Education: Challenges & Perspectives – Workshop 3B: Inter-Racial Relationship Enhancement

Betty Lee Sung:

Let’s get started because our time was cut short by the last session. It seems that every session is so lively and spirited that people don’t want to leave, which is a wonderful thing. I think our conference is going alone very well, thank you for coming. I am Professor Betty Lee Sung, I am chair of the Asian American Asian Research Institute. This is our second conference. This one is on education: challenges and perspectives.

This panel is on inter-group racial relations. We have a number of very good speakers. One of our speakers is Vice Chancellor Otis Hill. He is Vice Chancellor for Student Development and Enrollment Management at Central CUNY. He was previously at Queens Borough Community College, Vice President of Student Affairs. We asked him what he was going to do. He organized a very lively discussion. He brought along four students representing four colleges and four ethnicities. I am going to let Vice Chancellor Hill introduce them.

Otis Hill:

Thank you, Dr. Sung. As you notice here, there are three, Richard is somewhere on the way. Very pleased to be back for the second conference. But rather than I summarize and speak about the relationship on campus, why don’t we go to the experts, the students who are currently enrolled and actively involved, and let them tell us.

CUNY students represent some 196 countries of birth, and collectively speak over 170 native languages. Almost half of our students are from outside of the mainland, and half are not native speakers. Among the four major ethnic groups in fall 2000, our data shows that the Asian students constituted 14% of the undergraduate population of 178,000. Black student constituted 31.5%, Hispanic student 25.8% and White students 29%. At the graduate level, Asian students are 11.3% of the 19,000 that are enrolled, Blacks are 17.9%, Hispanics are 12.6%, and White students are 58%.

So just wanted to give you a sense of the breakdown in these various institutions. Today’s dialogue with students will allow us to briefly evaluate the state of inter-group relations. I think it is important to get a sense of where we are currently, before we can talk about enhancing relationships. I have asked them and they have graciously agreed to share their experiences and thoughts on this topic.

I would like to introduce them. From Baruch College, we have [Celestin Cherry]. He is pursuing a BBA in Financial and Investment in the Zicklin School of Business. He is a member of the Finance and Economics Society and other organizations affiliated with the Career Development Center. He has broadened his experience and knowledge through summer internships at places like UBS Paine Webber, Merrill Lynch, [Piece, Spinner and Smith], and Bertelsmann, Inc. Through his affiliations and his internship he had the opportunity to travel to Shanghai, where he visited the Bertelmanns’ corporate executive development.

From Brooklyn College we have [Christina Waszak]. Christina is a graduate of Brooklyn College at 2000 with a BA in Television and Radio. As an undergrad, she participated in various college organizations, including the Inter-group Council. She is currently a masters student in Organizational Psychology, and works with the Office of Career Development at Brooklyn College.

We also have with us [Aida Sophia Corano] from LaGuardia Community College. She is a Business Management major. She has served in various student organizations including the International Business Club, the Student Selection Review Committee, and is Chairperson of the Student Advisory Council. She also serves as the Public Relations Director for the University Student Center. And Sophia will be receiving the CUNY Leadership Award later on this year.

So I am going to start and ask them to first describe the inter-group relation in general on campus among the four major groups, and then to talk about, as they see it, the inter-group relationship among their particular ethnic group and Asian students on campus. Let me give you a sense of the breakdown. I am going to ask Selsect to be first. At Baruch, 29% of the student population is Asian, 18% Black, 18% Hispanic, and 33% White.

Student One – [Celestin Cherry]:

Interracial relation is kind of a tacky topic. It is interesting that I was asked to talk about it. I want to thank Dr. Sung for presiding over this and for inviting me. Interracial relations at Baruch College to me have seemed somewhat lukewarm. I have seen interactions between Asian and African Americans, between Caucasians and African Americans. Basically like the panel today, I see a lot of interaction.

My thing is that there is not so much of a venue for direct interaction on a racial basis; it is more inside a classroom on project work or in a group, whereby it has a larger representation of every ethnicity. I can see from students that there is a dialogue between them, but there is no venue for that. Overall it has been fairly good and positive. There is definitely cultural understanding.

From my experience in Shanghai, I went to Beijing, I went to SuZhou, I really got a sense of the Asian culture over there. Coming back over here, I feel that I am so much empowered, having learned so much about Asia and about China by being there. I think it is something we should really encourage at Baruch and CUNY; that is, to have an interest in other cultures. It can definitely lead to better intercultural relations, and a better community atmosphere at Baruch College and in CUNY overall.

Otis Hill:

Thank you. Christina is from Brooklyn College, where the breakdown is as follows: the Asian student population is 11%, the Black student population is 30%, the Hispanic student population is 11%, and the White student population is 47%. Christina…

Student Two – [Christina Waszak]:

Thank you. Actually as Chancellor Hill said before, I did graduate in 2000. When I came back, I still have the same feeling that diversity is very much appreciated and encouraged at Brooklyn College. I have been part of other organizations and institutions. You just don’t get the same feeling… you have different ethnic groups, they stick together; and if you are not with them then you stay with your own. Coming to Brooklyn College, I learned so much about so many ethnic groups, I feel good.

You go to school, sit in the classroom and learn your majors, but there are also other things that you can learn. As I just said, I learned about so many ethnic groups through different activities and organizations that I have been involved with at Brooklyn College. Even if you want to get into classes. I have sat in classrooms with every type of religion, ethnic group, age. I think I have been very lucky to experience that in Brooklyn College. Also, from the various organizations I have been involved with, I have been able to learn on a one-on-one basis different people’s family, different histories. Who would have know, If I did stick with my own ethnic group.

