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<p>And slightly diverting from the main topic of this thread to agree with this thought, I’d like to recommend Breakthrough Collaborative </p>
<p>[Welcome</a> to Breakthrough Collaborative](<a href=“http://www.breakthroughcollaborative.org/]Welcome”>http://www.breakthroughcollaborative.org/) </p>
<p>as such a program, one that is always in need of more peer volunteers.</p>
<p>Boy, Northstarmom. I couldn’t disagree more.</p>
<p>Bottom line: Some URMs need/want programs such as this. Some do not. I see no need to generalize. For instance, you wrote:</p>
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<p>Are you saying it is impossible that an URM going away to college for the first time in a predominately white environment might have some concerns about fit? </p>
<p>I say continue to offer these sorts of programs. Those who are interested can attend. Those who find it unnecessary or insulting can stay away. When the day comes that no one attends, we can then be confident that the programs are a waste of time.</p>
<p>"Are you saying it is impossible that an URM going away to college for the first time in a predominately white environment might have some concerns about fit? "</p>
<p>Of course, they have some concerns about fit. It’s a rare new college student of any race or background who doesn’t have concerns about fit. However, that doesn’t mean that the URM that you are describing needs a special program. </p>
<p>If the general orientation program is well organized, it will have opportunities for students of all kinds of backgrounds to have their concerns addressed. The program will do this by offering a variety of information, small group, large group activities, and opportunities for students to connect with each other including on an informal individual basis with older students who share their backgrounds.</p>
<p>There are plenty of students – not just URMs – who have special concerns about college. First generation college students; students who haven’t traveled much, yet are going to college far from home; students who come from alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional backgrounds; students with LDs; students with disabilities; students who come from very religious backgrounds and schools, and chose to go to mainstream colleges; poor students, etc.</p>
<p>" When the day comes that no one attends, we can then be confident that the programs are a waste of time."</p>
<p>There are plenty of URM students who will attend the special orientation programs because the college offered them, and the students figure that since the college offered the programs, they must need those programs.</p>
<p>I never felt disadvantaged or at risk until those programs were created. I’d grown up in an overwhelmingly white town where I integrated the high school, which by the time I graduated had only 5 black students out of 1,500 students.</p>
<p>I learned about the special orientations because my mom – who worked at the overwhelmingly white LAC in my town – went to a training session to help faculty/staff help black students at the LAC. The training was offered by a black woman who ran sme kind of special orientation, etc. program for black students at Cornell.</p>
<p>My mom returned from the training and told me that she had learned that “All blacks are disadvantaged.” When I heard that, I started laughing because since I came from a family professional family, and would be the 4th generation of my family to go to college, I didn’t feel disadvantaged at all.</p>
<p>But then, my mom told me how the woman had taught that blacks were disadvantaged because of how society treats them, etc. I started scrutinizing my life for disadvantages. When I went to a mainstream college – the first gen in my family to do that – I went with the fear that I would struggle due to race-based disadvantages. I had never thought that way before in my life. </p>
<p>Anyway, I think that there are plenty of excellent ways that one can help URMs orientate themselves to college without providing special programs for them. I truly think that any URM who can’t make it in a mainstream college without a special orientation needs to go to a HBCU or a college where there are large numbers of people of their race.</p>
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<p>Fine. I am not saying an orientation program is the only way to help some URMs feel comfortable or oriented. I am saying it is one way. </p>
<p>Regarding your own personal experience . . . suffice it to say that others may have a different experience. It would be wrong to force someone like you to attend such a program, just as it would be wrong to abolish such programs just because someone like you doesn’t want them.</p>
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<p>Oh, wow.</p>
<p>If someone needs a bit of help to adjust, they should just go get their education elsewhere? How about instead helping them make the transition as best we can, <strong>if they need or want such help?</strong> It sounds like you are saying that the message to someone trying to leave a segregated background should be that they don’t belong at the institution they are hoping to attend. I hope I am misunderstanding your position.</p>
<p>I fail to understand why folks can’t just live and let live without trying to impose their own narrow world view onto others who have different goals, needs and life experiences.</p>
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Exactly. </p>
<p>You think the programs are “insulting”? Fine. To each his own. </p>
<p>But personally, I can count on one hand the number of high-achieving black students I’ve gone to school with since kindergarten. I can’t be excited about meeting other smart minority students at my college’s orientation? Well, excuse me…</p>
<p>I agree with Northstarmom that these programs based on race have outlived their usefulness. I can’t wait for my own boomer generation to pass from the scene and stop pulling the strings that may have meant something in the context of 40 years ago.
