Third World Co-opers, more than just pissing and moaning?
The bottom line in OSCA/CDS comes down to dollars and cents
What can universities learn from Oberlin: more than you think
This past week, the following perspective was brought to the attention of the Third World co-op members. Since "J." is not the only person on campus who shares these thoughts, we decided it would be appropriate to respond to such comments:
Harkness: Hi, can we help you?
J.: No thanks, I'm just passing through.
Harkness: Oh, well stop by anytime! You're always welcome!!!
Third World Co-op (& Andrew "the Asshole" LaVallee): Can we help you?!
J.: No thanks, I'm just passing through.
Third World Co-op: Well can you walk around next time?
J.: Okay, but I just went through because it was raining and I was carrying a paper bag...
Race "issues" at Oberlin are created by the people of color as an excuse for something to do. ANYONE is always welcome in Harkness. I'm not welcome in Third World Co-op because I'm too white and I don't wish to piss and moan about problems in Oberlin that just don't exist. Gee, let's put our thinking caps on. Where is the real problem at Oberlin??? Who is really unwelcome??? I never realized that I only had 3 white friends in Miami until I came to Oberlin. My friends from Miami never realized that they were supposed to feel oppressed until they came to Oberlin. Tickey never realized that she was supposed to feel special because she is the first person of color to be elected president of OSCA. I guess the agenda of that ridiculous Review told her otherwise. No, she is a competant HUMAN applying for the job. Not a semi- competant person of color deserving the benefits of affirmative action. Do I sound too pissy?
Maybe someone should have given me shelter from the rain.
Dear J. and the larger Oberlin community,
People of color, everywhere, not just on Oberlin's campus who are actively engaging in struggles of liberation for their communities do not create "issues" because they have nothing to do. Although we are at Oberlin College, a "liberal" institution of higher learning, we continue to feel the historical impacts of colonialism, institutional racism and classism. We are offended by your racism and complete dismissal of the struggles that many people of color and low-income students are forced to deal with on a daily basis. Your stating that these "issues" don't exist does not make them go away for the rest of us. It means that you have the privilege of being able to pretend they don't exist and pretend that you, as a White person, don't benefit from them and thus have no stake in challenging them.
Third World co-op is a space on campus in which we attempt to create collective forms of resistance against racism and classism. It is a space for people of color, low-income students, and white allies to go to and challenge each other, learn from each other and support each other. We ask that people respect this space and not use it as a walkway. For members of TWC, spaces like this are rare on campus and in the world. Don't simplify our community and reduce your not being able to enter it to the excuse that you are White. This space does not change meaning for us just because it's raining. Low income students of color and their allies fought for this space in the early 1990's for a reason that you obviously do not understand at all (i.e. coalition building).
Harkness is not TWC. TWC was formed so that students of color and low-income students could deal with issues that concern them and their communities without being exoticized and tokenized. Harkness, as a community, serves a different purpose to its members. Do not equate the two co-ops.
The views you express in your letter represent only a small way in which racism takes place at Oberlin. However, it's up to everyone to decide whether they want to participate in perpetuating racist and classist ideals and actions or struggle to challenge them.
Sincerely, Atif Aziz, College sophomore, Kirti Baranwal, College senior, Sue Chen, College senior. Pavel DeJesus, College senior, Camalo Gaskin, College sophomore, Kevin Gilmore, College sophomore, Louisa E. Grillo-Chope, College senior, Merredith Holmes, College junior, Zaman Harris, College senior, Nicole Hurt, College senior, Kristen Keniray, College first year, Andrew "the asshole" LaValle, College senior, Barbara Lopez, College sophomore, Adriana Lopez-Young, Conservatory sophomore, Shilpa Mankikar, College senior, Louis Marcelo, College junior, Alison Minami, College sophomore, Anjali Pingle, College junior, Isabella Quintana, College junior, Priya Sangameswaran, College senior, Yuko Tao, College sophomore, Anupama Tantri, College senior, Jamie Trnka, College senior, Rebecca Wolfinger, College senior, Wynne Wu, Conservatory senior.
(The aforementioned students are all members of Third World Co-op)
So, we've all heard about the OC/OSCA rent contract. We've heard about how the initial struggle was overcome by the determination of the negotiation teams and of the OSCA membership. It seems as if, now, everyone should pretty much be happy. Residential Life and Services got the security they wanted, OSCA got the autonomy it wanted; what is left to resolve?
There is one point of contention remaining. It seems but a small point. Its impact one can guess only by gazing into a quartz crystal ball. The point is the interaction of the new multiple meal plan with the administration of OSCA/CDS assignment changes. The problem is, admittedly, technical and administrative but at bottom line comes down to dollars and cents.
The form of the problem is as follows. Students who are assigned to CDS have three meal plan options (if they are off-campus, two otherwise). In two of those options, students are allotted a set number of "flex-dollars" or "declining balance" that can be used in order to purchase food items, or items from the to-be-created Wilder Convenience Store. The number allotted is set for that semester. Billing within CDS works in the following way. If the CDS rate were, hypothetically speaking, $1,000, and if there were 10 weeks in the semester, students would be charged $100 for each week spent in CDS. In the past if a student were to transfer out of CDS into OSCA after week five, their account would be credited for $500 (the amount that corresponds to the number of weeks left in the semester). Flexdollars complicate this.
