I wonder how far some posters intend to speculate. Or use their own words to blow this up into some scornful thread.
And about race, again. Imo, lately, some too quick to bring up racism as a motivator. Again, pointing fingers. Including, “It’s not me, it’s you.”
Ironically, who here has tried to incorporate other perspectives into their interpretation?
All sorts of colleges have LLCs. Yup, some down to ethnic id. Take a deeper look.
Among Syracuse’s Learning Communities are the three tagged as Cultural Exploration & Diversity Learning Communities:
Indigenous Living Learning Community
LGBTQ+ Learning Community, and
Multicultural Living-Learning Community
http://lc.syr.edu/join-a-learning-community/lc-choices/cultural-diversity-learning-communities.html
AFAICT any student can join one of these residential communities, although obviously they’re likely to be more popular among some demographics than others. That’s the way I’ve seen special interest communities work at other schools.
@lookingforward now I just click on your link and see what you meant. It’s a lot different than the link UCB shared in which one of the demands was to add “same race” check box, period.
I agree with you, it doesn’t even look much about race at this point. SU students just want to have what other schools have already.
UMass Amherst gets even more specific in the groupings it allows for. Amherst College has Theme Communities. Look for it. And for any regulations that these comunities are open to others for sharing in various ways.
Some colleges get silly. A number will allow same range of majors to house together. You need to check whether these include fresjmen or just other years.
And not jump to conclusions. Certainly not based on one article in a school paper (even if a college is well known for journalism,) by a new student. Ok?
https://www.syracuse.com/syracuse-university/2019/11/syracuse-chancellor-kent-syverud-signs-list-of-student-demands-with-3-edits.html is an article about the Syracuse chancellor agreeing to the protesters’ demands, except for three edits. One of the edits is a red line through “identities” in the one about roommate assignment; the article says that “Early during protests, the students’ list suggested a ‘same race’ option during roommate selection”, so “identities” was probably meant to refer to the same thing in a more indirect way (or at least the chancellor and other administrators and lawyers believed that is what it meant and decided it was legally questionable).
https://www.syracuse.com/syracuse-university/2019/11/notagainsu-a-timeline-of-racist-incidents-at-syracuse-university.html is a timeline that may help with the back story.
I believe part of the college educational experience is to offer young adults the ability to operate within and successfully navigate a diverse environment. Much like the realities of life itself.
Bad roommates happen all the time. If this includes any hints of boorish and racist behavior, it’s a RA issue and housing officials pronto.
However, cultural groups, clubs and friend groups are open for all to join and self select.
I think the idea of cross referencing interests and habits (sleep times and cleanliness) are important for someone you will be living with for a few months.
“I believe part of the college educational experience is to offer young adults the ability to operate within and successfully navigate a diverse environment. Much like the realities of life itself.”
In real life it is very very seldom that one must live within the same four walls with people they do not choose. This is not a life skill one needs. Life skills one does need: Work with diverse people not of ones choosing, co-exist in a larger community ( including an apartment complex and all public places…stores, parks, restaurants, entertainment venues etc…
This doesn’t mean there isn’t some value in living with people even in the same room who you are very different than you. I mean only that this isn’t something likely to arise ( not never but very unlikely for most) and shouldn’t be grouped with the “ you won’t be able to avoid this in the real world so you might as well get used to it” things.
You might not sleep over night. But most adults spend much of our lives in four walls or cubes or work spaces for the equivalent of time each day. Surrounded by people of all types.
Ultimately this is the point of the collegiate exercise in reality for the vast majority.
“You might not sleep over night. But most adults spend much of our lives in four walls or cubes or work spaces for the equivalent of time each day”
Work spaces where one is being paid to be there and has expectations for behavior and your home where you are entitled to be at your most comfortable and relaxed are in my view completely and totally unrelated venues.
I agree with @privatebanker-
The whole point of diversifying colleges is to have students interact with others different from themselves.
In freshman year, students should live in dorms designed to be a microcosm of the college community. These should be an antidote to tribalism, not an extension of it. Interactions with people different from themselves should be a natural part of daily living.
Individual (and hopefully rare) instances of unkind behavior that target an individual based on identity should be dealt with according to the school’s policies.
Our society should not give up on the ideals of integration for which so many fought through the years.
In countries where military service is mandatory, this can be the case. Or for those who volunteer for military service (granted, only a small percentage of people in the US these days).
Also, students who attend boarding high schools may live in double rooms with assigned roommates. Granted, this is uncommon, but boarding high schools are often considered desirable and elite.
College students need not attend colleges where living in the dorms with roommates is mandatory for any part of the attendance. Many colleges do not have such a requirement, and many colleges have little or no dorm housing anyway (most college students commute from where they lived before attending college).
Also, most colleges do allow mutually chosen roommates, so a student who knows someone else heading to the same college may arrange a mutual choice to avoid assigned roommates.
So someone going to college but does not want to have an assigned roommate have many ways of avoiding that (attending college that does not require living in the dorms, choosing a known roommate, etc.).
You think that “students who look like them” means the same eye color? Nose shape?
^This was in reference to a larger living situation, not specific roommates.
Yeah I am confused – so are these students saying it is okay or even preferable for them to request to only room with another black student? I mean, can you imagine the outrage if white students asked for that option?
I think the difference is that if you’re black the chances of having a black roommate or even a black neighbor on either side is small. The chance of getting a white roommate if you’re white is better than even and you’re pretty much guaranteed to have a couple of white students as neighbors.
According to the Common Data Set black students make up only 6.4% of Syracuse students. That means a black student could find him or herself the only black student in their hall. Again, I see no evidence that students are asking to pick their roommates by race, just that they want more and better supported learning/living communities, allowing students to opt to live in a more diverse environment than they might get through random housing selection.
https://www.syracuse.com/syracuse-university/2019/11/syracuse-chancellor-kent-syverud-signs-list-of-student-demands-with-3-edits.html says that the protesters’ demands originally included being able to specify wanting same race roommates, but a later version obfuscated that by using the word “identities” instead.
The Syracuse chancellor agreed to all of the protesters’ demands except for three edits, one of which was to red line out “identities”, which he and the lawyers thought was legally unsound (the linked article has a link to the latest version of the protesters’ demands with the edits in red).
Didn’t have that option at the diverse UC Riverside back in the day and am glad I didn’t. As a Caucasian growing up in a homogeneous “white bread” town without much exposure to other races, then suddenly thrown into a diverse college environment with Black, Asian, Arabic, and Hispanic roommates (as well as a Caucasian) it helped me become more open minded while seeing other perspectives on things which enhanced my maturity in the process of growing up.
“Ultimately this is the point of the collegiate exercise in reality for the vast majority.”
The vast majority of kids in college are not in dorms, as ucbalumnus points out, they’re in commuter colleges or community colleges, this residential college experience is maybe 40% of the college going public.
Anyway this is not an easy issue, adults can easily say, you have to live in a diverse world and college should prepare you for that. However adjusting to college is tough, and if a kids want someone of a similar background or race to help with the adjustment, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Is anyone actually looking at this from the kids’ point of view? Not sure on that.
What their parents may say versus what they actually do in this respect are not necessarily the same:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/08/28/author-discusses-her-new-book-how-white-children-develop-ideas-about-race
Also, when high school students experience being members of a minority group stereotyped as lower performing, it gets noticed, such as a student saying “I’ve gotten a lot of feeling like I’m not taken seriously because I’m a [minority group] girl”, and some minority group parents trying to move their kids to other schools to escape what they see as a problem:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e014/0ac9825231b9147372b6bb780a4b5eaaf9fe.pdf