@Center From yesterday’s post:
“I thought about transferring from Colby many times, and who knows, I may. However, There is something about my department, The good people that I have met, and especially all of the exciting things in the course catalog that make me not want to leave. However, I’ve had to realize that I do not have to suffer in order to get a good education.”
I doubt OP has formulated more of a plan than what was posted a day ago.
@doschicos thanks–I missed that!
Do you know these women to be mediocre in some substantive sense?
Sorry that your experience has been less than stellar at Colby. As @gardenstategal has pointed out, the school, like many other New England schools is working on diversity issues, but has more work to do. Sometimes with POSSE, kids do get placed in schools where the fit isn’t perfect. It’s more like the organization chooses for you, vs you choosing the school that is perfect for you. And of course, the free ride is impossible to turn down, so some POSSE kids end up at the wrong place. I don’t doubt that you have experienced what you say you have. But you do paint a picture of Colby with an incredibly broad brush, so there likely are many Colby kids who have found a quite different experience. And please be aware that when you label white girls as mediocre, you are subscribing to the same behavior that you so vehemently criticize in your post. I toured Colby this summer. Our white tour guide did in fact point out and speak to the Pugh center. I didn’t come away, thinking Colby was vastly diverse, but I did come away with the feeling that it was a tolerant place.
I like Colby. It has a lot of great things about it. It offered my first student a Presidential Scholarship and my second student a research sholarship. Neither accepted and went elsewhere, but there’s a lot to love about Colby.
Still, I’m glad the OP is sharing her experience, and for her it’s the only one that matters. To me, it speaks of what at least one minority is experiencing, and what minorities can experience in any community, so we have to be sensitive to this issue.
My two students were in the minority growing up at their local public schools, in a white affluent community. They were often the only Asians in their classrooms. There was open discrimination being called Chopsticks and Dumpling by peers and subtle discrimination, not bein invited to things. In the end, they both chose diverse communities in boarding schools for high school and were so much happier. My oldest chose Berkeley with a large Asian community for college, wanting to see more like herself. There’s a lot to be said for diversity and shaping diverse communities and I am sure Colby is trying to do just that.
@sweetthang13542
You really should also voice your concerns to your POSSE coordinator. That can be a way to make some change happen
I am currently applying to other schools. I have yet to decide whether or not to leave since I am so far ahead in my college career.
Believe me, I have voiced my concerns to everyone. I am quite close to many deans and other members of the administration. POSSE is just a means to help students get to campus and support system while we are there. They can’t do much expect to listen to our complaints and try to help us cope.
I know it may seem like what I’m saying is a vast generalization, but the Colby community is VERY small and I have heard just about every opinion. I know that the tour guides never come into the Pugh center because sometimes I have been in there ALL DAY and seen numerous groups walk by, or stand just outside to explain it; only coming inside when I get up to usher them in. I have friends who are tour guides, and they are supposed to go inside the Pugh Center, but many guides elect not to.
There have actually been campaigns to find out why White students, especially White males don’t come into the pugh center and the common answer is that they don’t feel like they belong ( because they are White, or because they feel like they are not welcome.) Many classes hold sessions in the Pugh Center and this is the ONLY time you will see many White students in the space, or when they are having some sort of special talk. However never on a casual basis.
Last year, we had a WOCA/MOCA (women of color/men of color)mixer which pretty much every Black and latinx student attended, and we talked about how things at Colby related to us: hookup culture, tokenism, etc. These things are all straight out of their mouths. There were only about 30 or 40 of us at the time, so it was very easy for us to do them. The Men of Color talked about how they were fetished and many White girls would brag about hooking up with them to their friends, or how they were treated as sexual objects because the girls had “Always wanted to be with an (insert minority race here).” You have to understand that there are ONLY a few of us on campus. It’s not I have a lot to choose from.
Nothing I say is an assumption. It’s based of of living at Colby for the past two years, talking with hundreds of people, and experiencing a vast array of things.
@wisteria100 I never said that all white women are mediocre. I was trying to highlight the disparities in ability to hookup/find romance on Colby’s campus between white women and women of color. It’s as if they have access to the culture ONLY really because they are White, which is true. Women of color have to go through so many checks and balances.
@bjkmom As you may have noticed while a lot of my post was negative, I did point out many positive views of Colby. They have money to support student work, the faculty is amazing, the food, the opportunities for growth etc. While I am POSITIVE that many others have had different experiences at Colby, I know that my sentiment is shared by a majority of the minority student population. We talk about it in our club meetings, around campfires, in our dorm rooms, etc. Every year we have a Posse Plus retreat. Last year’s topic was Us vs. Them, these were the main things brought up. The conference was attended by 100+ students. Also, be aware that my post is targeted towards certain people.
@Reader1 Colby is 90% rich white kids from the Northeast who have gone to prep-school for their entire lives. Colby was built for those people, so of course, most of them enjoy Colby and have the BEST time of their lives. However, this post is speaking to the 5% who Colby really does not cater to. Also, did you happen to talk a look at Colby’s acceptance and retention rates for Black students? Latinx students? Native American students? The stats are MUCH different.
