The Disaster that Lies Behind the Chalkboard: An Autoethnography about Education & the Power, Privilege and Diversity Requirement

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The Disaster that Lies Behind the Chalkboard: An The Disaster that Lies Behind the Chalkboard: An

Autoethnography about Education & the Power, Privilege and Autoethnography about Education & the Power, Privilege and

Diversity Requirement Diversity Requirement

Shafrarisi Bonner 21

DePauw University

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The Disaster that Lies Behind the Chalkboard

An Autoethnography about Education & the Power, Privilege and Diversity Requirement

Shafrarisi Bonner

DePauw University Honor Scholar Program

SHAFRARISI BONNER

This study is dedicated to every Black Student who has felt ostracized by and within the walls

of every classroom and textbook.

Every Black Student who has felt the traumatic wrath of predominately white institutions.

And every Black Student who is filled with the hope of a better tomorrow – an inclusive and

unapologetically Black one.

You deserve everything great from the world.

Joy.

Rest.

Peace.

Love.

And anything under the sun that makes you shine as bright as the richness of your skin.

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Table of Contents

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Situating the Project ................................................................................................................. 8

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From Julian’s Time to Present ............................................................................................... 15

The Racially Marginalized Student Struggle ......................................................................... 17

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Student Ostracization in the Classroom ................................................................................. 21

Student Belonging ................................................................................................................. 25

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HAB2$2*4$2*A5%*1234'5.I ......................................................................................................... FJ*

A More “Diverse” Curriculum ............................................................................................. 41

The Power, Privilege and Diversity Requirement* ................................................................ 43*

Decentering Race: PPD & My Experience ........................................................................... 44

What Happened to Inclusion ................................................................................................ 47

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Limitations & Future Directions ............................................................................................. 52

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Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge and thank my committee for their constant work and belief

in my project. Special thanks to Dr. Leigh-Anne Goins, Dr. Karin Wimbley, and Joseph Harris.

I would also like to acknowledge the Honor Scholar Program for being accommodating and

gracious of the time given to me to fully produce the vision that I had for this project. I am

extremely gracious for the kindness of Amy Welch and Dr. Kevin Moore.

And last, but not least – thank you for the community that I have created on DePauw’s campus

for the last four years. I would have not continued this educational journey without your love and

support.

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Abstract

This thesis seeks to analyze the racial climate of the classroom, using my personal

experiences at my predominately white institution (PWI) as its foundation. My experiences at

DePauw University, both academically and socially, has played a key role in how I have

navigated campus. These experiences are further analyzed using a Critical Race Theory (CRT)

and Feminist lens. By analyzing the studies and research done by these scholars, this study aims

to assess how whiteness operates and is maintained within the classroom, especially in DePauw

University’s Power, Privilege and Diversity courses. This study also outlines the impact of

classrooms that attempt to unpack power, privilege and diversity while continuing to center

whiteness. Of particular interest in the potential impact that these behaviors have on Black

students within the classroom and throughout their collegiate experience. (Solórzano, Ceja, and

Yosso 2000, p.15).

Keywords: race, racism, predominately white institutions, marginalized, Critical Race

Theory, belongingness

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INTRODUCTION

Most universities, to my knowledge as a senior in high school, did not have requirements

instituted in its curriculum geared towards having conversations about marginalized identities.

The Power, Privilege and Diversity (PPD) requirement was unique. As I deliberated my choices

and considered schools, DePauw, a university with a requirement that purported to center racial

marginalized experiences - was at the top of my list. Looking back, I believe I attributed the PPD

requirement to the University, the administration, and to their belief in the importance of

diversity and inclusion. However, I was not aware of the events or student activism that left the

university with little choice but to create the Power, Privilege, and Diversity (also known as the

PPD) requirement. Though later -after choosing DePauw and moving to a small, rural, and

conservative (red state) town- I learned from students and friends that many remained

disappointed with both the courses and the requirement. Quickly I noticed that student

experiences varied based on who taught the course, the literature used within them, the way the

faculty member introduced, situated, and centered the literature, and how classrooms managed to

avoid attending to race or marginalization.

When it came time for me to take my own PPD course

, my own experiences mirrored

what I had heard: that these courses were a mixed bag with no true consistency, at times

challenging exclusion, at others maintaining it. Only one of the PPD courses that I was enrolled

in attended to structures and systems, or how racialization creates difference lived experiences

(socially, economically, academically, and legally) (Bonilla-Silva 1997 p. 446). It also attended

I have taken a total of two PPD courses

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to the lived experiences of communities of differing abilities, how racialization operates within

wider media, and existing social frameworks that affect how we operate within wider society.

Despite their attempts to engage with social exclusion, both professors were able to mention and

assess race, but it remained limited. When race, and explicitly racism was mentioned it occurred

in a scattered like fashion, with the faculty member tiptoeing, dodging, and avoiding honest and

difficult conversations. One professor even excused racist behaviors from non-Black students

(white students and non-Black students of color). In these two courses, specifically SOC334A,

the faculty, like the students - excused microaggressions, students denying the existence of these

structures, and minimizing the lived experiences of racially marginalized communities or even

introduced these conversations unless it was absolutely necessary (student discontent).

My experiences within these two PPD courses led me to want to better understand the

requirement, its learning objectives, and what measures did the university take to ensure that

proper and critical conversations are held in the classroom. These experiences, as well as other

racially marginalized student experiences are important to understand because they can point to

the reasonings to why they do not feel a sense of belonging or safe within the institution. The

conversations that occur within the classroom contributes to its racialized state – which is only a

reflection of the wider world. Hopefully with these experiences in mind, we can begin to

reimagine how the Power, Privilege and Diversity requirement can exist on DePauw’s campus in

the future – ensuring that all these courses aim to assess their learning goals.

In each class, I had hoped things would shift. That the professor would urge students to

participate, have classmates that checked their privilege and worked to do better, and not minimize the

lived experiences of the Black community (on campus included). But my experiences within the PPD

classroom operated just like many other classes. As I attempted to understand how something that drew

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me to this school could be so different from what I imagined and from what my friends and other

students shared with me, I started to ask myself ‘how did we get here?’. As I leaned into that space, I

learned more about the origins of PPD, which students fought for, why, and how it remains a contested

requirement. This thesis stands in that space and seeks to better understand the creation of PPD, how

race and racism fit within the PPD requirement, what the requirement means for students, and how we

move forward.

The goal of this Honor Scholar project is to capture the shadowed histories of Black student

activism on DePauw University’s campus and to also assess if the wishes of our past and current student

body (of belongingness and visibility) has been achieved and in what ways in relation to the Power,

Privilege, and Diversity requirement. This project examines the series of curricular decisions aimed at

challenging racism and unpacking white supremacy both socially, academically, and structurally

through critical personal reflection, surveys, and interviews. While studying my own experience, it is

extremely necessary to understand the histories of DePauw University as an institution – especially the

histories of student organizing that has led to the creation of the PPD requirement. This study serves as

an interdisciplinary discursive analysis that engages with interviews and self-reflection to better

understand the role of the Power, Privilege, and Diversity requirement in the university’s curriculum and

the potential it has to fully achieve its learning goals. To better understand this and its potential effects

on the DePauw community, I ask:

1. How do students perceive the PPD courses requirement?

2. Do students perceive PPD courses as challenging racism and white supremacy?

3. Based upon student experiences, do PPD courses shift BIPOC student experiences on

campus?

4. Do students experience fewer instances of racism or racial microaggressions in PPD

courses?

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I begin this project by situating it within the larger structure and systems that maintain

racialization and racism in the U.S and the histories of racism at DePauw. This is intentional as it both

outlines the history of racism and racialization in institutions and at DePauw, while also focusing in on

student activism, which pushed the University to create the PPD requirement. I then examine the PPD

requirement through critical personal reflection of two courses EDUC223A and 334A, with greater foci

on SOC 334A, and finally, engage survey and interview data with students and faculty to answer the

aforementioned questions.

SITUATING THE PROJECT

Race and its legacy in America is a multi-fold conversation that should include multi-

layered theoretical analysis. It is central to understand how these legacies exist to outwardly

impact social policy and its integration into American social thought. To understand race,

especially how it impacts the American educational system, it is important to recognize how race

and property intersect (Billings and Tate 1995). Since the beginning of its settlings, the United

States politics has been heavily influenced by property. The defining principles of the “free

American man” were specifically defined in the Articles of Confederation of 1781 and were

defined with the ability of owning, purchasing, and protecting property

(Article IV). Due to U.S

society being heavily based on property rights, “the intersection of race and property creates an

[“ 1231.5 Article IV The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of

the different states in this union, the free inhabitants of each of these states, paupers, vagabonds and fugitives from

Justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states, and the

people of each state shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other state, and shall enjoy therein all the

privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof

respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported

into any state, to any other state of which the Owner is an inhabitant, provided also that no imposition, duties or

restriction shall be laid by any state, on the property of the united states, or either of them.”]

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analytical tool through which we can understand social (and, consequently, school) inequity”

(Billings and Tate 1995).

It was not that long ago since the United States outwardly defined property with

personhood through the forced enslavement of peoples from nations of Africa

. From these

notions of property, the State began to socially construct race to create/maintain whiteness as a

dominant racial group (Solórzano, Ceja, and Yosso 2000). Within their 2000 study, Solórzano,

Ceja, and Yosso use Lorde’s and Marable’s 1992 definition of racism which posits that racism is

heavily influenced by institutional power that is only possessed by whites. Lorde defines racism

as “the belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to

dominance” (Solórzano, Ceja, and Yosso 2000). Marable defines racism in a similar way –

however, specifically states how this dominance is used to oppressed marginalized groups; “a

system of ignorance, exploitation, and power used to oppress African- Americans, Latinos,

Asians, Pacific Americans, American Indians and other people of the basis of ethnicity, culture,

mannerisms, and color (Solórzano, Ceja, and Yosso 2000).

Lorde’s and Marable’s definitions of race and racism are helpful to understand the silent

atrocities of racism as American society has declined (in small ways) from Jim Crow racism

(Billings and Tate 1995). It’s wide but distinct language points to how race and racism manifests

itself in a wide variety of ways from institutional structures, social language (such as stereotypes)

and micro-aggressions, and social climates (work, the classroom, etc.) to effect marginalized

groups on micro and macro levels. Since race and racism operations in various micro and

macrocosms, white individuals tend to only process racism in its macro form (Bobo, Kluege, and

Slavery was abolished on January 31

, 1865 through the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment

XIII). However, some Southern states still engaged in owning, kidnaping, selling, and torturing enslaved Black

Americans. An example of this is the state of Texas who announced on June 19

, 1865 of slavery being abolished in

the United Stated (over 5 months after the ratification of the thirteenth amendment).

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Smith 1996). An example of this macro form would be a white southern man dressed in Ku Klux

Kan attire waving the confederate flag or Jim Crow racism (segregation, lynching’s

, etc.) –

images that we traditionally pair what race and racism looks like in current K-12 education

(Brown 2011). Scholars argue that how race and racism is centered through early learning

because of the decline of Jim Crow and ‘de jure racism’

, creates a ‘color blind ideology’

(Hagerman 2016). Hagerman describes that many whites use colorblind logic to make sense of

American politics – believing that racism is an issue of the distant past and highly focusing on

individualism and the idea that a persons’ shortcomings are due to their individuality (not

including the possibility of its tie to institutional workings) (Hagerman 2016). Due to children’s’

initial ideas of race and racialization being produced within the home – this allowed for racism

and what it is, to be reproduced in several ways (Hagerman 2016).

Hagerman defines this as “context of childhood”, using the theory of Bonilla-Silva

(2014) of the ‘white habitus’ to further explain its workings. Bonilla-Silva defines the ‘white

habitus’ as a “racialized, uninterrupted socialization process that conditions and creates whites’

racial tastes, perceptions, feelings, and emotions and their view on racial matters” (Bonilla-Silva

2014:152; Hagerman 2016). This socialization process and deep cultural conditioning “helps to

normalize and legitimate social closure… justifying inequality and maintaining the existing

racial hierarchy” (Bonilla- Silva, Goar, and Embrick 2006:233). For some children, this cultural

conditioning is challenged when they enter higher academic institutions like college (Solórzano,

Ceja, and Yosso 2000). Scholars have argued that that this disruption within educational spaces

is a result of the 2014 election of Barrack Obama – which introduced the world openly to a

A racialized capital punishment of the West (Labode 2014)

Legal racism

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“diverse and multicultural America” (Brown 2011). Due to the heightening of racial crime

during the Obama Administration also, it became imperative for the nation to bring these

conversations into the classroom (Brown 2011). However, due to white supremacist systems and

structures, white norms, values, and beliefs woven into the education system, and the tacit

support of racism throughout US society, there are few curriculums that center negatively

racialized groups, and engage critically with marginalization. Within schools and society, there

tends to be a “fear of addressing and a lack of understanding about the role that race and racism

plays (and has played) in our nation” (Bonilla-Silva 2006:28). This fear points to how color-

blind ideologies seem to be a more ideal approach for contextualizing racism within the school

system and higher education. These ideologies overlook inequitable conditions by “substituting

cultural arguments in place of race-based explanations” (Brown 2011:126). This discourse of

choosing to ignore and not address racism continues to affect classroom conversations.

This project places the works of the aforementioned scholars in conversation with

scholars of Critical Race Theory – which critically centers race and intersecting identities and

how they actively impact the lives of marginalized communities. Assessing how these impacts

occur on micro and macro institutionalized and social levels will help to create a conversation of

how racially marginalized communities are centered on the campus of DePauw University. To

fully capture how race and racialization operates on DePauw’s campus – it is important to

understand the institutions’ histories of race and racism since its founding. In the following

section, I provide an extensive, but brief, history of DePauw, including its engagement with race

and racialization.