I think that at Brooklyn there are many different ways you can learn about different ethnic groups. You have Asian Heritage Month, you have Black History Month, you have Women’s History Month. Just because you are Asian, that doesn’t mean that’s it, only Asians are allowed. I have been involved with Black History Month and Asian Heritage Month, I have been involved with Women’s History Month. Opportunities are basically endless if you think about, to make friends with different ethnic groups. I have had an overall positive experience, and I think most students do.

You have to also allow yourself to experience it. I think that is something that Brooklyn College does encourage. My experience and lot of people that I know, by being in Brooklyn College have met a lot of different people and have opened up their minds and their eyes to different things.

Otis Hill:

[Sophia Corano] is from LaGuardia Community College. The breakdown there is slightly different: the Asian student population is 20%, the Black population is 20%, the White population is 20%, and the Hispanic population is 39%. Sophia…

Student Three – [Sophia Gulano]:

At LaGuadia, we pride for our diversity, and we called ourselves the international community college. From that you can tell that we really appreciate the diversity. As a student I think that we have opportunities to learn other culture in the classroom and also through student activities. We have plenty of organizations that focus on specific groups. We have Dominican Club, Korean Club, Japanese Club, Chinese Club… Groups with similar backgrounds work together and try to present their own cultures to the school. We really appreciate that a lot. We are very curious about other cultures and many students try hard to learn about other cultures.

We also have international associations, international groups. Out of 25 clubs and organizations that we have right now, five of them are international. They have different focuses, but they do emphasize the international part. I think that is quite interesting. The common reaction of the clubs was that different groups would be against each other, but that didn’t happen. Different groups came together to promote understanding. I think that is what all of us, faculty, staff and students, have seen.

Otis Hill:

One last question then I will open up the floor for questions. What are some of the stereotypes or misconceptions that you group might have about the Asians—not just confined to campus, neighborhood or campus?

Student One – [Celestin Cherry]:

It is a great question. I think stereotypes are not so much representative of what people actually believe than what the media purports the group to be. If you look at MTV, you see 50 Cents, you see rapper, and you think black people only like hip hop and only like rap music. So there are always mental associations and things like that. I think the media definitely have an influence on that. Because of that, there may be perceptions of Black groups, that we are only rap stars, we are only into sports, and we are not intellectuals. I think that is perhaps the stereotype.

Not just in respect to Asians, but Americans in general, I think that’s something that I have come across, even when I went to Shanghai. I am sure you understand how people’s perceptions are so shaped by the media. Even in the States I found that also, it’s very interesting. Stereotypes are something that we need to work against. In terms of Asian Americans and Blacks… there’s always the stereotype that they are into math, they are highly intelligent, and things like that. That’s something that I have definitely encountered. I don’t know what other stereotypes that others have encountered.

Student Two – [Christina Waszak]:

Even when I was younger, the major one was that “ah, they are great in math, computer science, they are intelligent…” I have Asian friends that are poor in math; they don’t want to take it and they can’t stand math. I have Asian friends that are excellent athletes, play on volleyball and basketball teams. I have one that is on the volleyball team and plays softball. You never hear that, Asian being great athletes. You have Yao Ming coming to the NBA. I always was told, even when I was younger, there was someone who was not great at math. “Why? How come you are not great at math, you are Asian?” So, what does that mean?

Student One – [Celestin Cherry]:

One other thing is that all Asians are short. I swear, when I was in Shanghai, I saw this guy who was like 6’12. It’s something so insignificant, and so childish, and things like that. Little things like that about, little perceptions about how people are, what their interests are, and what they are good at, it’s amazing about how things evolve.

Student Three – [Sophia Gulano]:

We think that Asians are extremely intelligent. I am not sure if that is all true, maybe in most of the cases. It’s a good stereotype.

Betty Lee Sung:

As presider, I am going to ask all our speakers to keep all their remarks brief. We are so interested in what the students have to say, because they are the ones who interact. I am going to come back to you later on to see if there are questions. Maybe we can move on to our second speaker who is Vice President Joseph Scelsa. He is going to talk about “constructive pluralism.”

Vice President Scelsa is Director of the Italia American Institute at the City University of New York, which he renamed the John Calandra Institute after the late state senator. He is our neighbor, actually our landlord, at the Asian American Asian Research Institute. He has been wonderful and very, very supportive of AAARI. I should also say that he is the Chairman of the National Italian Americans in Education Institute; he is also Executive Producer and Host of Italic, the Italian American magazine; author and editor of many books. He has written many articles about Italian Americans. He wrote a notable report on Italian American high school dropout in New York City schools.

Joseph Scelsa:

Thank you for having me. I am very interested in what the students have to say. It is always interesting to hear from the student particularly on this topic. First of all, I don’t want to scare you, I am not going to read this. I am going to read a very, very small piece of it. My original work in academia, in terms of my dissertation, was at Columbia University. It was called “constructive pluralism.” It is a term that was first coined by a sociologist at University of Chicago, [Robert —]. It is an important tenet in terms of what I believe would be necessary if we were to have better inter-group relations, interracial relations, interethnic relations, inter-gender relations, and all kinds of relations that we can have.

I will try to take it one step further. Many of the things that the students said, I have actually incorporated into a model that I have, which I believe breeds and promotes all positive relations between groups. I call it “constructive pluralism” obviously. Simply stated, [Robert —] looked at societies as having two types of social structures. One social structure being that of class. I think everyone understands what class is. But in terms of socioeconomic level, in terms of economic class, whether or not you are in one strata or another strata. And the society is divided in that way.

The second way we look at society is in terms of the ethnic and racial makeup of the society. In what pecking order—sociologists like to look at pecking orders—that individuals have in society based upon their ethnic or racial background, and sexual orientation as well, in a society as a whole. Combining and in examining those two social structures, basically I buy into it. I do believe that we have a society that looks at things in that way, in terms of the thickness of your wallet and, yes, the skin tone that you have as well, amongst other things.

