WHAT’S WITH P.R.I.D.E.?
by Karla Spurlock-Evans, Dean of Multicultural Affairs
PRIDE, Promoting Respect for Inclusive Diversity in Education, is a year-long program designed to strengthen diversity at Trinity. Directed toward first-year students, PRIDE’s fundamental goals are to help new students from under-represented racial and cultural backgrounds adjust to academic and social life at Trinity and, at the same time, promote multicultural awareness and receptivity among members of the student body as a whole. PRIDE opens with a Welcome Weekend for international students and students of color from the United States. This Weekend is designed to permit these students a low-pressure opportunity to settle in at Trinity a few days before the pre-orientation programs begin. Students get a chance to meet fellow students as well as key faculty and administrators, identify campus resources, and seek advice from PRIDE Leaders, a group of Trinity upper-class students who have successfully faced the challenges of adjusting to life at the College. During the school year, PRIDE Leaders live in first-year residence halls and from that vantage point continue to make special outreach to students of color and international students while also planning programs to promote interaction and greater cultural awareness among all students in their halls.
The PRIDE program originated several decades ago when Black students began enrolling at Trinity in numbers exceeding 4 or 5 per class. Although there was class and geographic diversity in the group, the majority of the students served were from Black urban communities, many the first in their families to attend college. The students pressed Trinity to permit them to create a Big Brother/Big Sister-style program to help successive groups adapt to a campus culture that was sometimes experienced as cold or alienating, sometimes as just simply very different. By the late 1980’s/early 1990’s the program had changed to accommodate increasing racial and ethnic diversity. Known as BAHO, Black/Asian/Hispanic Orientation, the program explicitly defined its mission as providing a bridge to campus for students from groups previously under-represented.
In 1997, Kimberly Jones, the new assistant dean for multicultural affairs, decided the program needed a fresh title and a broader, less racially defined mission. She renamed the program “Promoting Respect for Inclusive Diversity in Education.” When I arrived in 1999, a significantly enhanced Office of Multicultural Affairs was able to extend the PRIDE Program through the first year, pay a stipend to the peer mentors, and secure housing for them in first-year halls. In 2000 the Office of International Programs took on the previously neglected task of offering greater support to international students. To serve those students more effectively, International Programs required international students to come to the PRIDE Welcome Weekend. Thus, for the past several years, PRIDE has served 40 – 60 students, among whom more than one-third have been from abroad, with a sizable contingent from Eastern Europe. Among the students of color from the U.S., roughly 30% each are drawn from among Black, Latino, and Asian-American students, with 10% multiracial or multi-ethnic students.
Our own evaluations and those conducted by International Programs suggest that the PRIDE Welcome Weekend has provided a very warm and positive introduction to campus. Some students find out where to get a hair cut or go to church. Others connect with faculty or administrators whose assistance they may later seek during the first few
weeks of school. Others may gain a sense of assurance just knowing there are others who have faced the challenges they will face and with whom they can touch base as the year progresses. PRIDE students will live in different halls, attend different classes, pursue different extracurricular interests. But they will go through the year knowing that, should they need to touch base, there is likely to be an empathetic other who can share their unique experience at Trinity. Yes, the seeds of friendship are most assuredly sown in that first weekend, but there is no evidence that students who attend PRIDE are less open to engaging with the entire student population than are students who come in early for sports practice. There are of course students of color who would not choose to attend a program like PRIDE. But thankfully, PRIDE is voluntary, except for international students. And next year attendance for international students will be optional, as well.
From time to time, PRIDE has been criticized by reinforcing racial separatism. Currently of the approximately 95 students of color from the United States who have entered Trinity in each of the past two years, only 25 - 30% have attended the PRIDE Welcome Weekend. I mention this number to suggest that it is unlikely so few students could (without collaboration) create the racial/cultural aggregation that, while on the decline, is still observable in Mather at lunchtime. Could 20 or 30 students – especially such a diverse collection of folks -- single-handedly prevent co-mingling (even if that were their aim) if 500+ white students decided they in fact wanted to “mix it up”?
In large measure, the demography of the lunchroom is a reflection of the racial and cultural walls erected in our home communities. The separatism still evident where most of us grew up and went to school derives from a system of segregation – both de facto and de jure -- fashioned long before our time to serve the economic and political interests of a prevailing dominant elite. Yet the lunchroom scene at Trinity reflects a more hopeful reality, too – diversity, options, choice. A closer look at the left-hand side of the dining room in Mather will reveal a greater racial and cultural mix than is apparent at first glance. And a really discerning eye will note that students are sitting together by friendship regardless of race, class, or culture, and that they are choosing to sit with others with whom they share common interests.
Clearly the PRIDE Program attempts to keep two aims in precarious balance: supporting students of color and international students at Trinity (as it is, not as we hope it will become) and helping to promote interaction across the lines of difference that should inform and enrich us, not divide us. Those of us administering PRIDE are certainly willing to explore ways of opening the program up even further. For example, we are considering the feasibility of inviting students who identify as GLBT or who come from very different class backgrounds than the majority of Trinity students. But in making changes, we must take care to honor the needs of those students the program was originally designed to serve. We must assure that their interests are not inadvertently subordinated as we seek to address the concerns of the majority, who, given the magnitude of their collective voice, often call the play.
Could it be true that we have foreclosed the possibility of forging cross-cultural relationships by establishing a program of support for students of color and international students? Or is the larger community fixing on this program to avoid examining its own part in the matter? Are the majority really prepared to take more intentional steps to welcome and interact with those who look different and perhaps act and think differently? Do we have road-worthy vehicles to move those goals forward?
The PRIDE Welcome Weekend is designed to offer information and helpful resources to students from under-represented backgrounds. It is not designed to bridge major cultural divides. PRIDE is about creating a brief space for students from underrepresented backgrounds to adopt a greater sense of ownership of this campus before the reality of their small numbers hits them square in the face. It’s a small effort to even the playing field before the big game begins.
On Monday evening following the PRIDE Welcome Weekend, Trinity has for several years offered a diversity pre-orientation program open to all members of the entering first-year class. That program has been under-subscribed and the last to fill. Can we change that? Shortly thereafter and continuing throughout the year, Multicultural Affairs, PRIDE, other offices, and student groups sponsor numerous speakers, films, discussions, and even retreats (such as the Posse I Retreat sponsored last year by the Posse Scholars), all designed to accomplish better understanding and communication among students. Sometimes it’s hard to drum up participants. Can we change that? I know we can. Students from Greek organizations are now in the process of partnering with students from cultural organizations to create a number of small and large-scale social events. Groups like Men of Color Alliance are fighting exclusion through inclusive organizing. Ground Zero is putting issues out there for open debate. Even the Trinity Tripod, addressing tough issues head-on, is a must-read these days. There’s been a buzz on campus this fall. Let’s keep it going. Is there really any good excuse for avoiding a life-expanding encounter with the world while here at Trinity?