Voluntary sessions offered for certain groups that might have practical value make sense- such as for internationals, first generation college students, etc. But to define someone’s needs based upon a race box checked? Isn’t this the boomer generation that said “I am a human being. Please don’t fold, bend, staple or mutilate”. How about respecting people as individuals?
Some people leave the race box blank on their applications. My daughter’s best friend has a good friend at Yale. Last names of Lee. A blond descendant of of Robert E. Lee. She was placed in an all-Asian admitted students group.</p>
<p>I’m really glad that some of you have moved on. Truly. However, I see my shining stars in the abysmal public school system here. The district and area is so polarized that short of going to a mall in the suburbs, these kids probably have had no real contact with any other races. They need to know there is a support group when (if) they attend college.</p>
<p>You are already pushing them out of their comfort zone. You don’t want them to have a security blanket? Are you sure they will feel comfortable with this new group of people? Especially if, where they come from these new groups have never made them feel comfortable before?</p>
<p>Frankly, at the end of the day of diversity, I like to kick back with my own. You say don’t force the programs. I say they serve a purpose. If the students have the option to go or not, let it go at that.</p>
<p>" someone needs a bit of help to adjust, they should just go get their education elsewhere? How about instead helping them make the transition as best we can, <strong>if they need or want such help?</strong> It sounds like you are saying that the message to someone trying to leave a segregated background should be that they don’t belong at the institution they are hoping to attend. I hope I am misunderstanding your position."</p>
<p>I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that if a URM student needs a special orientation program in order to be able to adjust to life at a mainstream college, they should go to a college like an HBCU.</p>
<p>My perspective comes from knowing that URMs have a history of being able to succeed in mainstream colleges despite being faced with such overt racism that the students had to sue to go to the mainstream colleges. My great uncle, for instance, in the early 1900s went from the segregated D.C. school system where he was a star student to Syracuse university where, because he was black, he wasn’t allowed to sleep in the dorm. He had to sleep in the room where a coal furnace was. He academically succeeded and went on to graduate from Howard’s dental school.</p>
<p>One of my friends was the first black student from Athens, Georgia to attend University of Georgia. She went there the second year it was integrated. Her parents were sharecroppers, and she was the first person in her family to graduate from high school. She eventually studied at the Sorbonne, got a doctorate in French, and now is a college professor.</p>
<p>I have every confidence that most URMs who go to mainstream colleges have the courage and skills to be able to handle that experience without needing a special orientation. They aren’t having their lives threatened because they are integrating a college. They aren’t having to have police escorts to go to class. It is extremely unlikely that they are the only URMs there and the campus lacks any URM faculty.</p>
<p>If they come from a low income, segregated background, they have to have remarkable determination, intelligence and social skills to have escaped that background. They needn’t be treated as if they are so fragile that they can’t handle going to a mainstream college.</p>
<p>Heck, my own husband was a first generation high school graduate who went to an overwhelmingly white LAC that was out of state and had only a handful of black students. He had grown up in inner city Chicago, and was the valedictorian of his high school, which was an integrated academic high school. He did fine in college, graduating with good grades and a prestigious post graduate fellowship. The social skills, motivation and intelligence that had helped him flourish despite growing up in the ghetto, helped him have a successful college experience and professional life.</p>
<p>Frankly, I think that the students who are URM, low income, first gen college who make it to college have personalities, grit and brains that would give them a great advantage at college – if colleges viewed those students as being potential role models for all students instead of viewing them as fragile, needy students who need to have their hands held to simply be able to graduate from the college.</p>
<p>As one of my college classmates who was as top administrator at Tulane’s Law School used to tell black students who were considering his school: “Other schools tell you that if you go there, you’ll be able to graduate. I tell you that if you come to Tulane, you can make law review.”</p>
<p>“I’m really glad that some of you have moved on. Truly. However, I see my shining stars in the abysmal public school system here. The district and area is so polarized that short of going to a mall in the suburbs, these kids probably have had no real contact with any other races. They need to know there is a support group when (if) they attend college.”</p>
<p>What about the shining stars who come from such school districts that aren’t URMs? </p>