As a society though we have come a long way. What I am hearing from our students is that at least your experience on campus and in the business world as well, there has been great strides made. I believe there have been great strides made in the last 20 years, basically ameliorating those types of differences in judging people for who they are. But not completely; there are places where it still exists.

What I try to do is to construct models, in which some of thing that students talked about. Groups will be able to talk to each other, learn a little more about each other’s own background, by presenting themselves to the other groups, either individually or as a group. When there is a particular problem, or if you don’t see enough of what you described going on, to have the leaders of those various different clubs and those various communities come together and share amongst themselves. I have a model for it.

As a result, people learned that there are a lot of commonalities, they are not all differences. As with the differences that we do have, sometimes they find them interesting, as opposed to something they don’t want to know about. They want to know more about it. They become inquisitive. After going through a number of these kinds of experiences in a very structured way, when they move on to the next stage. Now we know about each other, enough to have some general understanding that Asians are not all under five feet, as you just described, or that we have various different segments within society socio-economically, we have very different intelligent levels, and orientations. Now what’s next?

The next point of it is that, up until recently, it has been seen as not to be in vogue, not to be common. As David Dinkins said in 1992, when everyone was trashing Christopher Columbus. He had a celebration for Christopher Columbus during the quincentennial celebration. He said, “We may have come over on the hull of the ship or on the top of the ship, but we are all on the same boat now.” After 9/11, I think everybody realizes that, even more so, we are all on the same boat now. And that is exactly what we need to be doing at the next level.

After we get to know more about each other, we need to come up with common projects that we can work on together to constructively—again I come back to constructive pluralism—move forward our common agenda. That could be anything from creating a park because we are on the same boundary line. Betty was so kind to mention that we share space together in the same facilities. This is not so uncommon a phenomenon. We have what is traditionally called Chinatown and Little Italy in New York right next to each other. Of course there are some little incidents like in any other place. But from my knowledge those are basically very harmonious relations.

I am happy about that, and I would like to see what of that. There maybe a park that they want to work on to bring people together. And this is an interesting phenomenon: on Mulberry Street you have Little Italy, on Mott Street you have Chinatown. They are literally one block away from each other. Yet they respect each other. I think that is a cultural trait, particularly among these two groups, of mutual respect. That is the way I see it anyway.

But I would like to get them to work on some projects that could be mutually beneficial, maybe to clean up a park, to create a public space, or something of that nature. Going after funding together for a particular project. In the work itself, in the actually doing, greater relations are established between individuals and friendships. As a result of it, you find that you have more things to work on together. Then the ethnic or racial difference that might have been important to you in the past, if they were an encumbrance on actively getting involved with each other, usually cease to be. There is this desensitization process, learning more of what each other is about, and working on common projects and goals.

I design models like this. Sometimes they come up as a natural consequence, as I see some of them happen on the campus, but sometimes they need some social engineering. And that is where the sociologists and socio-psychologists come into place. That’s basically it.

Betty Lee Sung:

Thank you very much. On our panel we have people who have worked closely with various groups and tried to bring groups together. Our next panelist is Loretta Chin; she has worked for over ten years at Brooklyn College. And is currently employed as a Special Projects Coordinator for the Community Building Initiative for the Office of the Dean for Student Life. She works very closely with students and faculty, and has been an avid support of the Asian American Asian Community at Brooklyn College at CUNY. She is a co-adviser for the Asian Students Union, the Student Outreach Committee, and the Chinese Language Culture Club. She has worked to support student leadership development, and increase understanding of their challenges and achievements. Functioning in this way, she has helped to facilitate her role as the liaison for the newly formed Brooklyn College Asian / Asian American Faculty and Staff.

As I said, we all have to confine our remarks to about 10 minutes. She showed me this stack of paper, a report that she has. I said, “Why don’t you just sum it up?” All of our proceedings will be recorded, and we will publish our conference proceedings. It is also going to be video tape. You can see it from your computer, if you can connect into the Internet and you have Real Player. You can access our entire conference. She works very closely with Melanie Bush. Melanie, are you going to do it together or separately? Okay, separately, then I will introduce you later. Loretta…

Loretta Chin:

Yes, I can cut this down. What I have to talk about kind of unites the ideas of what the students are doing and constructive pluralism, on projects that students can work together. I am talking about the Community Building Initiative work that we have started in 1998 and the work that we have done with the Asian American community there. We feel that it is very helpful to foster intercultural and interracial relationship on the campus.

The genesis of our goal began during the President’s Initiative on Race back in 1998. AAC&U, which is the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the CUNY Dispute Resolution, Citizen Committee of New York, Study Circles, and AAARI, are many of the people that have helped us over the years. That has helped us to impact the institution by supporting an inclusive and representative community, concerned with sensitivity, mutual understanding and issues of social justice.

I am going to limit my talk to what we have done with Asian American communities at Brooklyn College. Basically it is focused on our recent outreach effort, and our “BC Circles Dialouges” that have started last semester. In previous presentations at AAARI we talked about the need for outreach to Asian American communities due to low level of participation. Since the beginning of our work with the meetings, networking, the work that we had done with students, that has changed a lot.

Now there are faculty and staff who are strongly involved. We have also warm ties with AAARI, which helped out work considerably. With the revival of the Asian clubs on campus, activities have picked up. Recent evidence of this was in the most recent Asian American Heritage Month celebration that just took place. The club activities foster intercultural communications and interaction by providing venues that invite these types of interaction.