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

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The college classroom involves moving pieces, multiple perspectives, and different - at

times competing ideas. While we are aware that knowledge is produced/reproduced within

classrooms, we often fail to acknowledge the values and ideas of racism that are bound within

that space. Some argue this is an outcome of white supremacy and a centering of whiteness that,

when engaged by a college, positions whiteness as a normative space or a universal property and

marks negatively racialized others as outside, deviant, different, and not worthy of full inclusion.

At predominately white institutions, (PWIs), experiences of subtle and overt racism can be

heightened (Solórzano, Yosso and Ceja 2000). Because the United States remains a segregated

society (Howard and Navarro 2016), many students come to college with little cross-racial

experiences and with few tools to aid their navigation. As white people are the majority in the

United States, and because the country continues to engage with racist laws, policies, practices,

and worldviews, whiteness and white privilege remain hidden, easily pointed to but rarely

addressed. The continual centering of whiteness on college campuses, whether through literature

in the classroom, the courses students are required to take, or the spaces students feel

comfortable – maintains rooted in inequality and challenges student’s feelings of belongingness.

On DePauw University’s campus this is no different. DePauw University has continued

to maintain and center whiteness – completely excluding marginalized student perspective about

belongingness. DePauw University, founded in 1837 – has an institutional history rooted in

racism. DePauw’s first African American graduate was a part of the Class of 1888,

approximately 51 years after its founding and 17 years after the Indiana Supreme Court ended

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indentured servitude and freed the remaining slaves

in the state

(Herald Bulletin). We are aware

of Tucker E. Wilson’s legacy as the first African American graduate; however, we have no

histories of his journey throughout the institution at all. This is also similar to the stories of

Valeria Murphy and Mattie Julian Brown who were DePauw’s first Black women Alumnae

Class of 1926 (DePauw University).

Their stories were told by the university on May 2,1977.

The histories of the first Black students on DePauw’s campus are histories that the

university should make efforts to ensure that they are continuing to exist throughout the campus

student body. This is not just making sure that our campus student body knows the names of

these individuals but are knowledgeable of their journeys in full truth. How the university centers

its Black student population creates a dangerous dichotomy between the actual Black student

experience within the institution and the experience the university believes is monolithic to all of

its students. This monolithic experience includes students feeling prioritized and safe within the

academic environments and feeling a sense of belonging not only within the classroom, but on

campus and student spaces also. Because whiteness is central throughout DePauw’s operations

and the discomfort that comes along with Black student histories within the institution, the truths

of these histories are constantly overshadowed.

This is present within the histories of the student activism and organizing that has led to

major changes within DePauw University as an institution, both within the classroom and our

Although schools were desegregated in 1949 and enslaved Black Americans were freed by the Indiana Supreme

Court in 1871, the 1816 Constitution of Indiana State declared that slavery or indentured servitude is not prohibited.

This was declared a crime punishable by law.

[ Article XI Indiana State 1816 Constitution] 7th. There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in this

state, otherwise than for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. Nor shall any

indenture of any negro or mulatto hereafter made and executed out of the bounds of this state be of any validity

within the state.]

Information regarding Indiana State’s admission of Black students in the late 1800s is not available. However, the

Indiana Supreme Court freed all enslaved Black Americans in 1871

Institutions were not desegregated until 1949 in the State of Indiana (IN.gov)

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campus student spaces. For years, students have joined together collectively to create their own

spaces to feel this belongingness – for example, the Association of African American Students,

the Caribbean Students Association, African Students Association, and the Queer Students of

Color Organization. These organizations, specifically the Association of African American

Students, have constantly pushed DePauw to create diverse conversations – in both our

classrooms and student campus spaces.

The structure of race within the United States, formed over centuries and cemented from

the system of African enslavement and Indigenous genocide, extends beyond the classroom and

influences how we live, interact, and move throughout society. This project focuses specifically

on higher education and attempts to understand how race is being centered in courses about

marginalization on DePauw’s campus. To attend to the critical analysis needed to answer these

questions, I begin with a brief discussion of race and racialization within the United States, the

effects of whiteness as a system and ideology, and its relation to higher education.

HISTORICIZING DEPAUW: RACE AND RACISM 1850-2020

DePauw University, founded in 1837 in Greencastle, Indiana was a religious institution

founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church. The university was originally called Indiana

Asbury University in honor of the first American Methodist bishop – Francis Asbury. 47 years

later, the university was known as DePauw University

. The number of graduates that were

enrolled at the university at the time of its foundings are unknown. However, by the time of 1919

there were more than 4,000 students that were enrolled

(DePauw University). The university’s

Indiana Asbury University’s name was changed in 1884 to honor benefactor Washington C. DePauw

In 1919, Edward Rector awarded $2.5 million to the university to establish the Rector Scholarship Fund. This

scholarship allowed more than 4,000 students to enroll into DePauw University

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first African American Graduate occurred 57 years after its founding in 1837. Although Indiana

is considered a Northern territory, which for some means the reality of racism being not as

severe, racism and racial discrimination remained a central component that has influenced the

lives of its students and the local communities in Indiana. We are not given much information

about Tucker Wilson’s journey at DePauw and can only imagine the horrific overt racism that he

experienced. However, we are given more in-depth information about Percy Lavon Julian – a

1920 graduate of DePauw.

FROM JULIAN’S TIME TO PRESENT

Percy Julian, American researcher, and chemist was born on April 11, 1899 and dies

April 9, 1975 (DePauw University). As a member of the class of 1920, Percy Julian experienced

the effects of racism during his time (Jim Crow and racial segregation). Though the university

often discusses him, named a building after him, and displays an award given to him in that

building - DePauw does not discuss his experiences as a student on campus. As I searched the

archives for this information, the most I found was through the TV show, Drunk History. Drunk

History, a series owned by network Comedy Central, has aired for 6 seasons – its first airing

dated July 9, 2013 (Comedy Central). This show had existed as web series, created by Derek

Waters and Jeremy Konner, before it was bought by the network Comedy Central. Within this

show, celebrities are invited to re-enact major historical events. For each episode, the cast tours

to U.S cities to explore the histories and stories that lie there. Within Season 2, Episode 1

Montgomery entitled after the city where Percy Julian was birthed, discussed his legacy and

achievement of synthesizing physostigmine (Drunk History).

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The show was able to lightly tap into the overt racism that Julian had experienced during

his time at DePauw. Julian’s journey at DePauw is a true reflection of the institutions’ histories

of racism and foul treatment of Black, Indigenous, and Peoples of Color in predominately white

spaces. Seeing that Julian was a graduate of the 1920s – a time of Jim Crow and racial

segregation, Julian was most likely not allowed to enter dining hall facilities or any spaces,

within DePauw’s campus and the Indiana communities. The only spaces that Julian was probably

able to enter would be his designated classrooms, however that experience was not easy.

Percy Julian most likely experienced the similar lack of belonging that our present-day

student body continues to feel. The fact that we are deprived the entirety of his history at

DePauw points to the violent dichotomy the university creates when it centers Black student

populations. Julian’s story is told without this important historical information, seeming as if his

journey was enjoyable and a great college experience. Although Julian was accepted and

enrolled as a full-time student, the university did not allow any Black students to be housed on

campus (Comedy Central Drunk History Season 2)

. In fact, in order to live on campus, Percy

Julian had to agree to be the butler of Sigma Chi Fraternity and had to live in the fraternity’s

basement. The details of agreeing to serve white students is completely missing from DePauw’s

documentation of Percy’s legacy. However, this lack of information can point to how institution

While Drunk History is not a traditional academic source. The producers go through several lengths to assure that

their guests have pre-existing knowledge of the subject of the episode. The host of the show, David Walters,

provided more context about Drunk History’s production in an interview with The Warp - “Most of the people who

do it have some sort of idea of the story prior — or the world that it’s gonna be discussing,” Waters said. “But then

we send them a research packet so that they have one to two weeks of studying it over and over again.” The research

packet that is given to each guest contains a list of books, relevant documentaries, and a three-page summary of the

topic. Although it is not an academic source, the Drunk History episode of Percy Julian adds historical contexts that

the University does not made known.

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like DePauw center whiteness. These institutions often find it easier to ignore racism and how it

works within them (McIntosh 1988).

From Percy Julian’s time to now, there has been drastic changes within the University’s

curriculum. The University is now a liberal arts college defined to combining “challenging

academics with robust social experiences to prepare our students for life’ (DePauw University).

Currently, the DePauw University’s total enrollment is 1,972 students with 21% of those

students being Domestic Students of Color and 13% being International Student Enrollment

(DePauw University). This study serves to unpack the racial climate of the University and the

irony behind DePauw’s “commitment” of diversity and inclusion.

2015-2020

On September 23

, 2015 a Christian hate group by the name of Campus Ministry USA,

visited campus. The group remained on campus for several days along the intersections of

Hannah and Locust Street and was led by a man by the name of George Edward Smock, Jr., or

“Brother Jed” (DePauw University IRC Report). His target were students of marginalized

identities – racially, sexually, gender identities, and immigration status. The goal of Brother Jed

and his church members are to lure students towards their signs with harassment and hate speech.

While on DePauw’s campus, they harassed BIPOC students, LGBTQQ+ students, and others

they believed were believed to be sinners (individuals with tattoos or body modification, lovers

of rock music, etc.). During one of their ‘demonstrations,’ a young white DePauw student threw

her coffee at the organization; it splashed a police officer who, from bystander statements was

led away gently. Later in the afternoon, a young Black student was told “Black lives don’t

matter,” a racist response to the cry that Black Lives Matter. He became frustrated with the

statement and asked the member of Brother Jed’s church why they would say that. The police, in

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response to his question and the ‘look in his eye,’ took him down and placed a knee in his back.

The campus erupted with many students who experience negative racialization frustrated, angry,

and terrified at what happened. Other students, including many who do not experience negative

racialization (white students) argued that the treatment was the same, that racism was not central

to the response. After sustained outcry from the community, DePauw created the Independent

Review Counsel (IRC). The IRC found that the students were beginning to congest the

intersections of Hannah and Locust street becoming “disruptive” which maintained that the

police did nothing wrong in the way they detained two Black people, a student and staff member.

Brother Jed is not a stranger to college campuses. The schedule of his visits are updated

on the Campus Ministry USA. The outcome of the incident and members of the community

demanding to know what happened caused the formation of DePauw’s IRC – the Independent

Review Committee. The Brother Jed incident is my cultural memory, or “the narratives, symbols

and discourses that help to construct how individuals understand their place in history, as well

how past historical narratives have informed their present context” (Brown 2011:125) and

something that impacted how I understood DePauw, my place, and my communities. When I

came to DePauw in 2017, I learned of the racist incidents that happened over time. For instance,

someone leaving racial slurs on a Black students’ whiteboard in Humbert Hall dormitory, Black

students not being able to enter white fraternity parties, and students being followed by white

members of the Greencastle community. I learned about the ways DePauw attempted to fix these

situations and provide justice and equity to racially marginalized members of the DePauw

community.

Unfortunately, much was not done. The group returned on October 1

. There is no

documentation about the return of Brother Jed within the university. However, from the

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institutional knowledge that has been orally passed down from Black members of the DePauw

community, I was able to see and hear some details about the student counter protests during my

freshman year. The student showed a series of tweets that went viral after he posted them. The

picture accompanying this tweet was a Black male student and a Black male staff worker lying

on the ground with Putnam County Police Officers with their knees sunken into their backs on

the steps of the Hoover Dining Hall. Behind them were angry and tear-filled Black students,

many of whom I know. I remember asking the student “What happened the staff worker”. They

replied, “After all of that had happened, he quit, he doesn’t work here anymore”.

The racism within our institutional histories, however, are not reflected in our current

institutional memory. How has this important and valuable knowledge slip within the cracks of

this institution? It is as if these incidents have not happened nor affected our Black and

marginalized student bodies. Since 2015, the amount of racially targeted incidents has continued

to grow. In 2019 there were reports of white supremacists entering campus posting flyers for

their political group. A year before that in 2018, racial slurs targeted towards the Black student

body were found in the DePauw Inn stall and rocks were aligned to formed slurs in the DePauw

Nature Park (theDePauw).

If the current BIPOC student body is asked about these histories, many might tell you that

they are not aware that racism of this caliber is happening on the campus they are to call home.

Remembering these histories of DePauw as an institution, allows us to understand the ways that

racism is working within the university. It is also a constant reminder of the work that DePauw

needs to commit to ensure that conversations about race, privilege, and identity are existing

within the classroom. This was the wish of the student body of the Class of 2014 – to have the

university have an actual commitment in writing to continue these conversations.

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This is how the university began to create changes within its curriculum – attempting to

create conversations about white privilege, racism as a structure with systemic impacts, and

understanding the lives of marginalized peoples. However, are these courses existing in the ways

that the class that advocated for them have hoped?

THE RACIALLY MARGINALIZED STUDENT STRUGGLE

Prior to coming to DePauw, I was always aware of the issues that were present on

campus from students that I have known through community-based programs in New York City.

I knew that it was a difficult campus to navigate – both socially and physically. I was always told

of the constant struggle it was to go to Walmart for necessities and how it felt being the only

person of color in the classroom. Constantly, the professors would look to them to lead student

discussions on race and identity and constantly where the ones to correct racist language and

behaviors in classroom settings. This unspoken classroom responsibility is constantly demanded

by Black students of the DePauw community. For some, like my friends, the transition from

diverse city life to rural predominately white Greencastle, Indiana and overall college

experienced drained them. They felt little belonging.

However, they were always able to speak of the community they formed and the

organizations that they created to feel belongingness. It is these community organizations that

helped them to push to graduation date. One of the most influential on-campus organizations to

Black student life and has served as advocates for marginalized communities at DePauw is the

Association of African American Students. This organization was founded in 1968 with the

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motto ‘To Encourage. To Empower. To Support. To Educate.