<p>Also, if a shining star from your school district makes it into a mainstream college, they have a heckuva lot going for them – far more going for them in terms of character and brains than does the middle/upper class offspring of college educated professionals who pushed, prodded, and paid for tutoring so that the student could get to college.</p>
<p>I think a regular orientation program can include info that helps all of the students who come to a college. That can include break-out groups for, for instance, first generation college students. Just because a student is a URM, however, doesn’t mean they need to have a special orientation for URMs.</p>
<p>BTW, I have friends, and had students who came from the kind of schools that you described. I also have volunteered in those kind of schools. I am very familiar with such schools and with the strong characters of their students who are shining stars.</p>
<p>NorthstarMom:</p>
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<p>I suspect you mean well, but this is an awful thing to say. If an URM is nervous about the diversity at an elite institution and is worried about fitting in as part of a tiny percentage of URMs, then they should forget the elite college and instead should be steered to an HBCU?</p>
<p>If some 18-year-old kid is leaving her community and family for the first time in her life and feels she would like a part of her orientation to include contact with other minorities, then she doesn’t belong there at all? </p>
<p>So the only kind of minority kid who should attend a majority-white institution (like Harvard, Yale, Princeton etc.) is one who is already completely comfortable at a young age in such a setting?</p>
<p>You know, colleges have made tremendous progress in recuiting and including URMs. These URMs are not statistics; they are individuals. Some won’t need any help at all to adjust; they are the lucky ones. Some will need a lot of help, and some will never adjust. It is not always possible to predict from the outset which ones will not adjust well.</p>
<p>What we can do is offer as many opportunities and as much support as possible for URMs who want and need it. I hope such efforts continue so long as there are URMs who wish to take advantage of them. I hope these URMs are not pointed to the nearest HBCU – which was routine in past generations.</p>
<p>“I suspect you mean well, but this is an awful thing to say. If an URM is nervous about the diversity at an elite institution and is worried about fitting in as part of a tiny percentage of URMs, then they should forget the elite college and instead should be steered to an HBCU”</p>
<p>I’m not saying that at all. It’s normal for students of any race and background to be nervous before going to college. After all, it’s a major turning point in a student’s life and typically takes them away from familiar surroundings and parental oversight. That’s why colleges offer orientations.</p>
<p>That’s very different than being so concerned about college that you need to have a special orientation designed just for people of your race.</p>
<p>My point is that if a student really can’t make it in college without having a special race-based orientation, then the student should go to a college like an HBCU or a mainstream college with a large proportion of students of their race.</p>
<p>Frankly, I don’t think that most URMs who go to mainstream colleges have that level of anxiety. The ones that do tend to self select and go to HBCUs and similar schools (I know that not all students at HBCUs, etc. go because of fears about being in a predominantly white environment. Some go because they’ve spent their lives being in the minority and finally want to be surrounded by people of their own race/ethnicity). </p>
<p>The URMs I’ve known who go to mainstream colleges tend to have a very high level of confidence, independence, and good social skills. This has been true even of URMs who were first gen college or came from low income backgrounds. Sure, they might have had some concerns about the racial aspects of college, but these weren’t paralyzing types of concerns. Everyone has concerns about some aspects of college.</p>
<p>I’d be interested in hearing more from URM students here who are in or headed to mainstream colleges, and whether they have race-based concerns about their experiences in college.</p>
<p>In my opinion, just coming back from a huge black student program at a top 10 college, I think the program was so very annoying. It actually contributed to my distaste of the college b/c it seemed to point to how self-isolated the black students were from the rest of the campus. Even the person I stayed w/ (AKA my host) did not seem to hang out with non-blacks in her dorm. All the people on her floor who asked me who i was staying w/ said “whooo? huh?” when I told them. The fact that its nearly the end of her first year of college and she isnt well acquainted w/ any of the freshmen in her dorrm suggests that she, unlike me, did not make any attempt to get to know anyone else. I for one am more of an every-body kind of person, but personally, I can relate more to asians, whites, and immigrants than most blacks. thus, being at the black student weekend was a little akward for me. i met some cool people, but i also met some people i wouldn’t like to go to school w/. In fact, I skipped a few of the “black student weekend” meetings that were held. i spent that time talking to the white and asian ppl i met at my host’s dorms, talking to anyone of any race while i walked around the campus, etc. </p>