An important part in club interaction is the student counseling that takes place. With community building we are able to unite students with faculty, staff, alumni, and even fellow students. Through CBI, which is Community Building Initiative, students are encouraged to outreach to other groups on campus and to invited them to participate in their activities. One of the activities was Asian night, during that evening the students have asked many other groups to join in on the implementation and planning of that evening. There was a fashion show—this is how you invite people to have a constructive, pluralistic activity together—people were delighted to put on their outfits and work on something beautiful together.

Also through just talking in general with faculty we received an invitation from the Conservatory of Music to bring on a Korean percussion group for Asian Heritage Month activities. This was outside on the [Lower Quad], which was very public. Everyone could join in, and everybody joined in; it was truly a cultural and educational event. That helps unite us in our community.

We have many tools that we use; it can’t be just one single approach. One of the ways we try to improve communication is through development of the email list serve. Students and community members can share info and opinions freely with each other. It is also useful to retain alumni and build each semester as more and more people join on. Other ways of creating these types of vehicles are when all students can come together through events, campus activities, meetings and dialogues. This is also the second part of our work that I wanted to talk about. This was started back in 1998.

With the support of BC participation in an Association of American Colleges and Universities Initiative, this semester we are focusing on the theme of “The Arts of Democracy.” Diverse groups of students are recruited, not only to participate in the dialogue, but also to be trained as facilitators and to work as a group.

The ground rules are stressed, and it is important for each student to hear and to be heard. Participants can agree to disagree and respect each other’s opinion. This communication in a safe atmosphere is conducive to the enhancement of intercultural relationships by fostering understanding between different groups. What the dialogues do is help to bring in a diverse group of students. They are not just talking to each other; they are working with each other, becoming involved in activities that help to bridge between the different groups.

Last semester, Chinese Language and Culture Club sponsored one of these dialogues and invited the community to join them. I brought some pictures and you can look at them later. It showed the room where people joined them. We took notes. It was very interesting. We asked some questions, the questions that were asked were “Do you feel free to live in the United States?”, “Does being a minority affect you chance of participating in democracy? In what way?” The answers they gave gave valuable insight as to what students’ concerns and needs are. This information we disseminate through newspaper articles, reports, various publications, given to reporters.

The work is not just here today and gone tomorrow. We build upon it and improve it each semester. This year we have just used our trained facilitators, next year we are going to turn them into peer trainers, and they are going to recruit out into the community and bring in an even more diverse group. We tell them that we want more diversity to come in here, and you will become a working group, and work on projects where diversity is involved. It has been very successful, and it has a good indication that it will grow into something that will help in terms of intercultural relationships.

In conclusion, our students are ready, willing and able. We just need to provide them with the right tools to bridge gaps that exist between diverse groups, and as our motto goes in Student Life, “ to move from diverse community to a community of diversity.”

Betty Lee Sung:

We will have chance to ask questions later. I want to leave more time for questions and answers period. Melanie Bush works with Loretta Chin. Her dissertation was “Breaking the Code of Good Intentions: Everyday Forms of Whiteness.” That sounds intriguing. She has been employed at the Brooklyn College for the last thirteen years in administrative, and teaching capacities.

For many years she has been involved in community organizing, advocacy, activism, around issues of racial and social justice, locally, nationally and internationally. This includes the recent cooperation on a CUNY-wide project to foster understanding of the role of students in inter-group relations in the new millennium. Working with student at Brooklyn College, she has engaged in projects to increase support for Asian students as well as to foster understanding and build community in this diverse environment. Professor Melanie Bush…

Melanie Bush:

This dissertation was done at Brooklyn College with Brooklyn College students. Some of the materials that I was hope to bring forth, should we have time, is direct data. I will mention to you the type of data I have. If you are interested, you can do one of two things. You can contact me; I will share it freely. Or you can wait till December when the book is out. I was trying to think of how best to complement the presentations since I knew we were all coming.

I will try to do a few things; one is that I will highlight the findings from that study, which involved many, many students. I also wanted to raise some of the questions that are very important for us to be thinking about, as we talk about fostering and enhancing interracial or inter-group relations. They hopefully will frame, perhaps not all of the questions we should be asking, but I think some of the questions as we discuss this topic.

One is, first and foremost, what are we trying to accomplish through enhancing inter-group or interracial relationships? It is the issue of expanding the familiarity and the comfort zones between different groups of people. Is the aim to further a more assimilated one-society type model? Is it political unity on common projects? Is it challenges to curricular Eurocentrism? Is it to further a goal of having a society where hate crime, bias and discrimination do not exist? Is it to further our knowledge of global and human interconnectedness? What is the meaning really in today’s world of race, identity, group affiliation at this juncture? Who gets to choose identity? How des it get chosen? How does it get assigned? And what does it mean for those of us who are concerned about identification with the common good?

In particular I think the issue within the United States has to do a little bit with some of the stereotypes that we mentioned earlier, in terms of the assigning Asian communities as “forever foreigners” or honorary Whites, as others have spoken about. If we aim to enhance inter-group relations, why are we doing so? What do we expect the outcomes to be for the short and long term? Finally, in a somewhat more limited way, what should we be doing on our individual campus, for example, and what within CUNY at large?

If you have the brochure about the Community Building Initiative, the photograph from the front was from a conference held in 1999 with the participation of students and some faculty and staff also, at John Jay. Several people here participated, including Dr. Shih (CUNY Law School), in that conference. That was to gather students from every CUNY school to discuss the role of CUNY students in fostering intergroup relations. This was a great start. The intent was to form a CUNY inter-group project, to really delve into some of these issues both as an intellectual inquiry and as a practical subject.