’ The motto alone shows the

importance that AAAS has as a student led organization. Students felt the need to create a space

where they felt supported, encouraged, and empowered and then created one. Since its founding,

AAAS has remained being this space for Black students. It has also continued to advocate for

students of marginalized identities at DePauw, leading many efforts to create change within the

institution.

REVIEW OF RELEVANT LITERATURE

This review of relevant literature synthesizes findings about previous research studies of

race and education within the United States – using critical race theory which critically examines

and centers race and marginalization and its ties to legal systems, institutions, social

constructions, and other systems of power. The scholars whose works will be mentioned have

provided foundations of race and racialization – its existence in America, how these histories are

being reproduced socially and within the classroom, and a deeper analysis of the emergence of a

“multicultural” curriculum after the Obama administration (2009).

Within this thesis, I have used the literature included within the following sections to

further investigate and analyze student understandings of the Power, Privilege, and Diversity

requirement at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. More importantly, how are

conversations about marginalized communities, specifically racially marginalized communities,

existing within courses designated to issues of diversity and equity in the United States.

This information was taken from the Association of African American Students (AAAS) at DePauw University

Facebook Page

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“White political behavior across the twentieth century have not only softened but have

changed dramatically” (Brown 2011); Across the twentieth century, race and racism has been

produced and reproduced in several ways (Bobo, Kluegel and Smith 1996). It has been around

57 years since the United States has moved from Jim Crow ‘de jure’ racism to a more “silence

yet deadly form”.

This behavior tends to manifest itself at predominately white institutions of

any kind – especially educational institutions of higher learning.

Within this section of the paper, I discuss relevant literatures that connects issues of race

and its impact within higher education. The works mention continues to create the conversation

of how the classroom is a reflection of the worlds current systems and structures of inequality

and oppression. Understanding how race and racism operates throughout the education system,

provides a deeper ideological understanding of the Power, Privilege, and Diversity requirement

at DePauw University.

“LIVING IN A MULTICULTURAL AMERICA”

As racial tension has continued to heighten throughout the nation and has continued to do

so since the 2009 inauguration of former President Barrack Obama - there has been nationwide

student discontent with the social culture of colleges and universities, calling for the institution

of courses that attend to having ‘impactful’ conversations about racism (Brown 2011). This led

for many universities across the nation to develop a ‘multicultural curriculum’ – one that

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 which legally ended segregation (an institution

of the Jim Crow Laws). However, laws that still contained reminisce of Jim Crow culture that continued to remain

legally active. An example of these is the issuing of the Voting Rights Acts of 1965 which ended Black voter

discrimination – an act which Congress revisited in 1975 to expand its protection. Another example is the Fair

Housing Act of 1968 which ended home selling and renting discrimination to Black families.

Title inspired from Keffrelyn Brown’s 2011 study entitled Race, Racial Cultural Memory and Multicultural

Curriculum in Obama “Post- Racial” U.S.

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intended to create educational conversations about race, racism, and how it systemically affects

the lives of racially marginalized communities. DePauw was one of the universities that followed

suit for this call to action and adopted similar characteristics from the requirements of other

multicultural curriculums at other predominately white colleges and universities – for example

Denison University, Wellesley College, Franklin University, etc. These requirements were

decided upon by the student governing body (DePauw Student Government White Paper No. 8).

While Brown dives deeper into the need for multicultural curriculum to show the multicultural

America and its longstanding presence of racism, she also dives deep into the challenges that

comes along with teaching race and racism in schools.

The cultural memory of the United States, referring to the “narratives, symbols and

discourses that help to construct how individuals understand their plan in history, as well how

past historical narratives have informed their present context” (Brown 2011:126), has

consistently been reproduced by the ‘white -habitus’- placing issues of race and racism as

“incidents” of the past (Bonilla-Silva 2014; Hagerman 2016). Viewing racism in this way, causes

the white habitus to focus on situational aspects of incidents of state violence without

recognizing its intrinsic tie to structural racism and systems (Bonilla-Silva and Dietrich 2011).

These colorblind ideals have transcended into the classroom and tend to cultivate in high

volumes in higher education – both in classroom and social spaces (Solórzano, Ceja and Yosso

2000). It often minimizes the trauma and racism that racially marginalized students, specifically

Black students, experience within the classroom.

The effects of the racial climate of campus often leads to Black students feeling

ostracized and a lack of belongingness within their institution (Solórzano, Ceja and Yosso 2000).

The study done by Solórzano, Ceja and Yosso points to the subtle and overt racist language and

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actions that occur within these spaces and the multiple challenges it brings to Black students.

These scholars demonstrate the similar feelings felt by and experiences of the Black student body

of DePauw University, which is further highlighted in the following sections of this paper.

Student Ostracization in the Classroom

Within their 2000 study, Solórzano, Ceja and Yosso asses the racial climate of college

campuses and the racist language that is often present within the classroom. These scholars

situate their study by explaining what racial microaggressions are by using epigraphs from

several scholars as a foundation for their knowledge of its definition. They introduce how

Chester Pierce, psychiatrist, defines racial microaggressions as “subtle, stunning, often

automatic, and nonverbal exchanges are ‘put downs’ of blacks by offenders” (Pierce, Carew,

Pierce-Gonzales and Wills 1978)

. Another scholar defined racial microaggressions as a

“stunning, automatic act of disregard that stem from unconscious attitudes of white superiority

and constitute a verification of black inferiority” (Davis 1989:1576).

This subtle yet impactful

form of unconscious racism, is used by individuals of power aka ‘racial dominance’ – white

people. Davis notes that white authority is capable of these subtle violence’s because their

“cognitive habit, history, and culture [have made them] unable to hear the range of relevant

voices and grapple with what reasonable might be said in the voice of discrimination’s victims”

(Davis 1989:1576; Solórzano, Ceja and Yosso 2000). This points to how racism and racist

language continue to cultivate itself within the higher education space – leading to Black student

classroom ostracization.

Solórzano, Ceja and Yosso 2000

Solórzano, Ceja and Yosso 2000:75

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These scholars posit that race, racism, racial microaggressions, and stereotypes are rooted

institutional power which is only possessed by whites. Experiencing this blatantly in

undergraduate education occurs before Black students even arrive to their institutions and

transcends outside of Black student-hood – affecting Black and non-white faculty and staff of

color also (Solórzano, Ceja and Yosso 2000). Solórzano, Ceja, and Yosso address the several

experiences that effect the Black undergraduate experience, such as the inclusion and

representation of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) faculty, curriculum reflective of

“historical and contemporary lives of people of color”, programs/ the lack of programs that are

geared to support Black prospectus students, retention rate, and graduation, etc. – through a

qualitative, focus- group research design to explore and discover the themes surrounding the

Black student experience. This study is composed of 34 African American identifying

participants who attend elite predominately white institutions. From the data collected and

analyzed, these scholars found that the racial climates of college campus directly impact student

academics, social life, and occupies a series of mental effects [SEE FIGURE 1]. The constant

negative and racist interactions between faculty and students, creates senses of self-doubt within

African American students (Solórzano, Ceja and Yosso 2000). The students within the study also

expressed how important having another Black student in their class was to help them feel

comfortable and supported in the classroom.

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The experiences of the students involved with Solórzano, Ceja, and Yosso points to the

cultural memory within the Black student body of DePauw University. Black students, including

myself, tend to feel the same discomfort and feelings of alienation – not only in academic spaces

but social ones as well. FIGURE 1 shows that the impact of the racial climates within spaces of

Figure 1 is taken from the Racial Microaggressions and Collegiate Racial Climate study done by Daniel

Solórzano, University of California – Los Angeles; Miguel Ceja, the University of California – Davis; and Tara

Yosso, University of California - Santa Barbara

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higher education causes students of racially marginalized identities to create counter academic

and social spaces.

To center race, racism, and the complexities of its legacy and ties to systemic structures

and institutions it is critical to adopting a Critical Race Theory (CRT) model where race, racism,

and racialization are closely analyzed within an intersectional lens – gender, gender fluidity, sex,

queerness, class, etc. Within this project, I will be reimagining what the Power, Privilege, and

Diversity can look like on DePauw’s campus. This reimagining begins with adopting a Critical

Race Theory and Black feminist lens as the essential frameworks for teaching these courses.

Student Belonging

Solórzano, Ceja, and Yosso’s research (2000, p. (59)) analyzes the Black student

experience within college campuses across California. Their research points to the racial climate

of these campuses also. Within the classroom, racially marginalized students are subjected to

racist behaviors (Solórzano, Ceja and Yosso 2000, p. 61). Some of these behaviors include racial

stereotypes and racial microaggressions. These behaviors directly impact Black students and

what they feel they’re able to achieve in their educational environments. Solórzano, Ceja, and

Yosso use the research of Steele and Aronson to define what stereotypes and microaggressions

are, how they’re internalized, and how these behaviors are engrained within U.S. society. The

two examine that stereotypes creates a threat within the college environment. Black students

within their study, because of their campus racial climate, felt a sense “of discouragement,

frustration, and exhaustion resulting from racial microaggressions left some African American

students in our study despondent and made them feel that they could not perform well

academically” (Solórzano, Ceja and Yosso 2000:69). Experiencing racial microaggressions

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‘within the classroom even pushed Black students to dropping their courses, changing their

major, or even transferring to other universities (Solórzano, Ceja and Yosso 2000: 69).

It also points to the lack of belongingness that Black students feel at predominately white

education institutions and how that lack of belongingness lead to counter spaces (Solórzano, Ceja

and Yosso 2000: 70).

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The section of this paper aims to anchor the ideologies and theoretical lenses that have

been used to situate my understandings of how race operates within the classroom. It centers this

project by incorporating the perspective of other Black college students at predominately white

universities across the United States with the use of Critical, Race, Theory – the critical analysis

of race, racialization, and intersecting identities. Within this Honor Scholar project, the model of

Solórzano, Ceja and, Yosso’s 2000 study has served as a crucial resource for its development.

These scholars are accessing the racial campus climates of Black students attending PWI’s

across California. The findings of Solórzano, Ceja, and Yosso can connect to the similar student

experiences that have been mentioned in previous sections of this paper – racial

microaggressions, lack of resources, Black student retention races, classroom conversations, etc.

Using the work of these scholars has situated my project in the centering and theorizing of the

Black student experience. Combining this important study, along with its Critical Race Theory

focus allows for me to further explain how racism currently operates within education and

provides a dangerous space for students of marginalized, specifically racially marginalized

students of color.

Throughout this research, I utilize a similar theoretical model to Solórzano, Ceja, and

Yosso’s, as well as the theoretical frameworks of other CRT scholars that will be mentioned

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below. This has allowed me to center race, its intersections (of class, sex, gender, gender fluidity,

sexual orientation), and connect what happens within the classroom to existing structures and

hierarchies within the United States. Specifically, utilizing their work and model allows me to

critically engage with this study by focusing on the following

(a) the centrality of race and racism and their intersectionality with other

forms of subordination

(b) the challenge to dominant ideology

(d) the centrality of experimental knowledge

(e) transdisciplinary perspective

I also engage in Critical Race Theory (CRT) as it strategically centers the understanding of the

racialized social situations of People of Color and society’s purposeful hierarchy of white

dominance (Johnson 2015:234). Engaging with CRT will assist my project by providing social

analysis of the racial constructions within the classroom. CRT will also be helping to drive the

narrative research of this interdisciplinary discursive analysis that engages with interviews and

self-reflection to better understand the role of PPD in the university curriculum. -This was in a

later paragraph and makes more sense woven into this space.

In addition to CRT, I engage with a critical Black feminist and social constructivist

theoretical frame. This framework centers the experiences, histories, and narratives of Black

peoples and students that (does a particular thing). Specifically, constructivist grounded theory

combines critical inquiry and social justice to challenge traditional forms of research (Charmaz

2019:165). The adoption of constructivist theory, allowed for me to approach this research with a

critical mind – paying attention to language and its influence and to dissect social discourses “a

Solórzano, Ceja and Yosso 2000, p. 63

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key resource of the powerful to create and control dominant narrative bestowed on wide

audiences” (Charmaz 2019:171) with the use of its principles.

• Treat the research process itself as a social construction

• Scrutinize research decisions and directions

• Improvise methodological and analytic strategies throughout the

research process

• Collect sufficient data to discern and document how research

participants construct their lives and worlds (Charmaz 2008:403)

These principles were helpful for the method of analysis for this study – pinpointing the effects

of race in all of its intersections of class, gender, sex, and sexual orientation and specifically

applying them to a college campus (the use of derogatory and offensive languages, racial or

classist microaggressions). The Black feminist lens complicates this process by centering and

analyzing the ways that Black voices, especially the voices of Black women, are erased within

theoretical frameworks and wide conversations and analysis of race and racialization (Crenshaw

1989:139; Johnson 2015:233).

Using a feminist lens, allows for a more in-depth analysis and interrogation of data.

Further, feminist methods ask the researcher to center the voices of marginalized groups and

considers intersecting identities and how there are “varied and multiple effects (e.g., ethical,

social, transnational, and political)” (Hesse-Biber 2006:22) associated with research.

The objective of this Honor Scholar project is to assess how the socio-historical

situatedness of racialization and white supremacy at DePauw, and active challenges from

students and student organizations provided the groundwork for PPD, and if current PPD courses

actively address student demands and attend to their overall goals. I achieve this through a CRT

centered critical discursive analysis that engages with personal narrative analysis. Further,

applying CRT, Black feminist frames and a social constructivist grounded theoretical approach

centers the lived experiences of marginalized students, specifically Black, Indigenous, and

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peoples of color, takes account of the socio-historical roots of racism and gender-based

oppression, and provides a critical framework to consider how the PPD requirement has been

influential to creating critical conversations about race and marginalize on DePauw’s campus.

