Faculty need to consider their power

By:

Posted: 10/21/05

I am writing this letter as a Latina faculty member on this campus to share my anger and frustration with the most recent examples of racism, sexism and homophobia at Syracuse University. However, I do not only hold the students who produced this hate speech responsible, I also want to question the so-called intellectual climate that permitted it.

In particular, I want faculty to be more reflexive about its practices and ideologies. I have sat in my office with students who cry because they are hurt, traumatized and do not feel safe on this campus. Let me say that these experiences go beyond and predate this "Over the Hill" incident. I have attended countless meetings all week because this is a persistent problem that must be addressed by all of us. As a minority faculty, I understand and share the feelings of fear I have heard conveyed by my students. Now I ask of other faculty, what are you doing to make students and faculty of color feel welcome at this university?

Do you isolate them? Do you make them speak as representatives of their various groups in your classes or faculty meetings? Do you go beyond the talk of diversity and actually put theory into practice? When you see wrong on campus, do you support it with your silence or do you really do something? Is diversity a core part of your curriculum or is it segmented to one class period a semester?

I challenge faculty to consider the power they have in the classroom and outside of it to be mentors. At meetings this week, I have heard faculty say that "we" need to know our students. Well, I say, some of us already do, and now it is your responsibility as a citizen on this campus to really do the same.

Bernadette Marie Calafell, Ph.D.
Assistant professor of communication and rhetorical studies
Affiliate faculty of Latin-Latino American studies