I feel that these issues are particularly important within the university setting, as we have both tremendous possibilities and challenges. If we do not pay conscious attention to the what, why, and how’s, we miss the opportunities and miss direct our energies. That said, those are some of the questions. I want to point out, highlight two things. One is just for us to remember—if the world were a village of a hundred people, 61 would be people from Asian, 21 would be people from China, 17 from India, five would be from the United States.

I would also like to—in terms of us thinking not only within our own college or university and so forth—recognize that in the United States at this moment in time there is approximately 4.4 percent population of Asians. I think this is very important in terms of how we frame and understand the connections that we make between groups. This is clearly also in terms of the rapidly growing communities. We certainly see that in New York City but also in the United States.

I would like to now state what general topics, in terms of having data, are important for us to look in terms of which issues. Clearly in terms of the issues of inclusion, exclusion and segregation. I think this is a very important issue that needs to be examined. There is tremendous national data from different universities, in terms of who eats lunch with whom, who socializes with whom, who goes into whose homes.

In terms of Asian students along with each of the different groups, I will just highlight, for example, among Asian students who responded to these surveys that I did, 56.4% said that they had never been in the home of someone of another race. Among all students it was 62.1%, that was the average of all. So it is a little bit more, but still not very much. I would also say in terms of socializing outside of campus, that Asian students said 36% daily socialize outside of campus with someone of another race, but 23% said never socialized outside.

Thinking about racial identity. I thought this was very interesting amongst the Asian students. The question posed: how much has your racial identity impacted your life experience? 66.7% said a lot, which was the largest of all the groups. Asian students were the ones who said that their racial identity had impacted their lives most.

Second very major issue I think has to do with hate crime, biased incidents and so forth. Once again, in terms of the Asian students, Asian students reported 12.8% said they witness racial tension on campus daily. I would also make a side note: in terms of the current day issues, hate crime against Arab Americans and Muslim in 2001 increased 1,600%. I think we can understand the source of it. In terms of the discussion of inter-group relations that is both the very pleasant, social and uplifting, but there is also the very real and hard issues.

There was a recent national study, by the National Opinion Research Center, which documented the connection between stereotypes and incidents of bias. Stereotypes oftentimes underlie hate crimes. People know about the Vincent Chin incident, which was very well documented and discussed. But I think that that connection is very important. Sixty-nine point one percent of Caucasian students said that they had witnessed racial tension on their campuses.

A third general point I would like to raise has to do with the issue of looking at the Asian population as a homogenous population. Even the issue of hip hop, I know there was a conference at Columbia last year that looked at the connection in hip hop, between some of the emergence of hip hop in the Asian communities and African American communities. They are started to look at the intersections and interconnections. As we discussed, inter-group relations is an important place to keep an eye on.

Family pressures and how they play into what happens with young people, and whether or not people seek out or don’t seek out, or socialize or don’t, and so forth. Interracial relationships: 66% of Asian students in this study approved of interracial marriage, which is more than U.S. born Whites, which is 50%, but less than Latinos and Blacks.

I wanted to also say, in terms of the issue of curriculum inclusion being also a very important foundation for understanding how to frame inter-group relations, frame the social and cultural interactions. They remain just nice interactions as opposed to a different construct, in terms of common projects and constructive pluralism.

Finally, when you talk about inter-group relations, diversity is not necessarily the only goal we are aiming for. Certainly we all want to be in a more pleasant and positive environment. But I think that within the context of discussing inter-group relationship, to look at the curricula, to look at the commitment, unity, to look at the conscious and deliberate efforts that we need to take structurally and systemically, that will help reshape, in a sense, the very relationships that are at risk.

Betty Lee Sung:

Thank you very much, Professor Bush. I think her book sounds like one of the most relevant ones concerning interracial and inter-group relations. Everybody, read her book, it will be out soon.

Melanie Bush:

It will be out this December, it is called “Breaking the Code of Good Intensions: Everyday Day Forms of Whiteness.”

Betty Lee Sung:

I am thinking here now that we are talking about inter-group relations. I think that this generation of students and so forth are brought up in a different environment from the one that I was brought up in. At that time, it was more separatism. In fact I grew up in the days when there was segregation. Schools were segregated, movies were segregated. I was brought up in Washington DC.

It is a different era, and I think we are more optimistic about situations. Even when I was teaching at City College, I noticed when you went to the lunch room, the Blacks sat on one table, the Asians sat on one table… Well, the Chinese sat on one table, the Koreans sat on one table, and the Whites sat on one table. We have our latest student come in, Richard Cohen, he is from City College. Answer that question, do they still sit…?

Richard Cohen:

I believe time has changed. It is quite different now. You do at times see different blocks of people sitting at different tables, as you mentioned earlier. However, we are more diverse now and we do sit with each other. The Latinos sat with the Asians as well as African American, and with the Caucasians and Whites. Campus life and college life at City College is very diverse now; we don’t really hear much about hate crimes or anything like that. We are actually very happy to see that.

Betty Lee Sung:

That’s really positive. Now I am going to open up the floor for questions. You can ask any of the panelists or students. You have a question…

Audience Member:

This is more of a comment. I was not fortunate enough to go to any of the CUNY colleges, but I did go to a college in New York City. It is not that diverse, not segregated, but… Not until law school in Boston that I got to know another Asian person. Not that there weren’t any Asians in my university here, but it is not like the CUNY campuses where you have 20%, 30% of minority groups. I went to two colleges, the one in the Midwest was a very white campus.

Betty Lee Sung:

Another question? I wanted to ask a question. What has happened against the Arab and Muslim students? Are you going to ask that Leo, or are you going to ask another one? Go ahead, ask your question, we will bring that one back.

Leo Lee:

I was very intrigued by the concept of constructive pluralism. Having been involved with community in many groups, one of the biggest challenges for people to work together is the rules of engagement. I was wondering if you have any recommendations on that, among different racial groups, or even within a certain group.