METHODS

I employed ethnography and grounded theory methods to develop this narrative research

Honor Scholar Senior Project. An ethnography is a distinctive and thorough analysis of people,

interpreting social worlds, and understanding the constructs of the cultural worlds of groups of

people (Somekh and Lewin 2005:17). Using the ethnography as a method allowed me to see the

interconnectedness between larger racist systems and structures of DePauw University as an

institution. Understanding DePauw University as a campus embedded within racialized cultural

history and cultural meanings made connections between student experiences of 1920 and 2020

clearer. The adoption of an ethnographic framework allows for “’rich’ details of cultural scenes,

on what some have called ‘thick description’ (Geertz 1988; Somekh and Lewin 2005: 17) -

which have been helpful in capturing the cultural histories that have and/or are existing on

DePauw’s campus. By using the histories available and not so visible to campus, it helped to

dive further into the micro and macros politics that are affecting the non-Black and Black student

bodies and the existing hierarchies and divisions of campus social and academic spaces (Geertz

1988) (Somekh and Kewin 2015:18). Since this study is built from my personal experiences with

the PPD requirement, these personal ties to the study helps to highlight the neglected dimensions

of the conversation at large.

Within this research, grounded theory is used to further analyze how personal politics,

concepts, belief systems, and theoretical frameworks affects how an individual reacts,

experiences, and perceives what is happening around them. This theory is helpful to engage in

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the critical analysis of the Power, Privilege, Diversity courses and how students interacted within

each of these courses based on our personal discourses about race and racialization.

This project engaged surveys, interviews, and narrative analysis to help the reader

understand how necessary it was to understand the vision of the students who advocated for the

PPD requirement. This vision is necessary to understand because it points to the failings that

exist in some PPD courses. Like Somekh and Lewin, understood that interviews involve

extensive educational research and serves to bridge understandings between the researcher and

the wider community. I designed a pre-survey of approximately 25 questions that assessed the

learning environment on the classroom. For example, if the participant was aware of the

objectives of the PPD requirement and questions pertaining to how the professor engaged in the

material (student led discussion groups, small group discussions, large group discussions, etc.).

Drawing from the Hesse-Biber’s: The Practice of Feminist In-Depth Interviewing, I see

interviews as an instrument for rich personal and unique information. Because of the difficulty of

digitally finding the information needed to drive the historical analysis of this project, I chose to

conduct semi-structured interviews with participants. This interview method was ideal as it broke

the hierarchical relationship between the interview and interviewee, allowing free flowing and

personal conversation. Finally, through a narrative analysis I applied my own experiences with

the PPD courses (EDU 223A and SOC 334A) to complicate my analysis – comparing and

contrasting my experiences with Magenta. Magenta is a Black Junior Student here at DePauw

University. Throughout her time at DePauw, Magenta has taken three Power, Privilege, and

Diversity courses. Both Magenta and I met on Zoom. She seemed excited to dig in about the

topic, as Magenta as always shared her discontent about the innerworkings of our institution.

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Magenta is the only current student perspective, other than my own, that is included

within this study. This study also included an alumni perspective from the Class of 2014, Ives.

Due to limitations that will be expanded upon within further sections of this study, my

participation pool was approximately three individuals, the survey section, two informal

interviews, and personal analysis. One interview that was conducted were with a faculty

member, who was a part of the DePauw University Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Board for

several years. These interviews helped to provide historical data about the institution and its

journey of Diversity and Inclusion.

Thematic Findings

Within this section I will be analyzing the findings of my discursive analysis of the

Power, Privilege and Diversity requirement. There are three sections that presents an analysis of

my general findings – that the Power, Privilege and Diversity requirement continues to create

hostile academic spaces, completely affecting the mental and academic state of non-Black

students. I begin by discussing the dynamics of the classroom, its connections to the politics of

the ‘wider’ world, and how this had led to a culture of hostile environments for non-Black

members of the DePauw Student Body. As these hostile environments are further assessed

through the student perspective of Magenta, I begin to dive into the need of reimagining the PPD

requirement. These three separate sections each attend to the structure of racialization, white

supremacy, and its impact on student experiences, the construction of PPD courses, and its

impacts on Black students.

Navigating the Classroom

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Within this section, I bring together the descriptive experiences of pseudonym of human

detailed in the survey and shared during their semi-structured interview. How I describe these

classroom dynamics are to frame and center two Black student experiences in PPD classes and

highlight how the centering of whiteness effects classroom conversations and impacts those with

marginalized identities.

Both Magenta and I’s first introduction to the Power, Privilege, and Diversity

requirement was with a white professor. Mines, being EDU 223A and theirs WGSS (Women

Gender and Sexuality Studies) 140. Within both of our courses, we were able to grasp most of

the three PPD learning goals of recognition, historical structural analysis, and lived experiences.

However, despite reaching these goals, both of our professors focused on marginalization outside

of race. For example, with WGSS140 Magenta’s professor spoke about marginalization in terms

of sex (male or female) and failed to center race in their conversations. The lived experiences of

Black Americans were only mentioned a few times and the only Black literature Magenta

remembered reading in the course was Zami by Audre Lorde. This was like my experience

within EDU 233A. Although, the faculty member teaching this course was able to expand how

knowledge of language, its importance, differing abilities and advocacy, and social discourses

and frameworks – our conversations never centered race. Social and institutional state structures

(such capitalism, the theology that power lies within the institution as a mean of wanting to

produce labor for the state) were mentioned however, race and racialization was not centered

within our conversations or literature. Within course EDU 233A, social issues of mass

incarceration were mentioned with quickness with the conversation being dominated by the

professor. No white student contributed to these conversations, unless called upon by the

professor.

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Despite this, Magenta was surprised that their professor recognized that hierarchies exist

within our social environments based on their racial identity – which speaks to the wider

conversations of conversations in other courses outside of PPD. In almost every classroom

conversation about racial marginalization, the Black perspective is not mentioned. Because of

this Magenta assumed that color-blind rhetoric would be the main guiding framework of their

conversations. However, when asked if they had felt if the professor could have done more to

critically engage the non-Black students inside of the classroom more, they replied “yes”.

Magenta’s response and my experience with EDU223A shows that within some PPD course’s,

students are consciously deciding to not be involved in classroom conversations (idea 1). It also

shows that white professors are not encouraging their students to think critically to understand

and recognize their own privilege or systems of race (idea 2). This even leads to professors

excusing racist behaviors and language to “accept the ideas of everyone” – failing to understand

their contribution to a hostile and traumatic classroom environment.

The failure to recognize this, clashes with the distinct learning goals of the Power,

Privilege and Diversity requirement. Classes are focusing on marginalization, forgetting that race

is encompassed within marginalization and identity, and non- Black students are failing to

recognize the existence of racism as a structure, as well as how white privilege operates. If the

recognition, history, and lived experiences of all communities are not prioritized within the

classroom – how can we proudly say that the PPD requirement is doing its job. Unfortunately, it

is not.

When asked about their thoughts about the PPD and if it should center having these

critical conversations about race - Magenta responded that we cannot have conversations about

marginalized identities without centering race, “it just cannot work”. Magenta then explains how

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crazy it is for DePauw to craft courses tackling these societal issues and only center the white

perspective – white queerness, white education, white international politics, etc. In the words of

Magenta, “DePauw is constantly trying to erase Blackness within the classroom. It is as if they

are tricking themselves to believe that our community and how the state consistently violates our

human rights – does not happen”. When asked about their other PPD courses that they have

taken, Magenta was able to share with me experiences that influenced them to declare a major

within the specific department.

The way Magenta spoke about the faculty member who taught this course was amazing.

They lit up, immediately getting excited to share more about this course. Magenta’s course was

not taught by a white professor. This professor made sure to center race within their classroom

conversations and literature – addressing how the United States’ legacy of racism (slavery, Jim

Crow, etc.) has affect the present-day life of the Black American. During these conversations,

Magenta spoke about how good it felt to not be the only Black student in the classroom to correct

the harmful language and discourse of their white peers. The faculty member teaching this

course made sure that the non-Black students within the course, were acknowledging their

privilege and understanding the unique multilayered experiences of the Black community within

the U.S.

From the experience that Magenta was able to have, it is certain that the learning goals of

the PPD are possible to achieve. It is also certain that race centered conversations that include

critical analysis of race and racialization can exist on DePauw’s campus. However, it is

dependent on our wider communities to want to learn and understand how race operates, not only

within the world, but our social and academic environments also. But bringing critical and

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meaningful conversations that involve checking the privilege of the white campus community

can come with many thorns.

Although, Magenta’s second PPD course was able to successfully achieve the PPD

learning goals, they spoke of the challenges that it presented on the faculty’s end. Magenta

recalls that after the first assignment of the course, a reading and written response, several white

students enrolled in the course had withdrawn. They also recalled the backlash that this specific

professor, and many racially marginalized faculties who create these critical and in-depth

conversations about race face. Them urging white and non-Black students to engage critically in

course material, checking their privilege, and addressing their use of harmful racial stereotypes

and language – creates harmful environments where their courses are heavily securitized by non-

Black community members. These professors tend to experience heightened racism by their

white students and sometimes colleagues, by only urging their white and non-Black members of

our community to engage in conversations that fully assess the PPD requirements learning goal

of recognizing barriers, analyzing the histories and racial structures that exist with the U.S., and

recognizing and analyzing the lived experiences of these groups.

Magenta’s interview was able to shed a light on the hostile environments that exist on

DePauw’s campus and have become parts of our cultural memory/knowledge of the institution.

As Black students, faculty, and community members urge white and non-Black members of our

community to critical engage and think of the racism that lies within their actions, they are

constantly labeled as “troublemakers”, “violent”, “delusional”, etc. It is harmful for the

university to continue to invest in ways to promote diversity and inclusion, but then continues to

support the flourishing of these hostile environments. An example of the university enabling this

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culture, is not properly screening our Power, Privilege and Diversity courses and the faculty

members who are teaching them.

To ensure that students at DePauw University are engaging critically in conversations of

power, diversity, and privilege – we must have meaningful conversation filled with a critical

historical and social analysis of the world. By implementing critical race theory and its principles

with a Black feminist lens within the reimaging of what the PPD requirement can be, it can allow

for true and critical conversations to be have within every classroom not just some.

“THERE ARE TWO DEPAUWS!”

There is a phenomenon on the campus of DePauw University called “The DePauw

Bubble.” It is when you get caught up in all of the things that happen at DePauw that you

forget about the “real world.” Yet, there is another phenomenon on this campus that many

people are not aware of — I call it the Privilege Bubble. This is when people are so

enclosed in their privilege that they are not aware of the struggles faced by those not with

privilege.

- Ashton Johnson

During my freshman year, I had always heard of the grotesque racism that happened here

through story telling. These histories were never told by the university but were carried on by

Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) on campus. This section places Ashton

Johnson’s (class of 2014) op-ed Excuse Me, but Your Privilege is In My Way in conversation

with my experience as a freshman of the university. Ashton’s story and the fight to PPD was

always a rich piece of cultural history that I have heard in passing. This opinion piece serves as a

huge document in the legacy of Black student hood at DePauw. It is highly important for it to

continue exist in our conversations of the institution as Johnson clearly articulates the hostile

racial climate of DePauw.

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Johnson’s piece, originally written for theDePauw

, was picked up nationally and

published by the Huffington Post. Within it, Johnson discussed the reality of racism on

DePauw’s campus and shed light on what it meant to be a Black woman in Greencastle, Indiana.

The letter lays bare the often ignored and hidden layers of privilege and access white, cisgender,

PanHel/Interfraternity Greek students at DePauw have and deploy daily. Johnson addresses how

individuals are so “enclosed in their privilege that they are not aware of the struggles faced by

those not with privilege” (Johnson, Excuse Me, But Your Privilege Is in Our Way). Johnson plays

on the DePauw Bubble -a loving way to refer to the shared, insular, and idyllic experiences of

(privileged) DePauw students- saying the intentional ignorance to racialized student’s

experiences are in fact a “bubble of privilege.” The experiences that Johnson uses within her

article, are experiences that I have heard from students before me and have experienced myself –

white professors ignoring the hands of Black students in class, students of color being hyper-

policed and profiled by camps police, experiencing unfairness with Community Standards

processing and hearings, etc. Johnson challenges her white and non-Black classmates to consider

the lived experiences of racially marginalized students more to acknowledge their privilege and

to use it to bring justice on campus.

While Johnson’s letter outlined the ways in which students of racially marginalized

identities are treated on DePauw’s campus, it pointed to the failure of the university to create

spaces for students of color to feel belongingness instead of policing and persecution. For years,

students have protested against DePauw’s policies, its hyper-policing of Black students, and the

TheDePauw is DePauw University’s student led news publication

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lack of agency it has for BIPOC student safety (AAAS Letter to Community 2018).

The

university has also clearly outlined protesting rules within its handbooks to avoid students from

doing so,

“On page 74 of the DePauw Student Handbook, it states, “DePauw students, faculty, and

staff are free to support causes in any orderly manner, including organized

demonstrations #B4#*&%*"%#*&).$'P# the normal and essential functions of the University”

(emphasis ours). It remains unclear what “orderly” protest is, or for that matter how

protests can avoid “disrupting” functions considering the purpose of a protest is to disrupt

the status quo, to demonstrate a problem and to begin a conversation. To be clear, the

definition of a protest is ‘an organized public demonstration of disapproval or display

disagreement with an idea or course of action.”

- AAAS

The conversations of students of marginalized identities being targeted in harmful ways

has constantly happened throughout the BIPOC student community at DePauw. These

conversations were also made known to campus through letters to the community from AAAS,

like Ashton Johnsons. Although AAAS’s letter was released to the community in 2018 – it still

carried similar sentiments of Johnsons 2014 letter. While some students of color discussed their

racist experiences on campus, they actively named Black students experience in the university’s

racist environments (Solórzano et all 2000). Although Johnson’s letter was submitted to the

DePauw and became part of a national discourse on racism and white supremacy on college

campuses, her letter was a part of a larger challenge to where many Black and Brown students

call out racist systems and structures and are often met with backlash by the White community.

