from the AAUP listserv at UW.
Dear AAUP:
Just a note as a lurking alumna. I got my Ph. D. from Slavic Languages in 2001. I worked as a Mellon Post-Doc at Emory University the two years after that. Since then, I have mostly been working as a lecturer at Howard University in Washington DC, a HBCU.
HBCU stands for Historically Black College or Universty. I also, for the sake of the argument, mention that I am Puerto Rican. Working at a HBCU has been interesting. I have seen a lot of highly talented students pass up studying Russian because they want to take Spanish to complete their two year requirement, since it is a lot “easier.” I saw a similar argument as a t. a. in both Russian and Spanish at UW.
The difference with my predominantly African American students, however, is what makes up the rest of their program. They are seriously but seriously pre-professional, while being highly talented and what I tend to qualify as “undercultured.” They have never gone to see an opera. They have never been asked to read literature. I know at UW we complained about this, too, but the depth of it here is amazing. The Business School here goes so far as prohibiting Business School students from getting double majors, which makes me cringe since we had a lot of Business/Russian or Business/Spanish double majors when I was in Seattle. I get a much higher percentage of urban students, who got by because they are clearly talented. They have also experienced an interested level of isolation with their communities.
So… The biggest battle I see in my classroom is actually battling self-segregation, which is a funny statement to make at a place like Howard. You cannot fight your applicant pool. The students you get in the classroom are the students you get from your admissions committee. Recruitment counts for a lot. Mentorship counts for a lot (yeah, shout out to Galya there!) You do not need overwhelming numbers of students of colors in your university to make them feel welcome. You need faculty open to teaching them and helping them overcome disadvantages, be they economic, academic, or cultural. Finally, the hardest task is to figure out a way to help students step away from their self-imposed boundaries.
My two cents worth
B. Amarilis Lugo de Fabritz Ph. D. 2001
Slavic Languages and Literatures