Joseph Scelsa:

For a particular situation, analyze what is necessary as intervention to that particular situation. Sometimes the experience in Washington D.C. is very different from the experience in New York. It depends on the school you went to. To encourage inter-group relations and interethnic relations and to do it in a positive way. College is the best in that. Any of us on the other side of the table can make. Education, particularly public education, is a wonderful process to have everyone to get together and to be able to share experience and to therefore move forward in society. Unfortunately that doesn’t always happen. There is a lot of structural racism that exists in America, whether it is in the public sector and the private sector. Twenty five or thirty years ago, might have been easier for me to be involved in the private sectors. Might have been easier to move forward. Catholic colleges that existed. They didn’t have a model to . There was so much structural racism. I felt this is the place where we can do someting. The challenge is to move beyond the public sector into the private sector. So that the obstacle that once existed in the public sector, whether in the instruction room or in the board room. Those structures need to be changed. Here is a project that all we have to get involved with. I am sure that Vice Chancellor Hill will agree with me on this. Not for ourselves but for our next generation. You wouldn’t see an Italian American institute, you wouldn’t see an Asian American institute, you wouldn’t see these types of initiatives taking place. Again, they don’t have to be that way. We have a Chancellor who is extremely supportive of these initiatives. Without the outcry of political groups. You have the intellectual ones. Therefore it has been supportive by this administration, and has been supported in previous administration. I didn’t answer your question specifically, and I apologize. But if you have a specific case then I will try to help you find the rules of engagement, as you put it, about the rules of engagement, I can help you with. Sorry for a long winded answer.

Professor Betty Lee Sung:

We have another question? Yes.

Audience Member:

Well I have a question for, I guess, all the CUNY schools, specifically Baruch as he was mentioning, there are no other outlets for interracial, interethnic, and intercultural interactions. I was wondering, does the school actively support student organizations and promoting this or do they have any ethnic or interethnic courses available to help facilitate, in a sense. You did mention that it’s only in the classroom where they do cooperate with each other and that’s the only chance they have. I was wondering if they do provide courses that allow for more discussions of ethnic and racial issues, instead of just sitting in classrooms together?

Professor Betty Lee Sung:

That’s very good.

Student One – [Celestin Cherry]:

Good question. I’m glad you asked that. Two questions, first, if there’s support from administration for student groups, and second, if there are courses. First one, we do have events like Asian American fashion show, an Asian American month, Black History Month that are sponsored by the school. I think the key thing is, it’s one thing to have sponsorship and it’s one thing to actively promote to have people show up. It’s great to have Black History Month, then five people show up, what does that do?

We had a conference, Africans in America, great conference, great topic. We had a whole host of great panelists there. I think ten people showed up. I don’t think that’s so much due to the lack of interest, the apathy and the part of people in Baruch College. I think it’s just in terms of active promotion of it. I think that’s the trouble with a lot of workshops and initiatives held by departments and student organizations, where you have support but I think that maybe word of mouth should be the promotional venue. There is support, but it does not go far.

There is initiatives that do happen that are great, I’m not trying to say that Baruch College is bad in terms of cultural understanding, but there’s a long way to go and I applaud your college and I think it’s great. What I’d like to see, kind of touching on the question that Chancellor Hill had, I would love to see things like this community building initiatives at Baruch or CUNY-wide is the better thing. It’s great to have these initiatives at the college, but I think we really need to have some dialogues between our respective colleges in terms of rolling out initiatives to Baruch College or other colleges.

I would love to see a CUNY-wide initiative as opposed to having ethnic groups from Brooklyn College. I think it would be even better in terms of just community atmosphere among CUNY and amongst our racial groups to have something like that. I know that you guys sitting here, you’re educators, educators. Again, it goes back towards your question, there is support. The issue is in terms of active promotion and just really following through on the support. That’s the first question, I hope I answered it.

Audience Member:

Yeah, that’s what I meant by support as active faculty and administrative actively promoting them or do they just say “OK, we’ll support it” and sign off on it or something like, that is disheartening.

Student One – [Celestin Cherry]:

It’s varying degrees. They will actively support in terms of one ethnic group at different times. It’s not so much that you can say, “we are going to do this, it’s great, it’s going to happen.” No. It’s really running the whole spectrum. That’s not with one ethnic group, it’s with a lot of things. That’s just any organization that you have. It’s not something that’s just specific to Baruch, but I think it’s something that really needs to be championed and worked on. That answers your first question.

The second one, is there courses? Yes, there is. I know there are Chinese cultural courses at Baruch classes. I know there are several African American in economics, history. I’ve taken several of them. I’m looking forward to taking Chinese in the upcoming semester, so that might be something that will help me learn about Chinese culture. In terms of that, again, the courses are offered; it’s just due to interest.

When I came to Baruch College, I looked at the undergraduate bulletin and there were so many classes I wanted to take. Business, psychology, ethnic related cultural classes. I go to Baruch now, three years later, they’re gone; they’re not even posted. They have the classes out there, maybe that even more rewarding are the ones I mentioned, but that there’s again lack of interest. I don’t know if it’s due to lack of promotion or what, but I think that’s an issue that needs to be addressed.

I applaud conferences like this for bringing issues like that up, because that’s something that’s going forward; we could work on and hopefully have a greater dialogue amongst CUNY and amongst our colleges in regards to that.

Betty Lee Sung:

I appreciate that question because we have been trying to get Asian American studies into many of the colleges of the City University. It’s been a fight all the way because I was the originator of Asian American studies at City College back in 1970. We’ve been trying to get it into the other colleges, even in Baruch. We tried to get it in there and it’s been like pulling teeth. It’s very, very difficult.