This is similar to backlash that racially marginalized, faculty, specifically Black faculty,

experience from their white students and possibly colleagues too.

The Association of African American students issued a letter to the community during a chain

of antisemitic, homophobic, transphobic, islamophobia, racist, and white supremacy tied

incidents on campus.

An excerpt from the Association of African American Students 2018 Letter to the Community.

This later was published within theDePauw – the university’s newspaper.

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Ashton, recalling her senior year as a blur points to the backlash, fatigue and depression

that come as a result of challenging whiteness. She notes her memory on what exactly followed

after its publication is not detailed, saying “Ah, I can’t really tell you much. I’m so sorry. It’s

been so long ago, and I was very depressed my senior year and you know how depression

works.” Moving from a space of recall, I asked Johnson what her feelings were while writing the

letter to the DePauw community and how it felt after publication.

Johnson: “I don’t know if I’m too old... but there was like this called Yik Yak.

. Do you

know Yik yak?”

Bonner: “Yeah. I think I do! Isn’t it like Ask FM?”

Johnson: “Well, yea Yik Yak was really big back then and you can send people messages

anonymously. And I remember so many people sending me messages about the article”

I did not ask Johnson about the content of the messages, seeing that she was hesitant with

recollecting the information. From her stated depression after its publication and the

‘anonymous’ and known racist nature of YikYak, Ashton’s hesitancy alludes to the potentially

racist, aggressive, and symbolically violent comments Johnson received.

Although Black and Brown students consistently shared their experiences of racism

within the classroom, from their peers on campus, and with the institution, Johnsons’ letter came

as a shock. Their white privilege bubble and the myth of a meritocratic DePauw popped. Grant

Walters, a white student and second year at the time, penned a letter to theDePauw that actively

reframed, ignored, challenged, and admonished Johnson’s discussion of racism and belonging at

“Yik Yak is a microblogging app that allows people to post messages (yaks) without

usernames; the mobile app aggregates and presents the posts of users within a 1.5-mile radius as

a streaming data feed. Users can reply to messages anonymously and vote posts and replies up or

down” (TheGuardian)

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DePauw; “Community Standards discriminating against students of color over charges? What

year are you living in, 1951?! These are disgustingly ignorant and narrow-minded claims, and

the article when published in the paper was not taken seriously by many on our campus”

(Walters 2014).

In his letter, Walters claimed there was only one DePauw and that Johnson was not fully

displaying the institution in its ‘proper light’. Walters believed that the ‘DePauw Bubble’ did not

exist and that the racism that Johnson and her peers have said they experienced, were just

reflections of what the ‘real world’ was. Though it could be easy to dismiss this as a one off, or a

troll, this is not the case. Arguments like Walters permeate throughout DePauw University as an

institution. These arguments often invalidate the experiences that marginalized and racially

marginalized students, specifically Black students have on DePauw’s campus and within the

Greencastle community. The fact that every student does not feel a sense of belonging and are

often ostracized in wider social campus environments, shows that DePauw is being experienced

in different ways. It also shows that race is a major contributing factor to these experiences.

There are in fact two different DePauws and this study serves to be a written example of the

DePauw that is experienced by the Black student body.

A MORE “DIVERSE” CURRICULUM

The final section of this study serves as a historicization and critical discursive analysis of

the Power, Privilege, and Diversity requirement and its journey of its institution into the DePauw

curriculum. I bring the previous findings into conversation with the potential for PPD towards

the end of this section before turning to the ways in which we can reimagine the PPD. By

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reimagining how the requirement currently exists, hopefully we can attempt to eliminate the

hostility and trauma that occurs within these courses.

The Power, Privilege, and Diversity requirement was instituted into the DePauw

curriculum the Fall of 2016. This requirement was a transformation of the M or Multicultural

requirement – a requirement designed to having similar conversations about diversity and

awareness of language. In my interview with Johnson, we were able to discuss a bit about the

discontent of the M requirement. This discontent points to the constant cycle of disappoint that

the student of color community experiences within these courses. Through extensive research of

DePauw Student Government legislation, I was able to find more historical analysis on the

student advocacy that led to its creation.

Bonner: Ashton can you tell more a bit more about the M requirement? Were students’

content with it? Did it receive any pushback from the Black student body?

Johnson: “Well, I don’t know too much about the activism behind it really. All I know is

that the class before me was really a part of advocating for it. For that and Day of Dialogue.

The requirements at the time were two Q’s, an S, and an M? You all still have those right?”

Johnson: “But you know students weren’t happy with either of those”

The PPD requirement is an outcome of shifts within the larger DePauw curriculum and student

activism. To gain greater insight into its construction and ascertain how students who challenged

racism on campus thought about the requirement and DePauw’s engagement with race, racism,

and white supremacy within the classroom and on campus, I interviewed former student Ashton

Johnston (Class of 2014).

The values of a university are clearly stated within a mission statement and in the voices

centered in the curriculum. In 2012, the DePauw Student Government (DSG), namely Sam

Wong (CO’12), Laila Howard (CO’13), and Nic Flores (CO’12), coauthored White Paper No.

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which was presented during a joint senate representative meeting. Within the paper students

argued for the need to diversify the curriculum, pointed to outside institutions who had done so

before (i.e., Denison University in 1979), and demanded the university take this matter seriously

in light of a series of racist incidents. In 2012, after sustained activism led by Black students and

students of color, faculty and staff and in an attempt to diversify the curriculum, the University

created the M or Multicultural requirement. This was DePauw University’s first step in creating

conversations about race and diversity within the classroom.

The institution of the M requirement into the university’s curriculum was a result of the

activism and demonstrations lead by students of color, specifically Black students and

organizations. The frameworks of the requirements followed the curriculum of other

predominately white institutions (PWIs) such as Denison University, Wellesley College,

Franklin University, Pennsylvania State University, etc. According to DSG’s white paper, the

first adoption of a diversity requirement in general education happened at Denison University in

1979 (DePauw Student Government White Paper No.8). The DSG paper argued the M

requirement should focus on 1) African, Asian, Middle Eastern, Caribbean, Latin American,

Native American, or Pacific Island peoples, cultures, or societies; 2) Minority American culture,

such as those defined by race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or physical ability; and/or 3)

Understanding the processes of racism, social or ethnic discrimination, or cross-cultural

interaction as they relate to one another. The students proposed that the M requirement be

supported through a series of events, allowing students to take time to understand diverse issues,

White papers are used as a method of presenting governing policies and legislation

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be fulfilled through one course across the four years of the classes, or have first year mentors

engage with discussions at the start of students’ first year.

The DePauw administration and faulty approved the M requirement in 2012 and was the

result of a series of racially insensitive incidents. One incident that was specifically mentioned

within the white paper issued by student government, occurred in 2010 and was directed towards

the Latinx community on DePauw’s campus (DePauw Student Government White Paper No.8).

Though students who fought for the M requirement to positively impact the POC student

DePauw experience, Ashton and others expressed it did little to address structural issues on

DePauw’s campus. As pressure increased to create a more concrete shift in the curriculum, the

University moved to a new requirement entitled Power, Privilege and Diversity. This

requirement introduced to campus the Fall of 2016.

The Power, Privilege, and Diversity Requirement was instituted into DePauw’s

curriculum the Fall of 2015. This requirement existed because of the student demonstrations and

advocacy that urged the university to be committed to anti-racism. Every student enrolled in

DePauw University must take one Power, Privilege, and Diversity course to receive competency

to graduate (DePauw University). These courses are geared towards having students analyze the

livelihood of all marginalized groups – in terms of race, gender, gender expression, sexuality,

queerness, etc. PPD courses are also highlighted to “emphasize the dynamics of inequality from

a more theoretical framework” (DePauw University). The University also has a list of specific

learning goals that should be achieved from these courses. They are outlined below. This

information is publicly available through the university website.

The outline of the Multicultural requirement is taken from DePauw Student Government White

Paper No.8 that was presented during a joint Senate Representative Meeting on April 22

, 2012

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“Power, Privilege and Diversity (PPD) Learning Goals:

1. Recognition: Demonstrate your recognition of the barriers to inclusion for groups

that experience marginalization in the United States.

2. Historical/structural analysis: Understand and analyze the structures and institutions

of power that have historically created and sustained marginalization in the United

States.

3. Lived experiences: Understand and assess inequities, perspectives, and lived

experiences for groups that experience marginalization in the United States.”

(DePauw University)

From the learning goals clearly outlined by the institution, it is assumed that white

community members (specifically students) would be recognizing their privilege and race and

racial inequality through the literature introduced, classroom conversations, and lived

experiences of racially marginalized communities. However, the BIPOC student discontent for

these classes continues to grow. In a sense, some PPD courses tend to produce the same mental

effects and trauma that the Black collegiate students felt within Solórzano, Ceja, and Yosso’s

2000 study. These effects and student perspective will be mentioned within the various sections

of this Honor Scholar thesis.

DECENTERING RACE: PPD & MY EXPERIENCE

Within this section, I will be elaborating on my experience within course SOC334A:

Prison History & Culture. My experience within this course is helpful to understand that ways in

which colorblind ideology and the centering of whiteness is affecting our classroom

conversations about race, marginalization, and systemic structures in the United States.

My experience with the Power, Privilege, and Diversity requirement has been a mixed bag. It

was dependent of the professor and their ideologies, the literature used within the class and the

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ways we interacted with it, and classroom discussions. One of my most recent experiences was

taking course SOC 334A: Prison History & Culture the Fall of 2020. For the purposes of this

ethnography, I have interviewed myself about this experience. Although this course was entitled

and about prison history and culture – race and racial marginalization was never centered in our

conversations and course materials. The readings from the main text Corrections: A Critical

Approach by Michael Welch focused on other marginalized identities – sex and class. Failing to

address the racial disparities of mass incarceration, “Ninety percent of those admitted to prison

for drug offenses in many states were black or Latino, yet the mass incarcerations of

communities of color was explained in race-neutral terms, an adaption to the needs and demands

of the current political climate” (Alexander 2012:58). The experience that I had within this

course correlates to the research of the several scholars whose works has been mentioned

throughout my project.

The faculty member who taught this course relied heavily on colorblind political

framework – failing to address important conversations about the prison industrial complex (who

did it affect, what is it a legacy of, the intentional policing of certain communities, etc.). We did

discuss lived experiences; however, they were not Black or African American experiences –

communities that are directly and disproportionate impacted by policing and prisons. The faculty

member also failed to critically engage in the materials too – isolating the prison system complex

as its own separate entity and not a continuation of the United State’s history of racism

(Alexander 2012) until it was pointed out by myself and another student within the class.

This behavior transcended into our classroom conversations, where the faculty consistently

excused racist behavior, language, microaggressions, and white students’ lack of participation

and engagement. I addressed these concerns to both the faculty member and our class

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community and was labeled as “violent”. After consistently addressing the failings of the course

from critically centering race and intersecting identities outside of class and sex (ig. Gender), my

classroom environment was shifted dramatically. I then began to feel the same feelings of

ostracization that the Black students of Solórzano, Ceja, and Yosso felt.

However, what Solórzano, Ceja, and Yosso’s research failed to address is the violence

that comes from being vocal about the racist behaviors that occur in the classroom. After being

so, my professor began being more critical of my work than other students even though I was

one of the only two students who participated. I remember constantly being told to “be accepting

of everyone’s beliefs and interpretations of the course materials”. However, I found it difficult

grasp the meaning for the professors’ use of this rhetoric. How can one be told to be

understanding of racist beliefs? With recognition as the first learning goal of this requirement,

the faculty member should have been able recognize that these “beliefs” are violent by diluting

the effects they have on Black communities. Hearing these sentiments from the faculty member

and our class community – concreted that I will never find a space of belonging at DePauw

University outside of Black student led organizations (Solórzano, Ceja and Yosso 2000).

Like the Black students in Solórzano, Ceja, and Yosso’s study, I scouted Black student

organizations and spaces for students of color to feel a sense of belonging to the university in

some way. I am a part of the Association of African American Students, a member of one of the

first Black Greek Fraternities and Sororities – Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Incorporated, and the

Caribbean Students Association. Finding these communities allowed for me to find a safe space

to talk about the trauma I’ve dealt with in the classroom and hold space with individuals who

understood and experience how I’ve felt.

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However, despite having these communities – as a senior, I unfortunately do not feel like

a fully sense belong to this institution. Despite meeting the amazing individuals that I was able to

build community with, the racism and racial climate that I have experienced at DePauw makes

me sometimes wish that I had attended another university.

DISCUSSION

Within this section, I will be placing my findings in conversation with the scholars whose

work has helped to ground my analysis of race and racialization – both within the world and the

classroom. In order to do so, I have engaged with scholars of Critical Race Theory, Black

feminisms, and other critical forms of scholarship that center Black and racially marginalized

students. This is done to further analyze how belonging is central to inclusion. From the

experiences of Black students on campus, both within our academic and social spaces,

belongingness is not felt by members of the Black community. This ostracization is further

reiterated in PPD courses – which tend to minimize Black struggle around the globe. These

courses do not center its namesake – power, privilege, or diversity. In fact, it is just a realization

of how much power is encapsulated within whiteness. Due to the lack of engagement and

intention within these courses, it continues to push DePauw into its reliance on whiteness and

white supremacy. The lack of doing so continues to concrete the message that Blackness is not

welcomed at DePauw.

