LGBTU
Criticizes Dyes Decision to Cut MRC Interns
To
the Editors:
Nancy
Dyes recent decision to cut all college interns including
the four MRC community coordinator positions is distressing,
especially at a college that markets itself on multiculturalism
and progressiveness. Though the administration has bowed to pressure
and stated that the MRC positions will be temporarily extended for
one year, the move reveals a lack of understanding of the concerns
of students of color and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
(LGBT) students.
The four MRC coordinator positions (Africana, APA, Latino/a, and
LGBT) are the only formal, communityspecific support structure
that Oberlin offers LGBT students and students of color. The interns
offer individual guidance, support for events and organizing, and
many other functions that could not be maintained with a reduced
staff.
The MRC coordinators provide students of oppressed groups with someone
from their community whose sole job is supporting them. This role
cannot be adequately filled by someone without a community-specific,
full-time administrative position.
Administrators have suggested that LGBT professors and professors
of color could pick up the slack in terms of providing support;
this is a mistake. These professors are already overworked, supporting
and counseling students of oppressed groups in addition to their
teaching duties. In addition, students are not always aware of professors
who are willing to talk to them, nor are they necessarily comfortable
talking to the professors who make themselves available.
It would also be a mistake to replace the four community coordinators
with two positions one for gender/sexuality and another for
race/ethnicity as has also been suggested by the administration.
In addition cutting an already overworked staff, this could create
the problem of hiring people who were under-qualified to support
all the populations to which they were responsible. A straight-identified
woman in charge of sexuality/gender concerns for the
MRC, for example, would likely be unable to address the full needs
of LGBT students. Even if she were formally educated in LGBT
studies, this could not substitute for the experience of being
LGB or T. The same problem, of course, would exist for the person
in charge of race/ethnicity concerns, as they would
likely be similarly unable to address the needs of students from
every marginalized racial group on campus.
Students, then, should not be placated by the one-year extension;
rather, we should push to permanently keep community-specific coordinator
positions, strengthen the MRC, and improve resources for LGBT students
and students of color on campus. Ways of doing this include making
the community coordinator positions into Assistant Deans, hiring
a full-time Native American Community Coordinator, hiring and retaining
underrepresented faculty, and hiring full-time professors for the
Comparative American Studies department (for a full list of proposals
by students involved in this campaign, email savemrc2002@hotmail.com).
Finally, LGBTU asks the administration to put in writing their decision
to keep the MRC interns for another year, and to promise to include
students in the decision-making process. These issues are too important
to be decided without student input, either in closed meetings or
during school breaks and exam periods. The administration must hear
our call: save the MRC and strengthen resources on campus for LGBT
students, students of color, and other oppressed groups.
Peter Meredith
College senior
April Gentile-Miserandino
College first-year
LGBTU Co-Chairs
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