When they offered the first course and, like you said, they put it in the… which is now at Hunter, Baruch, City, and Queens. I’m not even sure if it’s offered in Queens. But anyway at Baruch, I remembered they put it in the Department of Education because it was only one course, they had nowhere to put it.

When they started registration, I remember the President came to me and said “You wanted Asian American studies and only 17 were registered for the course.” I went to the students and said “Here we fought so hard for you to get this course, what happened?” and they said “We didn’t know it was there.” Again, that was another problem. It was in the Department of Education. So again, it hasn’t been easy to get these courses here.

Thomas Tam:

We are planning to have a student survey in the fall. My question is for the panelists as well of the students panelists. In your opinion, what is the best indicator of say, interracial relations? Second, in your opinion, what is the best way to enhance such interracial relationships? If I can start with, perhaps, Dr. Scelsa.

Joseph Scelsa:

There’s many examples in terms of what models we’d like to use in terms of different scales of interracial relationships. You have to decide on which one you want to use. When I was Director of the Italian American Institute, we use a particular model, and we actually worked with Professor [James —], professor of psychology at the time right here in Baruch College, who constructed the model. Basically, [it was] based on national standards. You need to explore what is state-of-the-art today in terms of being able to decide. It’s not as important that you come up with your own questions, which could be very valuable. You need to come up with questions that you can compare to others in the field [inaudible]. That is important. What was the second question?

Thomas Tam:

How do you enhance interracial relationships?

Joseph Scelsa:

I try to go back to what works. I think most of the clubs, the students [inaudible] works primarily [inaudible]. The students themselves have shown interest in their particular areas and then shared those interests. They may have their own experience, whether it be through social activities which are absolutely positively [inaudible] or valid means of education. I’ve seen so much [inaudible] whether it is social or academic. We’re reaching out in order for the students in the other various different clubs to participate as well. Always identify those individuals within particular clubs that are going to reach out to other, and the skills to reach out. Somebody may have the best intentions, but they are not very good at it. Somebody who may not be that interested in doing it may be extraordinary at doing it. So we encourage them to participate.

One of my trustees, her name escapes me at this point. She told me that in order to get the participants, [you can use] the women to get the men to come, and that is not a bad models because [inaudible] there’s a whole other area of interest. So sending them out to do recruitment may work. It’s a little bit of a hidden agenda; their agenda is not obviously the inter-group relationships, but in terms of dating [inaudible]. Or let the male students engage the female students. It works, it worked at Baruch at one time. It worked at another school [inaudible]. Ten to fifteen years ago Italian-American club at Baruch was very, very active and they used to do exactly that. You need some creative social engineering. [inaudible] there is an agenda, yes there is a legitimate regard. In this point in my life, I know that what we’re trying to accomplish is to have the maximum benefit for all in society. Only if everybody participated, that is possible.

Professor Betty Lee Sung:

Let’s have some of the other panelists answer the question. Dr. Tam is doing a survey on students and he is wondering how to direct it. Just going down the line.

Melanie Bush:

In terms indicators, it depends on what you are looking for. There are many different excellent studies that have been done, for one example at the University of Michigan. They received a major grant to study 10 schools nationally and I’m not sure exactly where they are at. UCLA, the Higher Educational Research Institute and also Harvard. They’re doing some excellent studies in terms of students. Again, you have to look through and see what you are trying to get in terms of the issue of enhancing and what works. I made recommendations on this issue having to do really with a multifaceted approach. That’s what really works, because you need the intellect, you need the curricular. You need the co-curricular so that there’s a place to test the ideas but you need a place from which the experience is drawn to be tested in the classroom, to be theorized in the classroom. You need the socio-cultural, you need the dialogue and you need some sort of service learning that reinforces notions of civic responsibility. That’s the different components, but I think they mesh together in a way that it’s really what works because you really need the ideas and the practice together.

Loretta Chin:

Also, I don’t think it’s just a bottom-up approach. I think it’s a combination of top-down and bottom-up approach because you need to have institutional support, whether it’s educational or initiative like ours, in order to provide venues for students to actively engage with each other. This isn’t always available at your college. That’s not even the point. I think it’s very critical that we have that.

Another thing that’s important is assessment of what you’re doing—just to keep track of the numbers, the people that are there, what’s being done, and your results that are coming out of it. This is something that we do—we document everything that we have, we have written notes on all of the dialogues, we have pictures, and we have ways of disseminating the information so that it’s not just something that’s only for you. You share it with the community. And I think that’s very, very important.

Professor Betty Lee Sung:

Vice Chancellor?

Otis Hill:

I would agree with Joe and Melanie. I think it’s first important to identify what it is that you want to get from this. There’s several instruments out there and it really depends. I just have my own doubts about the honesty of answers on these kinds of instruments. Race is a very difficult topic for most people to discuss, to be honest about. I shy away from discussing it often because I tell people if we are going to discuss this, I’m going to be honest. Can you take that? Because that is an important piece.

In listening to Melanie, before you ask certain questions, I just jotted down: What is it that I would primarily want? Be it a matter of comfort, trust, and to feel valued. I think those are the three things I basically want out of that relationship. I don’t want a superficial relationship. If you look at the data in terms of CUNY and this is beautiful. It’s really great information. I didn’t realize it until I pulled some of it up. Just how diverse we are, and when we get into the sub-populations within the major ethnic groups, it’s really great stuff out there.

But, how true are relationships once we leave that safe zone? You talked about people inviting people into their homes, including people in their social affairs. These are the kind of things that will make me feel valued rather than just saying that we’re diverse and we sit in a classroom for one hour and we don’t speak again. I think it’s important to identify what it is that you want to measure and provide an atmosphere where people can really be honest in that relationship.