College campuses tend to engage in what Bonilla-Silva and Dietrich describe as cultural

racism (Bonilla-Silva and Dietrich 2011:193). Within this cultural racism, modern racial

ideology is reproduced – not portraying the racial hierarchy that exists within America and the

world. “The newness of this frame resides in the centrality it has acquired in whites’

contemporary justifications of minorities’ standing. The essence of the frame, as William Ryan

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(1976) pointed out a long time ago, is “blaming the victim” – arguing that minorities’ standing is

a product of their lack of effort, loose family organization, and inappropriate values” (Bonilla-

Silva and Dietrich 2011:193). Similar thinking such as this leads to the minimization of racism

within our campus environments and continues to support the white belief that student

ostracization and lack of belonging is not a product of DePauw’s racial discrimination in both its

academic and social spaces (Bonilla-Silva and Dietrich 2011, p.194). A great example of this is

the letter that Grant Walters, a white man, wrote in response to Ashton Johnson, a Black woman

who spoke up about the discrimination that she has faced during her time at the institution.

Walters replied to Johnsons’ letter addressing racial discrimination stating, “What year are you

living in, 1951?!” (Walters 2014). Her experiences are then questioned and invalidated by

Walters, “If Ms. Johnson’s examples are true, action must be taken by the administration to

handle these horrific acts of racism” (Walters 2014). Despite both letters being written in 2014,

they accurately display the ‘Two DePauw’s’ that still exist today.

The reinforcement of laissez-fare racism by the university creates the tendency to blame

Black students for the trauma’s they’ve experienced (Bobo, Kluege, and Smith 1976: 6). The

experiences of Black students and student of color are often questioned, as if racism does not

occur on DePauw’s campus. A great example of this is Grant questioning Johnsons’ student

experience to which he minimized. This unconsciously tells our Black students to “get over”

racism. How can someone do this, if these systems and environments are constantly negatively

affecting and changing their livelihood and how they navigate within the world.

The student hope of the Power, Privilege and Diversity was to create an educational space for

non-Black members of the community to understand how their racist actions are explicitly

working to maintain positions of power. How can Grant Walters, a white cis-gendered

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heterosexual man, tell Ashton Johnson a Black woman about the experiences she’s face when his

position of racial privilege and power shields him from these violent experiences. Despite the

institution creating the M requirement and transforming it into the PPD requirement, there are

still many white community members that have similar feelings to Grant Walters. This and the

fact that our racial climate on campus has continued to climb, points to the shortcomings of the

university in making sure that effort is fully present in each Power, Privilege, and Diversity

course.

As I move towards the conclusion, I begin to outline what I argue could be done to

reimagine the PPD requirement. My central claim is that a radical reimagining would create

critical and impactful conversations about Power, Privilege, and Diversity within the classroom

that actively attend to what students like Ashton Johnson have fought for and for a deeper and

more critical discussion of racism and white supremacy. To ensure that the goals are being met

within the course a racially diverse committee – composed of faculty and students should be

created. This committee will be working to ensure that the goals of the PPD requirement are

being met within these courses and in what way. The goals of the requirement should be

revisited, as well by this committee – making sure that the language of these goals are more

explicit, fully centering race. Once the goal requirements have been redrafted, the committee will

then work towards deciding which course can impact and achieve these goals. In order for this to

be done, an outline of the course, its literature, and a conversation of how the literature will be

used within the course must be submitted for the committee. This material should take the

committee approximately 4 weeks to review.

After the committee reviews these materials, a meeting should then be set with the

faculty member “applying” to teach a PPD course. Within this meeting the committee will

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discuss with the faculty member any questions, concerns, and or feedback about the material,

course topic, and conversation. After this meeting, the committee will conversate about this

meeting and the steps they will take the move forward – whether the committee fully denies the

request to teach this course, would like to approve this course but will like to see changes done to

its format, etc. These decisions should take 3 days of deliberating. If the committee decides to

approve this course, it will be required for them to randomly select a member of the class to be

interviewed about their thoughts on this course and to attend one of these courses to ensure that

the goals are not only being met but to assess its classrooms’ critical engagement. I argue that by

adopting this format, the University can actively see and have documentation of the ways these

courses are meeting their goals – in the right way.

CONCLUSION

DePauw University, as an institution of power, is a reflection of the world we live in.

As a result of this, the racial climate of the university tends to be more different. Black members

of the DePauw community, including students, faculty, and staff – all experience racist behaviors

and feelings of not belonging within the DePauw community. This is shown through the histories

of DePauw and its current racial climate. Currently, the demands for equity and to create spaces

for Black students on DePauw’s campus have not been answered. This demand and this Honor

Scholar seminar serve as a call for institutional action.

DePauw cannot create the solution to racism in America; however, it can create solutions

to the way they respond and contribute to racist campus academic and social environments. This

can start with critically assessing our classroom culture and the conversations we have that are

centered around marginalized identities. To successfully have courses that achieve these

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conversations, race and the nations true existence as a racialized state must be centered as well as

its connections to existing structures of inequality. Despite the discomfort that these

conversations might bring to non-Black communities, it is more discomforting to minimize

racism and attribute to Black trauma. As discomforting as the classroom is for racially

marginalized and Black members of our community, it is time that this discomfort is felt by all.

By understanding the experiences that happens within the classroom, like derogatory

racialized language and racial microaggressions, we can assess what is needed to provide racially

marginalized students support and begin to figure out what is needed to be done to end the cycle

of trauma within the classroom. This will take years or maybe centuries of work for this to

happen nationally, however – with reimagining the Power, Privilege, and Diversity requirement

it can bring some influential change to DePauw’s campus. By adopting this format, the

university can ensure that PPD courses are achieving their outlined learning goals and are

reflective of the needs of its racially marginalized and Black student body. Ensuring that all

students feel a sense of belonging in campus spaces should be and remain a true priority if

DePauw is as committed to diversity and inclusion as they publicize.

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

Due to the Corona Virus (COVID – 19), the vision of my project had changed drastically.

Initially I had planned to have approximately 50 – 70 survey participants. This survey was

initially composed of around 30 questions, aimed to assess the personal bias that students can

potentially bring into the classroom. However, as I have not prepared a survey of this caliber on

my own, most of the questions had to be transformed to not affect the findings of the data. As my

committee had reviewed these survey’s, there were several concerns about it placing the

participant intentionally into the data that I have wished to collect – instead of the participant

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coming to this understanding on their own. Because of this, my initial survey of 35 questions was

shortened. This survey resulted in 25 questions that focused more on what happens in the

classroom – conversations, if the professor connected the lives of racially marginalized

communities with current existing structures of racism, how did the student feel about these

conversations, etc. By adopting this format, it helped for me as the interviewer, to build off the

responses of the participant– using it to dive deeper into the classroom culture of the course.

However, due to COVID – 19 and the student difficulties, I shifted this portion to personal

analysis of the two PPD courses I took.

The other limitations of this project were effects of the Corona Virus. My action goal for

this project was to redress the shelves at Roy O. West Library, expanding the universities

literatures of the diaspora. This action goal was to be a community effort with the organizers of

Here It Is Library, a free online community source for BIPOC literature ran by two Black alumni

of DePauw University. Due to the challenges that this semester brought, this action goal was

unable to be achieved in this moment. However, this is a project that I am committed to see at

the University in the next few years. Until then, the goal of this project has transformed into

reimagining the PPD requirement. This need is reflected in the findings of this project, seeing

that Power, Privilege and Diversity requirement is not serving the want and needs of it racially

marginalized communities. Hopefully from the submission of this Honor Scholar Project, more

student voices can join to urge the university to make this institutional change.

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Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of

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List of Appendices

Appendix A: Letters to the Study Body (59)

Appendix B: Materials from the DePauw Administrations Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Board (63)

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Appendix A

AAAS Letters to the Student Body

2018

To The DePauw Community,

As this semester comes to a close, we, the Association of African American Students

(AAAS), write this letter to this DePauw Community to be transparent about our

actions following the chain of racial incidents on campus. We -in solidarity with our

allies and informed by other University responses to similarly racist events on

campus- created a list of demands for the President’s cabinet to respond with a clear

action plan. One of our first ‘demands’ was the creation of a clear and truly safe space

for students of color generally, and black identified students specifically. We included

language that pointed at the need for centering the experiences of marginalized

communities in our classrooms -especially in the wake of racist, Islamophobic,

homophobic and anti-Semitic language expressed on our campus and in our living

spaces.

We would also like to make it clear to our community that this list is more than mere

“demands;” it begins to address in a public forum our own President’s multiple

requests to help him and his cabinet understand “what they should do,” to respond, to

create a safe space and to ensure we limit exposure to biased incidents.

Throughout our history, there is clear evidence that protesting creates change.

Although in the moment we know the response to protest is frustration, confusion and

derision, consistent and engaged protests have led to civil and legal rights. In similar

fashion to the derision and social commentary that Civil Rights protesters should “stay

home” and were “causing disruptions” by peaceably protesting (e.g. walking across a

bridge), our student handbook begins to challenge our freedoms and our rights to

protest. On page 74 of the DePauw Student Handbook, it states, “DePauw students,

faculty, and staff are free to support causes in any orderly manner, including

organized demonstrations that do not disrupt the normal and essential functions of the

University” (emphasis ours). It remains unclear what “orderly” protest is, or for that

matter how protests can avoid “disrupting” functions considering the purpose of a

The First Letter to the DePauw Community that I had read as an on-campus student

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protest is to disrupt the status quo, to demonstrate a problem and to begin a

conversation. To be clear, the definition of a protest is ‘an organized public

demonstration of disapproval or display disagreement with an idea or course of action.

Given the language of the handbook, the responses to our protests online and even in

conversations on our campus, it is evident that some do not want us to protest. It is

perhaps clearer, and chilling so, that some members of our community would prefer

marginalized groups to leave. This, however, demonstrates the importance and

pertinence of our protest and of our demands.

We, the AAAS, and our allies engaged in intentional protest. We used our voices as a

tool to get the administration’s, our community’s and the larger society’s attention.

We protested to draw your attention to our need to be safe from racist, hate-filled

terroristic threats. This might seem an overstatement to some. If that is the case,

please remember the KKK is a terrorist organization with a long and current history of

racial violence. They signed their work. But these acts were not alone. We had violent

threats to the members of our LGBTQIA+ family, Muslim family and our Jewish

family.

As we begin to close our current academic year, with some beginning new chapters

away from DePauw, it is imperative that we acknowledge and reflect on our shared

history, that we begin to see the pain and terror of our fellow students, and that we

continue to use our voices to fight against injustice. It is our sincere hope that our

demands and intentional protests open a space of dialogue and begin to answer the

“what should we do” question with clear steps that will make DePauw safe(r). We

will remain committed to serving our community as an educational, social and

political organization, and will continue to meet the needs and desires of our

community. It is our duty, no matter the opposition.

Regards,

The Executive Board of AAAS

2021

Statement from the Association of African American Students about DePauw Day of Dialogue

Dear DePauw Community,

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The Association of African American Students pens this letter in grave disappointment of this

year’s Day of Dialogue and the preceding days. From the poor execution of the virtual space to

the watered-down topics for the breakout rooms, we cannot fool ourselves into believing that this

day had any real implications for “progress” at DePauw.

Simply put, the Day of Dialogue was a disaster and has always been.

While we recognize that COVID has imposed many difficulties upon our learning environment

and community, and that technological difficulties are inevitable, it was apparent that the

university did not prepare for the “high” volume of participants on Zoom. A majority of the day

was spent trying to troubleshoot how to place people in breakout rooms, leaving participants

confused and the facilitators for the breakout rooms displaced. Additionally, there was a lack of

security measures taken to ensure that this virtual setting would be open to members of the DePauw

community and safe from hackers. These are just to name a few of the many incidents that occurred

throughout the day.

Historically, The Association of African American Students has openly protested the Day of

Dialogue since the moment DePauw’s administration involved themselves in its planning. After

2015, the Day of Dialogue has failed to be constructive to our campus climate—creating harmful

spaces for any Black, Indigenous, and People of Color that are a part of this university. Given this

year’s political climate across the nation and the needs of our General Body, we felt that it was

crucial to take part in this year’s planning.

Our executive members found the Day of Dialogue Planning committee “disorganized” and “last

minute” amongst other transgressions. The planning committee, headed by Vice President of

Diversity and Inclusion, Amanda Kim; and Vice President of Student Academic Life, Alan

Hill, did not incorporate the students' recommendations or input. Students expressed that many of

their ideas and suggestions were overlooked by both Amanda Kim and certain faculty members

on the committee. Inherently, students were excluded from the “planning” aspect of Day of

Dialogue. The executive member that served on the committee also shared that the goals of the

committee were unclear. Furthermore, members on the planning committee shared with us that

the content and programming for the Day of Dialogue was completely changed —without notice—

the night before the day's virtual production. This incident further illustrates the institution's lack

of commitment to addressing and dismantling the institutional racism that exists at DePauw.

The planning for this year’s Day of Dialogue started approximately four weeks from the event’s

date.

The original structure of the Day of Dialogue was created to center DePauw’s focus on race,

particularly in regard to the racial climate on campus at the time. Black students were (and still

are) fed up with DePauw’s Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Council perpetuating racist,

violent, hostile environments towards BIPOC students. Black students were fed up with the

DePauw’s administration turning a blind eye to their concerns of their safety. Black students and

Black faculty were fed up with being disrespected by racist professors. The Day of Dialogue was

meant to bring the issues of racism to the forefront of DePauw’s agenda. Yet, the Day of Dialogue

continues to divert its attention from race and our list of grievances continues to grow every

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day. Rather than challenging white supremacy and the structures that ensue, the Day of Dialogue

enables white supremacy. At this point, we begin to wonder who this day is truly meant for.

In spite of this disastrous event, we would like to commend Dr. Lori White’s efforts to reimagine

the structure and meaning of the Day of Dialogue. In fact, we enjoyed Dr. White’s opening remarks

and her facilitation during the beginning of the event. AAAS praises her for placing Dr. Emmitt

Y. Riley III., our advisor and Director of Africana Studies, as one of the leading voices for the Day

of Dialogue. Dr. White’s honest reflections about racism demonstrates her commitment to

fostering a healthy and positive institution. We believe that Dr. White had the best intentions to

restructure the Day of Dialogue.

