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(12/08/04 12:00pm)
An unknown person tried to make a statement about race at the College when he or she recently glued small circular mirrors over the faces of students on the newly re-rendered signs outside the construction site for the new library.
After about a week, however, the mirrors were removed from the sign.
The action came just a few weeks after the College placed stickers of minority students on the sign to reflect racial diversity on campus.
Jerusalem Howard, director of Equity and Diversity, whose office was responsible for the addition of the minority students stickers on the sign, said he did not consider the placement of the mirrors on the sign as vandalism and seeks no punitive actions against the person responsible for the action.
"I would like to contact this person to harness their creativity," Howard said, "and ask them to sit on a taskforce to address inclusion as it relates to signage on campus." Once created, this taskforce will be part of the Human Relations Advisory Council.
Pat Coleman-Boatwright, director of College and Community Relations, said she isn't aware of any ongoing investigations on the matter. "It could be considered vandalism, but there was not a lot of malicious intent, just someone making a statement."
"I think it was an interesting, creative commentary on how people see each other on campus," Coleman-Boatwright said. "We need to recognize there are different faces on this campus."
"I think it was a creative way to poke fun at the situation," Steven Hirt, sophomore art major, said. "I know I laughed at the mirrors when I heard about it. Since needing to re-render part of the picture was an attempt to represent the true profile of the student body, why not take it a step further in actually reflecting what the students look like."
"I definitely think it was an act of vandalism," Vincent Gironda, sophomore accounting major, said. "Whether they were trying to send out a positive or negative message doesn't matter. They still defaced property that wasn't theirs and, to me, that's vandalism."
Howard explained that representing diversity on campus is very important because "TCNJ is about preparing leaders for the future, and they must be able to deal with different people after college." According to him, "We must go beyond the accepted, and challenge ourselves to understand and respect different perspectives."
Howard also said representing diversity at the College is in accordance with the College's "Core Beliefs."
According to the College's Web site, one of these beliefs is that "the College's social, cultural and intellectual life is enriched and enlivened by diversity."
The sign outside the library construction site will be part of a new exhibit in Brower Student Center.
This exhibit, created by the office of Equity and Diversity, is called the Monthly Student Organization Cultural Exhibit.According to Howard, this program "allows diverse student organizations the opportunity to provide a weeklong celebration of their uniqueness to the student body by displaying information in the student center."
The exhibit will be on display in January.
A new survey has also been created to gauge student and faculty opinion on diversity and inclusiveness on campus.
This and other information regarding diversity on campus is available at tcnj.edu/~include.
(11/10/04 12:00pm)
Last summer, Chanis Brown, freshman open options major in the school of music, walked by the library construction site on campus everyday and noticed the sign that features an artist's rendition of the new library failed to include any minority students.
Last July, Brown brought the problem to the attention of a guest speaker in her Race, Class and Gender course taught by Professor Jan Nielsen. The guest speaker was Dr. Jay Howard, director of Equity and Diversity.
After three weeks and considering all options, Howard worked with the office of Campus Planning and the sign was re-rendered to include several minority students.
After being contacted by Howard, project Manager/Architect Joan Fasulo-Harris asked the original artist to make adjustments to the sign that would include minorities.
The solution was to recreate a graphic that would fit within the frame and use adhesive to put two minority students in the front of the library, where the space had previously been empty.
Howard said the other options the College could have taken included tearing down the sign completely or simply doing nothing.According to Fasulo-Harris, the total cost of the chosen solution was approximately $800.
Katrina Wong, president of the Asian American Association at the College was surprised by the incident.
"I would be disappointed at the College if I saw the sign over the summer, since the school stressed a lot on inclusion and diversity on campus, yet they would allow such a sign to be posted," she said. It is common sense to include everyone in signs that represent the entire campus."
However, Wong did give the College some credit, saying, "The College did listen to the students' responses and changed the sign to include minorities."
"In 20 years in industry I've seen many incidents like this come up and absolutely nothing ever happens" to fix the problem, Howard said. In this case "my office has done everything we can do to address this issue of inclusion."
The office of Equity and Diversity is charged with the responsibility of investigating Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) complaints and creating an inclusive environment.
Inclusion, Howard said, "means to make sure that all students and faculty are a part of the fabric of the College community."
Throughout the summer, Nielsen stayed in touch with her class and updated it on the progress of fixing the sign outside the construction site. "For us, we're looking at this solution as a win," Nielsen said.
Nielsen said he believes this incident shows that "average people can affect change when they notice issues of inclusion." Although she does not think the absence of minorities was malicious, Nielsen notes that people can be educated and avoid oversights such as these in the future.
As far as the College avoiding these incidents in the future, Fasulo-Harris said, "we are going to try to be more conscious, aware and inclusive and may run it by Dr. Howard next time."
"I think the College made a wise decision when they included minorities on the sign," Jocelyn Charlon, president of Union Latina, said. "I actually can't believe that minorities were excluded to begin with."
Also in the works, Howard's office is putting together a Delphi Panel to discuss the topic of inclusion. The panel would be comprised of faculty members, staff and students.
Howard said among other topics, the Delphi Panel would be charged with analyzing how the College's toughening admission standards would affect racial diversity on campus and come up with possible solutions.
The office of Equity and Diversity has also instituted a new program called the Student Organization Inclusion Awareness Program.
According to Howard, this program will allow diverse student organizations on campus to have a weeklong celebration by displaying information about their uniqueness in Brower Student Center. Such student organizations include the Black Student Union, Uni?n Latina, and the Jewish Student Union.
(10/28/03 12:00pm)
Due to leadership problems, the Student Government Association's (SGA) phone directory is not expected to reach students for another month.
According to SGA President Christina Puglia, normal procedure calls for the SGA president to put together the directory, called "The Little Black Book," over the summer and for it to reach students by the second week of the semester.
Puglia said this process was slowed down when former president Nadia Gorski resigned last July.
According to Puglia, when she took the position, she could not get to the task on time.
Puglia also pointed to a difficult publishing process as an additional cause of the delay. The process calls for using specific computer file types when sending to the publisher.
She said a final copy is expected to be sent to the publishing company, University Directories, within the next week. This company publishes 129 directories for colleges and organizations across the nation.
"The Little Black Book" conveniently features the names, e-mail addresses and extensions of students, professors and the administration. It also contains the phone numbers of local restaurants.
Jen Laks, sophomore political science major, appreciates "The Little Black Book" because, "a lot of the numbers I needed - the gym, career services, and other extensions are located right on the cover."
According to Liz Ricketts, sophomore English major, "the absence of the directory this year has made group work and group assignments very hard to do."
Puglia said she apologizes to students for the delay.
To prevent a similar holdup in the future, Puglia intends on making the job book, which is handed down from one president to another, much clearer.
Puglia said one change in this year's black book is that it will not list students' residence hall addressses. This is to comply with the College's change in its privacy policy.
Director of Records and Registration, Frank Cooper, cited safety concerns for students to why the College does not allow addresses to be made public any longer.
Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, schools may disclose, without consent, "directory" information such as a student's name and telephone number.
However, the College's new policy no longer defines addresses as part of its definition of "directory" information.