<p>Personally, until that weekend, the whole racial issue had never bothered me. I’m headed off to Princeton next year, and I’ve already been confronted by a Princeton alum giving me contacts to some black, wealthy ppl who live by P-ton. Apparently, they could be the “support system” i dont need…yet. Her action, although altruistic, made me want to scream at her. Once again, why do ppl think just because i’m black and going to an historically white ivy league school i need a “support system.” I know college is crazy and the students may be even crazier, but i know who i am and what i believe in. why isnt that enough, even now when america has its 1st black president? the whole idea that blacks need to be w/ other blacks to survive college, employment, life, or w/e is so antediluvian in the sense that it may have been necessary in the early 20th century, but it really isnt needed now.</p>
<p>"
If some 18-year-old kid is leaving her community and family for the first time in her life and feels she would like a part of her orientation to include contact with other minorities, then she doesn’t belong there at all?</p>
<p>I never said that. I’ve said that colleges should offer an orientation that addresses the various needs of students who are coming to the school. This can be done in one orientation that has speakers – faculty, staff, and students – representing a variety of races, ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds. The info about clubs can also represent the wide range of opportunities including clubs that may be of particular interest to URMs.</p>
<p>Certainly minorities should be included – as presenters, peer mentors, as well as incoming students - - at the general orientation. There can be break-out groups on a variety of subjects such as how to handle college if you’re a first generation student, moving far from home, are shy, etc. It’s not just URMs who have concerns about college.</p>
<p>Yes, I definitely agree with the OP to a certain extent…I think that it’s just strange for colleges to have days just for “Admitted Students of Color” or something of the like. I was reading the Duke board awhile back and invites were going out for some special Hispanic visit weekend or something and that just seemed like total segregation. Sure, it’s a good way to be with others of similar backgrounds, but it also causes segregation when those people actually get to campus…for example, I read a WashU student review of the school’s “Multicultural Weekend” and she was saying that a lot of the people who attended the event found their future roommates, forged friendships, etc., meaning when they got to campus the next year, self-segregation ensued. </p>
<p>Now, I went to UW-Madison’s “Admitted Students of Color” day and, though it was nice to see how diverse our class was and what UW offered to minority groups, I like the approach of a place like Stanford much better. I am going to the Admit Weekend at Stanford and EVERYONE is invited. I got a very nice letter and informational brochure from Stanford’s liaison to Native applicants and students and she welcomed us as well as laid out a few special Native American events during Admit Weekend.
haha. Sorry this is so long, but I think you get the general idea…:D!</p>
<p>That Duke event was very enjoyable. I felt it offered a chance to see what was available both from the school in general and Hispanic/Latino organizations on campus. And to Northstarmom and all the other people against these things, I enjoyed the events and I will not go to an HBCU and wouldn’t like to go to a Latino College even if they existed. I’ve been to many multicultural programs such as ones at Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, and Duke and they’ve all been enlightening and reassuring to me coming from a place where I was pretty much alone as a Hispanic in my classes(IB).</p>
<p>monroylobo,
No one has said that the multicultural events are not enjoyable. I’ve been to them – as an applicant. What some people – including me-- have said is that they aren’t necessary and may even be harmful by implying that URMs need special coddling in order to succeed in college. </p>
<p>I think that orientations can be useful to everyone-- not just URMs. I also think that info for URMs, first gen college students, and students from a variety of backgrounds and with a variety of concerns can be included in the college’s general orientation. This includes having faculty, staff, and upperclassmembers who come from a variety of backgrounds. One can learn about things like ethnicity and race-base organizations as part of a general orientation that exposes students to the wide range of activities available on campus.</p>
<p>As a URM, I think programs like that are a bit of a turn-off, and I’m coming from a place where 95% of the people are also Hispanic. I embrace my culture, but one of the things I am looking forward to most about college is the diversity I could not find back here at home. I don’t want universities to separate me into a different group just because of my ethnicity.</p>
<p>During my junior year, I received a letter from a college that started off in Spanish. I almost emailed the college to express my slight frustration. Now that we’re in April, a student attending a university I was admitted to called my house recently. I did not answer, and the student asked the person who did answer the phone if my primary language was Spanish. I thought this was profiling me a little too much.</p>
<p>I think programs like this can be useful to a certain extent. I like the idea of having an hour or so where admitted students can break up into a group of their choice within the larger admitted students program where all students are invited. An entire program dedicated to only minorities is a little too extreme, IMO.</p>