However, it is evident that DePauw University does not prioritize nor value the voices and

experiences of BIPOC faculty and students. This year’s Day of Dialogue confirmed to all of us

that the university does not regard diversity, equity and inclusion values with any significance.

Until DePauw is ready to implement change, which requires meaningful ACTION at the

institutional level, we find that it is in the best interest to eliminate the Day of Dialogue and its

production.

We are exhausted from doing the work for you, DePauw.

Sincerely,

The Association of African American Students 2020-2021 Executive Board

Mission: The mission of the Association of African American Students is to 2&'(4#2 by

providing space, access to resources, and creating diverse programming that centers Blackness

and challenges social exclusion and oppression. Through our education and our community

action, we seek to 2?P%52$ those in our community to explore, understand, and appreciate

Blackness and/at its intersections. To ensure we achieve these aims and to protect our

communities, we will 2R2('#2 strategic responses to end discriminatory acts against all Black

people. PERIOD.

Appendix B

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Materials from the DePauw Administrations Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Board

2015-16 Annual Report

Diversity and Equity

Committee membership and those regularly attending:

Bruce Burking

Lexy Burton

Craig Carter

Marius Conceatu

Mac Dixon-Fyle

Maggie Donohue

Sarah Fears

Curtis Ferguson

Vince Greer

Jana Grimes

Claire Halffield

Amy Haug

Caroline Jetton, Chair

Carrie Klaus

Renee Madison

Heidi Menzel

Veronica Pejril

Craig Slaughter

Kate Smanik

Juli Smith

Christopher Wells

The primary work of the committee during 2015-16 included crafting the five-year campus

inclusion plan. To begin our work, the committee kicked off the year with a full day retreat on

August 3. During the academic year, the committee met regularly. Meetings were scheduled for

the following dates:

September 2

September 30

October 28

November 18

December 9

January 5

February 10

February 17

March 2

April 13

May 4

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Working Groups were established to expedite progress on the five-year campus inclusion plan.

The following working groups were formed: Co-Curriculum and Student Life, Curriculum and

Academic Life, Life Cycle, Communication, and Community Engagement. The working groups

met regularly as well.

A draft of the plan was shared with members of Cabinet and the campus community at large.

Feedback and suggestions for improving the plan were solicited. See Appendix 1 for the 2016-

2021 Campus Inclusion Plan.

At the November faculty meeting, the motion was passed to undertake a second DePauw

Dialogue in spring 2016. Thus another facet of our work included planning DePauw Dialogue,

an all-campus event focused on diversity and inclusion, which was held on April 6. The day

included a keynote address by Rev. Dr. Jamie Washington and 21 breakout sessions. Students,

faculty, and staff were able to choose the breakout sessions they most wanted to attend.

Facilitated discussions rounded out the official program before the community event. Faculty,

staff, and student facilitators were trained by Montage. There was a four-hour training session

and follow-up meeting for facilitators.

There was a Core Planning Group and five subcommittees (comprised of faculty, staff, and

students across campus) that contributed to the planning of DePauw Dialogue. The

subcommittees were Pre- and Post-Day Planning, Structural Logistics,

Adminstrative/Organizational, Advertising, and Mobilization. These subcommittees met

regularly.

In May, the faculty voted to continue having a DePauw Dialogue for the next five years. Future

events will be scheduled in the fall semester. At the end of five years, the efficacy of the event

will be evaluated.

An action item from the 2015-16 campus inclusion plan included the crafting and dissemination

of a faculty and staff campus climate survey. The survey was created by a subcommittee of

the Diversity and Equity committee. The subcommittee was also comprised of others from the

campus community. The survey was shared with faculty and staff in mid-October and all were

encouraged to share their opinions and experiences. In January, Director of Institution Research

Bill Tobin, Renee Madison, and Caroline Jetton met to review the data from the faculty and staff

campus climate survey. Open meetings for faculty and staff were scheduled to share highlights

of Campus Climate Survey data. In May, volunteers were solicited to look more deeply at the

survey data. This work will commence in the summer and continue into the fall 2016 semester.

Other work of the committee included the following:

• Committee members met with Cris Cullinan, an invited guest who offered a workshop to

department chairs and members of search committees, “Seeking Cultural Competence in

Hiring.”

• Committee members met with members of the Independent Review Committee as part of

their formal investigation of the event that occurred September 2015 when Brother Jed

and his disciples protested on campus.

• Committee members met with President-Elect Mark McCoy.

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• Caroline Jetton monitored the progress on action items outlined in the 2015-16 campus

inclusion plan; updates were shared with the community midway through the year and at

the end of the academic year. See Appendix 2 and 3 for the December 2015 and May

2016 updates respectively.

• Caroline Jetton, as the representative from Diversity and Equity, VPAA Anne Harris, and

Human Resources representative, Jana Grimes, met with each search committee

undertaking a tenure-track search during the academic year.

• Caroline Jetton, on behalf of Diversity and Equity, met with Kathy Vrabeck, the chair of

the Presidential Search Committee, to discuss the values we hope to see espoused and

lived by the next president.

• At the invitation of Renee Madison, Caroline Jetton attended the Board of Trustees

Inclusion Committee on October 8. The agenda was a follows: University inclusion

values, campus climate update, 2015-16 Inclusion Plan update, committee charge, and

five-year inclusion plan update.

Appendix 1

2016-21 Campus Inclusion Plan

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Appendix 2

December 2015 Update on the 2015-16 Campus Inclusion Plan

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Building an Inclusive Community: DePauw

University Campus Plan

2015-16 Academic Year

In January 2006, the DePauw University Board of Trustees adopted the following Mission

Statement:

DePauw University, a residential liberal arts college, provides a diverse learning and living

community which is distinctive in its rigorous intellectual engagement and international and

experiential learning opportunities. DePauw teaches its students values and habits of mind which

serve them throughout their lives as each of them makes a positive difference as an active citizen

of the world.

Providing a diverse learning and living community requires that all of us, each with our own unique

life experiences, are encouraged to actively and intentionally engage with one another. To achieve

robust intellectual engagement on our campus, we should actively work to gain a deeper awareness

of both our individual and collective selves and examine those roadblocks that inhibit diversity of

thought and perspective.

DePauw’s Non-Discrimination Statement also demonstrates our commitment to an inclusive

community: “[t]he University encourages a workplace and learning environment free of

discrimination, harassment, and/or inappropriate treatment of any employee, student or guest

because of any person’s race, sex, color, creed, religion, age, national origin, sexual orientation,

veteran status, gender identity, gender expression, disability, or any category protected under

federal, state or local law.” However, as a community, we need to consider: how we define

diversity and whether our definition is broader than the aforementioned identities as well as what

our University vision is for our collective efforts in building a more inclusive community.

Articulating a campus vision is essential, but we must also outline deliberate steps through which

we intend to achieve our stated goals. We must challenge ourselves and our campus community

to work collectively as we strive to create a more inclusive campus, one that values and actively

pursues diversity. To do this, we must share in our responsibility by: 1) Understanding ourselves;

2) Acknowledging, understanding, and challenging our biases and influences; 3) Understanding

and valuing the experiences of others; and 4) Challenging and changing traditional systems and

habits that impede our personal and collective growth.

This document outlines our plan for the 2015-16 year to be more intentional in our efforts to

become a more inclusive campus. We deliberately planned for one academic year, knowing that a

more robust, five- year plan to support our mission would be developed next year. To inform the

development of this one- year plan, efforts were made to engage our campus community about

ways we can achieve and sustain a more inclusive campus. As such, this plan is the first step in

this important ongoing process. The steps outlined below will provide the foundation for a more

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comprehensive long-term plan for the University that will be developed by the community and

alumni during the 2015-16 academic year.

1. ***C%.#2$)"0*4"*!"(='.):2*L=4..$%%?*L=)?4#2+*Build and sustain an academic community that

fosters inclusive practices which value diversity of scholarship, learning, and creative

performance for all students.*

A. Curriculum. The Committee on Academic Policy and Planning (CAPP) considered the

question of an M (multicultural) requirement to complement the University’s current

academic requirements. CAPP afforded many opportunities for faculty and staff to provide

input about a variety of models that were under consideration and gave notice of their

motion to the faculty at their April meeting to inform the faculty’s May vote. If, after

deliberation, the proposal to the general education curriculum does not yet look like a

model the faculty want to support, the Vice President for Academic Affairs (VPAA) and

members of the new Curricular Policy and Planning committee will work together during

the fall 2015 semester to address concerns raised during the May debate with the goal of

developing a better approach to addressing the M competency in our curriculum.

May 2015 Update: The faculty approved two new graduation requirements effective for the Class

of 2020. Two components were adopted: a Power, Privilege and Diversity course and an

International Experience. To complete the Power, Privilege and Diversity requirement, each

student earns at least one credit in courses that have as a major component the analysis of the

interplay of power and privilege in human interactions. Such courses will frequently focus on the

experience of non-dominant members of political or social groups. They might also emphasize the

dynamics of inequality from a more theoretical perspective. To complete the International

Experience requirement, students earn at least one credit in a course that has, as its focus, the study

of a culture foreign to their culture of origin. This may be earned in courses focusing on the politics,

society, religion, history, or arts of a foreign culture or through a semester-long or longer study-

abroad experience. International students fulfill this requirement through their study at DePauw.

B. Policy. The Committee on Faculty (COF) is currently considering modifications to tenure

and promotion criteria. Included in their proposal is specific language for evaluating faculty

members on their cultivation of an inclusive classroom. Beginning in the fall 2015

semester, COF plans to have a subcommittee from its current membership continue its

work to refine its proposal and the VPAA will request that the new Faculty Personnel

Policy and Review committee consider additional ways to evaluate faculty practices of

inclusivity.

December 2015 Update from Faculty Personnel Policy and Review Interim Chair Mark

Kannowski: On November 11

, the Faculty Personnel Policy and Review committee met with

Renee Madison and Carrie Klaus as representatives of the Diversity and Equity committee to

discuss modifications to tenure and promotion criteria as published in the academic handbook. At

the current time, the Review committee is not ready to bring forward a change in language for the

academic handbook. We have discussed and will continue to discuss and consider, as time permits,

ways to evaluate faculty practices of inclusivity.

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December 2015 Update from Vice President for Academic Affairs Anne Harris: The Review

committee (formerly COF) has discussed these modifications with Carrie Klaus (Dean of Faculty)

and Renee Madison (Senior Advisor to the President for Diversity and Compliance) and is

considering language for the academic handbook. The entire committee has discussed changes to

both the Appendix A (expectations for all faculty member positions at DePauw) as well as Student

Opinion Surveys. Two issues remain subjects of deliberation: assurances of faculty development

for the cultivation of an inclusive classroom being in place for any new expectations of faculty;

and considerations of backlash among students who, for whatever reason, disagree with the

professor and use accusations of a non-inclusive classroom as retaliation. Regarding the former,

see section I C below. The latter has expanded two points of discussion: an interest in significantly

revising the Student Opinion Surveys in general, and an interest in developing other means for

faculty to demonstrate practices of inclusivity in "Teaching Methods" and "Effectiveness"

sections. Specific criteria are still being worked out for those sections with the goal of having a

faculty vote on this issue in the spring of 2016.

C. Professional Development. The Office of Academic Affairs, in partnership with the

Office of the President, will work with department chairs, program directors, and faculty

members on the provision of educational materials and training workshops for faculty,

including at least one workshop conducted by an outside consultant.

December 2015 Update from Vice President for Academic Affairs Anne Harris: The Office of

Academic Affairs has worked to create multiple points of entry for faculty into development

opportunities on diversity and inclusion.

• In the fall of 2015, the American Whiteness series brought three outside speakers to

campus: sociologist Karla Ericksson, philosopher Alison Bailey, and Peggy Macintosh,

author of the famous essay "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack," feminist

and anti-racism activist, and founder of the SEED (Seeking Educational Equity and

Diversity) Project. These speakers were joined by two DePauw faculty members in the

series: Matthew Oware, in Sociology, and Rebecca Alexander, in Education Studies. This

speaker series was funded by Academic Affairs and departments and programs as well as

the Public Occasions Committee.

• In fall of 2015, the VPAA announced $30,000 in funding yearly for the next four years for

Power, Privilege, and Diversity collaborative faculty development. The Faculty

Development committee has designed three different opportunities for these funds:

o Faculty Triad Grants. These grants, in the amount of $500 per participant, will

be provided to groups of three faculty members who wish to devote time during

the spring 2016 semester to reading and discussing critical texts that examine issues

of power, privilege, and diversity. The preferred outcome of this work would be

the development of a shared syllabus or a set of syllabi. Funding will be provided

in the form of a stipend (rather than reimbursement). The stipend, which is, in part,

intended to be an acknowledgement of faculty members’ valuable time, is also

intended to be used for items such as books, materials, food, etc. Deadline for

funding applications: January 27

, 2016

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o Faculty Innovation Grants. These grants, also in the amount of $500 per

participant, will be provided to individuals or pairs of faculty members

(collaboration is highly encouraged!) who wish to propose a project that is closely

related to power, privilege, and diversity but that does not fit neatly into the

programs mentioned above for course development and renewal or other existing

Faculty Development programs. We encourage faculty members to think broadly

about innovative ways to address the topics of power, privilege, and

diversity. Deadline for funding applications: January 27

, 2016

o Faculty Workshop for Course Development and Renewal in Power, Privilege,

and Diversity. This workshop will take place over four or five days in May (and/or

early June) and will likely include attention to issues of both content and

pedagogy. A team of faculty organizers will determine the specific focus of the

workshop. Faculty Development needs to identify two or three faculty

members interested in planning this workshop as soon as possible. Stipends,

materials, and meals will be provided to participants and to organizers. Organizers

will each receive a $1200 stipend and participants will receive $400-$500

(depending on the length of the workshop). Deadline for statements of interest in

serving as organizer: Friday, December 4

, 2015

• There are also plans to archive all of the bibliography that these efforts will produce on

both the CTL (Center for Teaching and Learning) website, as well as a Library Guide

dedicated to "Inclusive Pedagogy" and "Power, Privilege, and Diversity."

