First-year Student Becomes Disillusioned Already

To the Editors:

When I flew to Oberlin as one of about twenty APA prospies last fall, I was completely enthralled by the warm welcome and overwhelming support given to Asian students by the college. After having been here for almost a month (though it hardly feels like it) Oberlin is beginning to feel more like home and less like summer camp. As a result, I’m beginning to feel somewhat disillusioned with the state of the college’s affairs.
During my visit as a prospie, I was most impressed with the large number of minority faculty members that took time to eat lunch with the fly-ins one afternoon. Certainly the combination of the attractive new science building, the general atmosphere of the college, and Jill Medina’s active recruitment efforts contributed to my desire to attend Oberlin, but what sold me from the beginning was the college’s immensely successful Asian studies program offered at such a relatively small college. Over the past few weeks, I’ve made some rather disappointing discoveries about the true state of APA support on campus, and I must say that I’m feeling rather confused and a little bit tricked.
Obviously Oberlin has everything it claimed to have when I first visited: An active Asian studies club (AAA), a large number of minority faculty members, two relatively new positions designed specifically for Asian studies, and a handful of other active Asian groups. Nobody bothered to let me know, however, that the very existence of AAA comes from a long standing struggle to obtain Asian studies, which might not even exist had students not worked long and hard to bring them to Oberlin. I was never let in on the well-kept secret of the less than optimal working conditions for minority faculty, nor did anyone bother to mention the embarrassingly low retention rate of Asian faculty members here. It’s interesting how different a perspective can be when you’re only given half the facts.

What has surprised me the most, however, has been the controversy surrounding Professor Charfauros McDaniel’s dismissal, which happened only last year. Not having been an Oberlin student last year, I am only barely acquainted with the situation, however I do have some questions of my own regarding her case. For one, why was her position one of two that students had to fight for, and not one that the college inherently thought to create? It seems like much of the progressive multicultural movement at Oberlin has come to exist as a result of student activism, rather than from college initiative, which is what I was led to believe when I first visited. I also can’t help but wonder why Oberlin has decided to put itself at odds with AAAS, a national Asian American organization.

If the college really supports Asian American studies as it claims to, it should seek to resolve some of these internal messes, because in the end, it is we, the students that will suffer the most from the politics surrounding many of the controversial issues that exist right now. Although I’m certainly glad I decided to attend Oberlin, I’m not entirely sure if my original reasons for coming here are as solid as I thought they were.

–Marianne Tassone
College First-year