@sweetthang13542 I really hope you stay at Colby. You have
terrific leadership abilities. Not many people can say they were president of their class, followed by being president of a major organization. Colby needs many more people like you, not less. But if you do leave, that college will be lucky to have you.
‘Believe me, I have voiced my concerns to everyone. I am quite close to many deans and other members of the administration’
So, what kind of response do you receive when you voice your concerns?
“Also, did you happen to talk a look at Colby’s acceptance and retention rates for Black students? Latinx students? Native American students? The stats are MUCH different.”
Do you have the stats that you could share? I wasn’t able to find them online.
@doschicos Whenever there is a problem at Colby, whether that’s a racist event happening on campus, the KKK coming to town, or Trump being elected President, the administration always holds campus-wide conversations. Basically, open forums for people to voice their concerns, they may also have a few professors speak. While speaking about the issue is often helpful, nothing every really goes past this stage. They talk the talk, but they don’t talk the walk. You can’t just talk about the issue, you have to consistently try to fight against it.
Here are some retention facts that I had, but they only show up to 2013. I remember seeing updated facts somewhere around Colby…
https://www.colby.edu/administration_cs/ir/factbook2013/upload/Grad_rates.pdf
This data is probably what prompted so much more of a commitment to inclusion on campus as it is, as you note dated, reflecting classes that came to campus 2008 to 2012.
What are the actions you would like to see members of the community taking? I ask this sincerely because many young people (and not so young people too!) I talk with are very unhappy with any number of things but also feel that the traditional means of action are ineffective. Conversation, while not enough for you, is generally a good starting place. For some, it’s enough.
Although it’s hard to know what this means and why it might be happening I noticed some things when I cross-referenced Colby’s 2013 factbook (the link in @sweetthang13542’s post #36) and Colby’s latest Common Data Set.
sweetthang13542’s link does show a 15 point difference between the 4-year graduation rates of back and white students as of 2013. That’s fairly substantial. The difference drops quite a bit in the 5-year and 6 year graduation rates, narrowing to less than a 1% difference in the 6-year rate. It’s not clear from the data if this is because black students were taking longer to graduate or because graduation rates for black students in more recent incoming classes plummeted. (The 6-year rate uses the class that entered in 2003-7, the 4-year rate uses 2005-9.)]
The number of black students rose pretty steadily between the incoming classes of 2003 and 2008 (49-50-56-74) according to the factbook but the school lists only 49 black students in their 2015-16 CDS. I don’t know if this has to do with differences in reporting or a true drop in the numbers of black/AA students. Colby’s 2015-16 incoming class had only 12 black students according to the CDS
@sweetthang13542 - It’s difficult to open up about concerns regarding race / sexual orientation / income inequality, and I appreciate your commitment to answering questions and remaining active in the conversation.
There are some good comments above that point out the societal nature of the issues, and the culture on campuses everywhere. I have daughters attending school right now, and the social differences around dating and parties from 25 years ago is amazing. Your age group is dealing with issues and pressures that anyone over 30 truly struggles to understand, as you come of age having competed the past decade for likes, friends, votes, and other passive-aggressive social networking scoring achievements. I do not think Colby is isolated in these issues, but they may be more intensely obvious. Some thoughts on Colby / Maine…
As the information session leader at Bowdoin said: “Maine is white”. A person of color will always be the minority in any social environment in Maine unless the event is organized by a minority. You had to know that going in. The issue is around openness and integration. Do the white people want you there to be part of the community; to share and learn from the others’ perspective, or are you there to push the statistics listed in this thread?
Colby’s ascension in the rankings over the past few years isn’t an accident. The new President went out and hired the Head of Recruitment Advertising from Stanford to drive applications. They changed application policies and pushed hard for numbers. It has worked, but I have wondered about the people they are admitting. I theorize that they are overwhelmingly focused on scores, and that Colby has climbed to higher respectability on the scores of students who generally didn’t get in elsewhere, but had scores that improved Colby’s standing. In a blanket generalization that I’m sure will offend all Colby parents (not intended), other schools were looking for those who would be good fits for their community, while Colby focused primarily on stats. When that happens, you will end up with a high percentage of above average intellect students who performed well on the SAT/ACT. That population is overwhelmingly affluent and white. Add Maine to the mix, and the cards are stacked against diversity and inclusion. As mentioned, I don’t think this is a Colby issue, but it might be the location that has the “perfect storm” of attributes to generate your frustration (and this thread).
My last comment is something that we as a family discussed a great deal. If you are truly looking for integration, the smaller the environment the more likely the opportunities for a more open community. This holds true for all organizations: colleges, the workplace, your community. Your description of the Pugh Center is an example. When there is a critical mass of a minority group, they bond together socially. That limits interaction across the groups, as those inside the minority reinforce their isolation from the masses, while the masses assume “everything is OK” since the minority group has “found their peers”. The micro-aggressions and assumptions fly…and the integration you assumed would accompany college never happens. In a smaller community, the likelihood that you will interact with other backgrounds (IMO) increases. Flagship schools always champion their diversity, and I contend their integration is less than smaller schools.
As a junior, I would assume you will stay the course and graduate from Colby. I would suggest you continue to look for opportunities to share your experiences with the majority, so they can consider their own actions and how they might impact others. Thanks for sharing, and good luck.