Professor Betty Lee Sung:

I was just hoping the students might answer the question: Has there been any anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, or anti-South Asian feelings on your campus since the outbreak or the 9/11, on any of your campuses?

Student Three – [Sophia Gulano]:

I think the college community came together after September 11^th to try to promote unity. There were isolated incidents but they weren’t as many as other campuses. In other campuses there were more incidents.

Professor Betty Lee Sung:

Can any of the other students answer that as well?

Student Two – [Christina Waszak]:

Around 9/11 I was actually not at Brooklyn College, but I was hearing everything that was going on. I know there were major efforts to gather everyone together. I know there was a professor who was doing a presentation on it, so I had to research a little bit. I’m not sure about any incidences; I wasn’t there at the time. But I do know about the positives.

Student One – [Celestin Cherry]:

In terms of incidents, I think there was not so much incidents as opposed to sentiments against… and I’ve heard anecdotally that there have been student comments on campus. Anti-Arab. On the other side, I’ve heard Arab people joke about 9/11 so it’s not like you look at it and “Ok we’re vilifying the Arab Americans” or whatever everyone called them. That’s one thing, but not to say that this is the practice, but I’ve heard of and experienced it, to look at it from both sides.

I know at Baruch College, there is a publication of I Magazine, an Islamic magazine, to actually promote information about Muslim culture to just make it more aware to have more knowledge in a factual base as opposed to what you hear in the media. Aside from sentiments and maybe… very few incidents out of Baruch after 9/11 for the most part, it wasn’t a big issue. You mention SARS, that’s one thing. I haven’t heard any huge…

Professor Betty Lee Sung:

Okay, let’s see what Richard has to say. Have you heard or seen any anti-Arab, anti-Muslim incidents? I mention this because this has happened in [inaudible], with the Japanese, the Chinese during the Korean War, and now it’s the Muslims and the Arabs.

Richard Cohen:

I haven’t really heard much about it lately, but in the past post 9/11 of course, there were quite a few words about regarding hatred and all these other really disgusting things that are going out. However, there were the student governments as well as the Muslim student organization that were working really hard at disseminating information about what their religion was, what they are actually studying. After perhaps much later, things started to really clear out. The tensions were not as tight as they were in the beginning. It’s really sad that, because of World War II, the Japanese were segregated and after many other wars, issues like these happen. It is really sad.

Professor Betty Lee Sung:

Do we have any other questions from the audience?

Audience Member:

I have a quick question for the students. The question is: In the courses, do you have group work, projects that you do as a group? If you do, do you choose your groups, in the context of a class, do you choose people from other group, are they diverse groups?

Student Two – [Christina Waszak]:

It depends. It depends on the professor. Sometimes it depends on the major. Right now I’m taking psychology, a small groups class, and you have to count off “1, 2, 3” and everyone that’s number 3 has to sit together so you’re with those people all the time. Some professors will say, “Link up with someone you know” and you’re going to do the project like that. To me it’s more beneficial to do it with count because everyone turns with each other because we all work together. Like I said, it depends on the professor.

Student One – [Celestin Cherry]:

I agree. I think it depends on class. If you have a business class, they put you into formal groups; they count off, or go by the roster list, or on the flipside of it, we also have where it’s friends just like she said. I think it’s interesting to look at it. I think it’s two things, it’s like when a teacher counts off people and says “You”, I wonder what the teacher is thinking when they count off. Do they want to promote a homogenous group or people that are like heterogeneous?

From my experience, I think it’s pretty diverse because that’s the population of Baruch. But then there’s a flipside to it because they just go and count “1, 2, 3”. If you look at it: if you sit in a room, you’re probably going to sit with people that you feel more comfortable around. I guess that’s self-selection. You put yourself in a group that’ll probably look like you or listen to things you’re interested in. You may find an upper-class man in freshmen instruction. I think you’re going to sit with people you’re more comfortable and that might be a vice in and of itself. I hope I answered your question.

Professor Betty Lee Sung:

Let me say that one method of enhancing of inter-group relations is what Celestin did. He went to China. When I was at City College, when we had the exchange student programs, every student that we sent back from China was a totally, 200% convert to Chinese history, language, and everything. They were totally different personalities. So I’m a great promoter and advocate of exchange students. Students from China coming here, students from our campus going to other countries.

There was one other thing that I wanted to comment. That is that socially, the Asian students felt that they had more incidences of verbal attacks and racial tensions. We had a panel on Asian student violence. When I spoke to many teachers, they mentioned that student violence, violence against them in the schoolyard, classrooms, lunchrooms, and so forth was the biggest problem they had in the public schools. That was a big thing that we were concerned about so we had a whole panel on it. But you weren’t here so you didn’t hear it.

There was another thing—and I know time is short because we were supposed to be finished already—but Dean Frank Shih back there of Queens College raised a question at the last panel and says “We’re going to be stereotyped, we do look different, and minority groups you can be identified physically. We will have some people in life that will come up and deal with you with these stereotypes and with this type of bias and other things.” It has always been behind my mind that we should get together and say: “How do we retort to people who come up to you and say ‘Where were you born?’ and if you say ‘New York City’ and they say ‘No, really, where were you born?’” How do we have a nice retort for that? Or they’ll come up and say, “My, you speak good English.” How do we retort to that?

The thing is, we really should have some of these… because when we first are confronted with it, even now, I don’t know how to deal with it. We really should come up and put our heads together and say, “Let’s come up with some good retorts”. Settle some of these questions, and I know there are many, many of these. So Frank, maybe you can initiate something like that.

Okay, well we want to thank all of our panelists for participating, the students, and all of our audience for coming. Thank you very much.

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