If in our hypothetical case students are allotted $200 of flex-dollars per semester, they could spend those flex dollars at any time. In the case that a student spent all or most of their flex dollars early in the semester, they would, in effect, be distributing the amount of the meal plan "spent" to early in the semester, while the billing is spread out evenly. If such a student were then to transfer into OSCA, the College loses cash. What does this mean for OSCA? Some form of restriction will be instituted so that transfers into OSCA will not cause the College to lose cash. It also means that these restrictions will be decided on unilaterally, during the summer, while OSCA students are safely away from campus. They will probably involve "freezing" transfers from CDS to OSCA that involve students partaking of a flex-dollar option after a certain point during the beginning of a semester.
There are alternatives to placing restrictions on OSCA, such as billing students switching into OSCA for extra flex-dollars spent in comparison to evenly-divided billing. However, such alternatives have been rejected by those "on high." That is, rejected by someone outside of Residential Life and Services.
What this means, in effect, is that CDS is may now compete with OSCA. The Multiple Meal Plan options will most likely exclude people (if they accept a flex-dollar option) from becoming OSCA members after a certain point after the beginning of each semester (probably after 4 weeks). Was this ever mentioned on the list of cons with regards to the multiple meal plan? Does it conflict with the tune that was told to the student body: that the multiple meal plan will not effect the operation of OSCA?
In any case, these unfortunate consequences of the multiple meal is due to the fact that it is being instituted rather hastily (a point that others have argued, convincingly). It is not simply the fault of Res. Life Staff, but it is evidence of lackluster communication skills on the part of all those involved in the development of the multiple meal plan.
The moral of the story is this: if you think you might want to be in OSCA, if you are on the waiting list, if you want to become part of the organization that exemplifies "Learning and Labor," if you want to choose responsibility over wasteful convenience, you should probably not choose a multiple meal option involving flexdollars.
Life is going to get more complicated around here with the institution of the multiple meal plan. The unfortunate thing is, life going to get more complicated for everyone: the students who eat in CDS, Res. Life Administrators, even OSCA members. Don't we all need another thing to think about?
As the semester rapidly draws to a close, this is perhaps a good time to reflect on our Oberlin education and - for the quarter of the campus who will be graduating in several weeks - to assess the value of the past four years here. A report released last month by the Carnegie Foundation gives the entire Oberlin community reason to congratulate itself on a job well done and gives graduating students reason to be optimistic about the challenges which lie ahead.
In late April, the Carnegie Foundation released the latest in its series of reports on the status of undergraduate education in America. This Report, which was prominently featured on the front page of USA Today and other news media, examined the quality of the education which undergraduates receive at America's 125 most prominent research universities. The conclusions of the study, though complex, can best be summarized with a quotation from the Report: "...[I]n the education of undergraduates, the record has been one of inadequacy, even failure. ...[U]niversities too often continue to behave with complacency, indifference or forgetfulness toward [undergraduates] whose support is vital to the academic enterprise. [Undergraduates] are the second-class citizens who are allowed to pay taxes but are barred from voting, the guests at the banquet who pay their share of the tab but are given leftovers." The Report goes on candidly to explain that "research grants, books, articles, papers and citations" are the currency by which the major American university measures its worth, and that "when students are considered, it is the graduate students that really matter."
A pretty damning assessment. The Report concludes- as many of us know from personal experience - that the major research universities are not a good place for undergraduates to find devoted teaching, hands-on research opportunities or close mentoring. While many of the 125 universities (which include the Ivy League and other universities with which Oberlin often compares itself) may offer the opportunity for a fine education, the institution itself plays an alarmingly minor role in guiding its undergraduates in that education. The "complacency, indifference and forgetfulness" with which universities treat undergraduates suggests a serious failure of the American university system. (A complete copy of the report is available on the web at http://notes.cc.sunysb.edu/Pres/boyer.nsf/webform. The authors welcome on-line comments on the Report at http://www.sunysb.edu/boyerreport)
What is most remarkable about the Carnegie Foundation report, however, is its "Ten Ways to Change Undergraduate Education." Written as a set of recommendations for revamping undergraduate education, it is essentially a description of how Oberlin educates undergraduates. The report suggests the importance of making research-based education standard. We do that. It emphasizes the importance of teaching freshpeople to ask questions not just learn facts. That sounds like the definition of Oberlin and the questioning minds which characterize the Oberlin personality. The report encourages the creation of seminars for first-year students, stresses the need for interdisciplinary courses and emphasizes the importance of cultivating a sense of community. Apparently we are well ahead of our university colleagues in these regards as well. Most of all, the report stresses the importance of teaching - and criticizes the major universities for ignoring teaching at the expense of research and hands-on work exclusively for graduate students. Here is where Oberlin especially shines. Although we all have our favorite (and less-than-favorite) professors, Oberlin students have come to take for granted the personal contact with faculty - whether in the classroom, over a beer at the Rat, early mornings at Java Zone or any of a dozen other places around the community. The Carnegie Foundation report should open our eyes to the realization that the committed teaching which is a hallmark of Oberlin is by no means universal and is, perhaps, the exception rather than the rule in American higher education.
Many of us have long believed that the best possible preparation for the real world of competitive professions and careers is the type of education which Oberlin offers: a highly supportive (but academically intense) community in which faculty and students teach and learn together in a spirit of mutual respect and mentoring. It is refreshing to get a vote of confidence from the leaders of America's research universities.
Copyright © 1998, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 126, Number 23, May 1, 1998
Contact us with your comments and suggestions.