• Through the Teagle Teaching Fellows and the GLCA, the VPAA and the Dean of Faculty

are engaged in conversation with Dr. Ted Mason, Provost for Diversity and Inclusion at

Kenyon College about strategies for faculty engagement and development.

2. L$24#)"0*4"*!"(='.):2*L%??'")#G+*Develop and sustain a sense of community which includes

an environment where every member of our campus feels empowered to thrive and contribute

equally.*

A. Education and Awareness. The Office of Student Life will continue to offer community

forums and training workshops for staff and the local law enforcement community that

focus on interactions with underrepresented groups. The training series will place a

significant emphasis on furthering our staff members’ intercultural competency so that they

can actively engage in dialogues that address power, privilege and access.

December 2015 Update from Vice President for Student Life Christopher Wells: Staff from the

Office of Student Life met with the Mayor's Office and led workshops for members of the Mayor's

council, which included representatives from law enforcement, city government, and community

services. Several follow-up conversations followed that focused on improving interactions

between city employees and constituents from underrepresented groups.

The independent committee appointed by the University to review an incident that took place in

September 2015 on the campus, plans to provide its findings and offer recommendations to

improve the safety and security of the DePauw and Greencastle communities. The Office of

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Student Life will support and follow the recommendations from the independent review

committee. Their report is expected in spring 2016.

B. Community Space. The Office of Student Life will seek to identify opportunities for

developing a new campus space for students to share and co-host events for increased

student dialogue and social programming.

December 2015 Update from Vice President for Student Life Christopher Wells: More significant

work has been done in the identification of students’ social space. The primary spaces identified

are the Union Building atrium and the Longden dining hall space, but there have also been

discussions about the possibility of constructing a separate space that could serve to host larger

scale social events than either of these other spaces. This is a multi-year project and will be more

fully addressed in the five-year campus inclusion plan.

C. Programming. The School of Music (SOM) through its 21CM Initiative will continue to

explore and incorporate programming and performance opportunities beyond the

traditional Eurocentric model by including programming that highlights underrepresented

musicians and musical styles (Sweet Honey in the Rock and Gabriela Frank).

December 2015 Update from the Dean of the School of Music Mark McCoy: The School of Music

(SOM) through its 21CM Initiative continues to explore and incorporate programming and

performance opportunities beyond the traditional Eurocentric model. Sweet Honey in the Rock

performed on campus October 9, 2015. Gabriela Frank, our composer-in-residence for the Music

of the 21

Century series, will be on campus February 15-19, 2016.

We will present two Black History Month performances, one by our jazz ensemble and one co-

produced with the Poet Joe Heithaus on the poets and music of the Harlem Renaissance. We will

host Silk Road's Global Musician Workshop again this summer bringing music and musicians

from around the world and next year's guests will include LadySmith Black Mambazo and

other underrepresented musicians and musical styles.

F+ <24.'$2?2"#.* 4"&* S'#(%?2.+* Create and sustain an organizational structure that

acknowledges and celebrates diversity and employs inclusive practices throughout daily

operations.*

A. Transparency. In order to ensure that we are collecting information and systematically

monitoring our progress, the Office of the President directs the Diversity and Equity

Committee to request and receive periodic updates from each department/office/program

or committee assigned with completing the tasks outlined in this plan. Diversity and Equity

Committee will provide status and progress reports to the campus community.

December 2015 Update from Chair of Diversity and Equity Caroline Jetton: On behalf of the

Diversity and Equity committee, Caroline Jetton requested an update from all

departments/offices/programs and committees responsible for action items outlined in this plan.

This update serves as a status and progress report to the campus community.

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B. Policy. In collaboration with the Office of Academic Affairs, the Vice President for

Academic Affairs will that request that the new Student Academic Life Committee place

on its agenda, at the beginning of the fall 2015 semester, a review of the policies and

procedures for reporting and investigating concerns of bias and discrimination in the

classroom. Additionally, the Office of Student Life will continue to reassess policies and

procedures currently in place throughout the division to ensure that the practices are as

inclusive as possible.

December 2015 Update from Vice President for Academic Affairs Anne Harris: This important

work has not yet begun, due to the new VPAA's lack of awareness of the needed request. This lack

has been remedied and action has been taken to ask the Student Academic Life committee to

address a review of policies and procedures for reporting and investigating concerns of bias and

discrimination in the classroom. At the fall 2015 GLCA Deans' Meeting, the VPAA learned of

bias protocol at other institutions and this information has been shared with the Student Academic

Life committee chair for distribution and consideration by the committee at large.

December 2015 Update from Student Academic Life Chair Khadija Stewart: This action item will

be an agenda item for the spring 2016 semester.

C. Learning Opportunities. The Office of the President will sponsor a training workshop,

conducted by an outside facilitator, for members of Cabinet. The workshop will focus on

raising awareness and modeling inclusive leadership.

December 2015 Update from Senior Advisor to the President for Diversity and Compliance Renee

Madison: The Office of the President has discussed and identified several prospective training

opportunities conducted by an outside facilitator. The Office of the President is in the process of

finalizing the facilitator and plans to conduct the training for members of Cabinet in the early

spring 2016 semester.

D. Data.

• Population Statistics. The Office of Institutional Research (OIR) collects information

about race, gender, religion and country/state of origin about our community (faculty,

staff and students). The OIR will provide this aggregated data to the Diversity and

Equity Committee for inclusion in its annual report.

December 2015 Update from Director of Institutional Research Bill Tobin: IR provided Renee

Madison with current and historical demographic data on faculty, staff, and students (with

comparisons to peer institutions). This information will be shared with the DePauw community

in the near future.

• Climate Surveys. In collaboration with the Office of Student Life, the OIR has

conducted a student survey about the campus climate for several years. In order to

ensure that faculty and staff are provided opportunities to share their thoughts about

the climate, the OIR will conduct or facilitate the development of a survey to gather

similar climate perceptions from faculty and staff to assist with informing and directing

our inclusion efforts.

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December 2015 Update from Director of Institutional Research Bill Tobin: The Faculty and Staff

Campus Climate Survey was distributed on October 27, 2016 and open for comment until

November 6. Approximately 2/3 of the faculty and staff responded. Analysis of data is ongoing.

7+ !".#)#'#)%"4=)/)"0* !")#)4#):2.+* Develop and maintain consistent policies and practices that

enrich our campus environment.**

A. Policy:

• Hiring. The Offices of Academic Affairs and Human Resources (HR) will work

collaboratively to establish a common and/or consistent statement about the

university’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. Additionally, all application

materials (faculty and staff) will require a statement by candidates describing how they

envision contributing to a more inclusive campus environment.

December 2015 Update from Vice President for Academic Affairs Anne Harris: New search

procedures were put in place in the fall of 2015, which stipulate that all candidates provide

"evidence of a commitment to an inclusive classroom." Additionally, the new search procedures

include a meeting with the VPAA, a representative of HR, and a representative of the Diversity

and Equity committee for the search committees. These meetings have been very productive and

outline protocol for interviews, as well as re-emphasize the commitment to diversity and inclusion

questions in the interview process.

On a note related to hiring, the VPAA announced an initiative to study faculty diversity hiring

strategies throughout 2015-16 in response to alarmingly low numbers of assistant professors of

color. RAS (Resource Allocation Subcommittee – of the Curriculum committee) will engage in

readings and discussions of strategies such as cluster hires.

December 2015 Update from Director of Human Resources Amy Haug: Effective Fall 2015, the

Vice President for Academic Affairs, Associate Director of Human Resources, and Chair of

Diversity and Equity meet with all faculty search committees to share thoughts, perspectives and

offer resources. Search committees do incorporate into the candidate interview process a sharing

of DePauw's institutional support of diversity and inclusion as well as asking the candidates about

their perspective and support of diversity and inclusion.

The Office of Human Resources will continue to work on this initiative in the Spring 2016 semester

so that there is consistency between the faculty and staff hiring processes.

• Retention. HR is currently working on the creation of a family parental leave policy.

Should the policy not be completed by May 2015, HR will complete and disseminate

the policy by the beginning of the fall 2015 semester.

December 2015 Update from Director of Human Resources Amy Haug: The Office of Human

Resources sought input and support from the Office of the President and the Vice President of

Academic Affairs to draft and adopt a Parental Leave policy. Review of policies from other

educational institutions provided the group with direction and context from which to develop a

Parental Leave Policy. A draft Policy was developed and reviewed by the group in the fall of

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2015. The policy review will continue into early 2016 and is expected to be complete by the end

of the Spring 2016 semester.

B. Practice. The Offices of Academic Affairs and Human Resources (HR) will work

collaboratively to review guidelines and protocols for ensuring a diverse pool of applicants

for all faculty and staff positions. All departments will be expected to: 1) provide a written

outline of their plan to generate a diverse pool of candidates and 2) collaborate with the

Office of Academic Affairs and/or the Office of Human Resources in maintaining detailed

records and evidence that the plan was implemented as designed, noting necessary

deviations and justifications. All recruitment plans will be reviewed and approved by

respective vice presidents, and in consultation with the Diversity and Equity Committee as

deemed necessary, prior to moving forward with recruitment activities.

December 2015 Update from Vice President for Academic Affairs Anne Harris: All departments

have engaged in this practice, providing evidence to the VPAA. The candidate pools have still

lacked diversity, which could signal that a greater effort is needed, but also perhaps that the

national conference system of hiring faculty itself greatly favors white faculty. At the October

faculty meeting, the VPAA put forth a series of hiring initiatives that might provide a more diverse

candidate pool:

• Resource Allocation Subcommittee: research and strategize other means of hiring – ex.

cluster hires across departments and interdisciplinary programs

• Consortium for Faculty Diversity: longer-term opportunities for post-doctoral faculty

• Preparing Future Faculty programs: Indiana University sociology department; Howard

University

• Opportunity Hires: from CFD and PFF programs

• Strategic use of endowed professorships

• Current hiring process: new Diversity and Inclusion discussion in interviews

As mentioned above, RAS is currently researching cluster hires and other recruiting strategies;

departments have responded with five separate CFD requests; relationships with Indiana

University's department of sociology are ongoing, while the relationship with Howard University

is being rekindled; opportunity hires are currently under discussion.

December 2015 Update from Dean of Faculty Carrie Klaus: In September 2015, Cris Cullinan

presented a workshop open to all faculty, but specifically designed for search committee members,

to discuss cultural competence and its relationship to hiring. The title of her workshop was,

“Seeking Cultural Competence in Hiring: Strategies for Attracting and Retaining the Faculty and

Staff We Need for the 21st Century.”

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C. Admissions. The Office of Admissions will focus on diversifying the admissions staff{

and expanding the geographic regions from which it recruits domestic and international

students. Additionally, the office will provide training that emphasizes the recruitment of

a more diverse student body.

December 2015 Update from Vice President for Admission and Financial Aid Cindy Babington:

• Diversifying the staff. Since 2014, the Admission and Financial Aid staff has increased

from three employees who represented domestic and international diversity to a total of

seven currently. Three of six counselors hired in the summer of 2015 were from

underrepresented populations.

• Expanding the geographic regions from where international and students of color are

recruited. Curtis Ferguson was hired as the Multicultural Recruiter in the summer of 2015

and has as his main priority to recruit students of color to DePauw. There are two aspects

to this. One is the solicitation of applications from students who are geographically diverse;

the other is being able to yield those students. Having the capacity to do this without also

having a large territory has allowed Curtis to travel to locations with the express purpose

of recruiting students of color. In addition he is serving as the second reader for all student

of color applications. This allows him the opportunity to work towards shaping the

incoming class of minority students. Loutfi Jirari was hired in the summer of 2014 as the

international recruiter. We saw the beginning of success last year in terms of the geographic

diversity of international students and expect to see even greater geographic diversity in

the 2016 entering class. Loutfi traveled much of the fall to locations where students will be

interested in the type of education that DePauw provides and are able to pay at least some

of the costs. His travels included college fairs and high school visits in India, Morocco,

Jordan, Amman, Slovenia, Croatia, Turkey, Brazil and Columbia. We are already seeing

success with these visits as the international applications are up by over 100.

• Diversity training. Curtis Ferguson conducted diversity training for our senior interns and

we are in conversations with a consultant to do training for the staff in the early spring.

5. T'.#4)")"0* !"(='.)%"+* Create and sustain an institutional infrastructure that effectively

supports progress in achieving the goals of the Campus Inclusion Plan.*U

During the 2015-16 academic year, the Office of the President will work collaboratively with

the Diversity and Equity Committee to facilitate a campus-wide discussion for soliciting

suggestions for and feedback on a long-term campus inclusion plan. The Diversity and Equity

Committee will periodically communicate to the community various opportunities for

providing input and will report its progress to all campus constituents. The Diversity and

Equity Committee will provide a draft 2016-21 Campus Inclusion Plan to the Board of

Trustees at its May 2016 meeting.

December 2015 Update from Senior Advisor to the President for Diversity and Compliance Renee

Madison and Chair of Diversity and Equity Caroline Jetton: The Diversity and Equity committee

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provided a draft of the campus vision and definitions of diversity and inclusion seeking feedback

from the campus community. The revisions will be distributed in February 2016.

The Diversity and Equity committee and additional volunteers from campus began work crafting

a five-year campus inclusion plan. Four working groups were created: Academic Life (Curricular

and Co-Curricular), Community Engagement, Life Cycle (Employee and Student), and

Communications. These working groups have met multiple times throughout the fall semester to

develop broad themes for our long-term inclusion plan. The Diversity and Equity committee will

provide an initial draft of the plan in early Spring 2016 seeking input from the campus community.