Report on Expanding the Role of the Elon University Multicultural Center

Beyond the Charge: Implications for the University

Honoring the History of African-American Students at Elon University
Since the committee began its work, several campus constituents have expressed their fear about the implications of this committee’s work and charge. Their fear is engendered by the national trend of dismantling Black cultural centers in favor of multicultural centers. Members of the committee have also echoed these fears. While we embrace the university’s mission of providing a welcoming environment for all students, we also celebrate the rich history and legacies that make such a mission possible: African-American civil rights struggle and activism, at Elon and on a national level. African-Americans at Elon represent the largest ethnically and racially diverse group at the institution. They represent the first users and providers and also the largest percentage of users and providers of services and programs historically and currently offered by the Multicultural Center. They also represent our largest percentage of diverse alumni, a base whose financial contributions to the university may be more robust if earmarked for initiatives that more deliberately and systematically preserve the African-American presence at Elon.

Therefore, we recommend that as we embark on an expanded role and presence of a newly re-envisioned Multicultural Center, the university not lose sight of the importance of an African-American Resource Center or Black Cultural Center. The creation of a strong and open Multicultural Center does not remove the need to respect the unique history and historical inequities related to African-Americans at Elon, in North Carolina and in the United States. As the university grows, we suggest considering how to support and expand the African-American Resource Room, and consider an African-American Resource Center or a Black Cultural Center much in the model of the Sonja Haynes Stone Black Cultural Center (http://sonjahaynesstonectr.unc.edu/). Such a Center might house an active African-American Alumni Chapter, the African/African-American Studies program, and African-American historical and cultural multimedia, interactive museum that builds on the African-American Wall of Fame currently housed in the Multicultural Center, and provides a home for the university’s African art collection and a permanent reminder of a past we never want to forget and to which we never want to return.

Deeper Support for LGBT Students, Faculty and Staff
Our campus is fortunate not to face open hate speech or crimes towards LGBT students, faculty and staff. Additionally, the domestic partnership policies in Human Resources and the increased number of LGBT students, faculty and staff in prominent roles on campus have greatly improved the campus climate. However, the committee feels that we are still in the earliest stages of campus education and acceptance in terms of the more challenging LGBT issues. As we diversify campus and delve further into multicultural education, campus leaders must be ready to work through the more complex issues already being dealt with on campuses across the country.

Access and Success
The university must remain keenly aware of local issues and how they intersect with university strategic goals. North Carolina has one of the highest and fastest growing Hispanic populations in the country. Alamance County is currently embroiled in debates around immigration issues. Additionally, Alamance County’s current unemployment rate is 10.9% (Burlington Times-News, 2009); while, 46.87% of Alamance County students are on free or reduced lunch (Alamance Burlington School System, 2009).

The university must pay careful attention to its role as an institutional citizen of the county and state. Part of that work includes creating access for under-represented groups on campus, including Hispanic and lower-income members of the local community.

The university must also prepare and become educated in advance of changes in campus population, including revising campus expectations about students’ lower socio-economic status. Nationally, students whose families make more than $116,000 per year are eight times more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree than those in families making less than $40,000 per year (Mortenson, 2008). The Institute for Higher Education Policy echoed this news when they showed that low-income students in the top 10% academically go to college at the same rate as high-income students in the lowest 10% academically. In other words, Elon must understand that wealthier students are more apt to attend college; therefore most colleges and universities function around norms that meet the needs of wealthier students. The Center, therefore, will need to play a critical role in: 1) collaborating with other campus offices to increase campus awareness of these local issues, 2) helping provide students with greater access and also with programs to ensure readiness and success and 3) preparing and readying the campus for different demographics.

Campus Environment and Support for a Diverse Campus
There is great desire on campus to diversify student, faculty and staff populations, which is an extremely important goal. This committee recommends the formation of a campus diversification task force to examine best practices among peer and aspirant institutions and to explore how to best plan for such growth. In advance of this goal, the campus must pay careful attention to a range of possible strategies for creating a diverse campus environment that supports students, faculty and staff of diverse populations.

Training for Students, Faculty and Staff
To succeed on a more diverse campus and in a more diverse world, all students, faculty, and staff must experience some form of training and development. There is a need for greater depth in cultural training before students engage in immersion experiences (like study abroad and service-learning). Also, there is a need for sensitivity training for all staff and faculty who interact with diverse students and families. Staff and faculty must be fully prepared and skilled to work with a wide range of family backgrounds, to work from a perspective open to a wide range of diverse populations, as well as to structure policies that can meet a wide range of diversity needs. As the campus diversifies, these needs will only increase and intensify.

Calendaring
Campus leaders may need to consider how to modify the traditional Christian academic calendar to meet the needs of all students, faculty and staff of diverse populations.

Housing and Dining
As the campus diversifies, dining services will need to meet changing expectations of diets, rituals and practices. Residence Life will also need to consider a wider range of needs and cultural norms.

Identity Groups vs. Coalitions
Changing the campus population will intensify the need for diverse groups to establish their individual identities, while sharing these differences and uniting with other diverse groups on campus. Campus leaders should pay close attention to these needs and work to both meet individual groups’ needs for time and space to identify, as well as the benefits to the larger campus of more closely connecting large organizations like El Centro de Español, the Multicultural Center, Isabella Cannon Center for International Studies, etc.