a little overblown, and maybe they’re not, but we can all agree that currently, ours is not a healthy atmosphere for resolving those differences. A better way to address the issue would include an explanation from those proposing this change as to why the new CMAE would be the improvement it’s claimed to be.
Editorial: Explaining the broader points of the UO Truth campaign
Daily Emerald
November 8, 2011
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