With the founding of a minority student advocacy program at Uni High, heated discussions have arisen regarding diversity issues. So, how big is the need for minority support here at Uni? And is this the best way to approach that challenge?

By Maddy Hamlin & Bianca Zaharescu
Gargoyle staff reporter & senior editor
Posted Friday, Nov. 17, 2006, The OG, news

IT IS A typical lunch period at Uni, early in the new school year. The halls are crowded, filled with students looking for a club to attend or waiting for their friends to arrive from fourth hour classes. However, several students have gathered to do something very atypical.

The group, which streams into Room 110, is composed of only a handful of seniors, 10 or so in all, along with history teacher Bill Sutton. Some are opening lunches and scrambling to calm their growling stomachs while others are concentrated on getting a good seat.

What is clear is that none of these students is here for a casual lunch. Their minds are focused on something else, a bigger issue. They are anticipating the conversation they have long awaited to begin, all ready to burst with commentary and reactions.

So just what is the hot topic of this conversation? It's the new minority student advocacy program, founded by Uni student Liz Reese and co-run by Reese and fellow senior Sharajonnie Adams.

Reese, who designed the group as a support network for African-American, Native American Indian, and Hispanic students to work on recruitment and retention of racial minorities at Uni, expected her ideas to be controversial. She did not, however, plan on facing a lunchtime crowd like this, which consists of a few invited seniors who had been heard openly discussing the program.

While Reese recognizes how polarizing issues of race can be, the open debates that echoed throughout many social circles, in fact even being sparked in classes such as American History Seminar, were a surprise to her and Adams.

It was for this reason that they claimed their chance to respond to the ongoing reaction, presenting their own side of the story to a sample crowd of students who served as a test group for future, larger discussions. What started as a simple lunchtime meeting stretched until the bell rang for the end of fifth-hour classes.

The program: How did it start?

Last spring, Reese approached Uni principal Kassie Patton to propose a solution to a problem she had personal experience with — the underrepresentation of certain racial minority students in the school.

This year, for example, whites make up 59 percent of Uni's student body, followed by Asians at 26 percent. African American and Hispanic students each make up 5 percent of the student population. Native American Indians are the most heavily underrepresented, totaling 1 percent of Uni's students. (Four percent of this year's students self-identified as undeclared or other.)

Being one of Uni's few Native American students, Reese had often felt the effects of being singled out for her racial identity. Her plan was to take control of this situation by creating an advocacy group that she could lead.

Reese expected Patton to turn her down, but instead Patton's response was more than enthusiastic. Reese elaborated: “She said, ‘Are you going to volunteer for all this?' And I said, ‘Yes, I think it's that important.' She said: ‘Oh, that won't do. I have to give you school credit and I'll pay you for it.”

Reese quickly realized that she would need help in the formation of the new program. Patton extended her offer to include Adams, who was excited to join.

The program consists of two parts: paid work for the school, as well as an independent study supervised by guidance counselor Sam Smith. Both Reese and Adams receive class credit and payment for the hours that they work. In the independent study, the girls “are learning about theory and research in best practices for retention and support of minority students,” according to Patton, “and also learning about history and interacting with people and literature in that field of study.”

Early in the school year, Smith said of his role: “We've only met a couple of times, because you know the interesting thing about working with Uni students is that you sort of have to stay out of their way but at the same time provide some assistance, direction, or support.”

Both Reese and Adams receive $7 per hour for the hours that they work, five a week in total (the money comes from a special part of the Uni budget designated for student workers). The two girls work in Room 110, the office that is shared by peer college counselors.

While minority recruitment and retention have been ongoing goals of the school's current administration, the program's creation is due solely to Reese's suggestion. Patton has remained enthusiastic, commenting, “Actually, what Liz's suggestion did was put into concrete form something that we had been thinking about for a couple of years.”

Smith also readily supported Reese's idea for the program.

“She sort of figured it out … and Kassie supported it. And apparently she and Sharajonnie and I will all work together to sort of flesh out what that means,” he stated.

The program: What is it?

Adams explained that the duties of the minority student advocates are to:

— advocate and support traditionally/proportionally underrepresented students in gifted education;
— create a climate that is comfortable and conducive to the academic and
social well-being of these students;
— reach out into the community to draw in underrepresented gifted/talented youth;

— promote multicultural awareness and positive social action by all members of the Uni community.

Said Reese: “Ideally I'd like to be able to do as much as possible with minority students, but I'll have to see what I'm actually capable of. But at this point I'm hoping that I'll be able to counsel students if they need help with anything, it's my job to make sure that they're happy, to advocate for them around the school if they have issues.”

Adams emphasizes community.

“[Our goal] is not just to point out that the group is full of minorities but more to create a comfortable space,” she said.

Recruitment and retention remain important parts of their goals for the future.

“I am hoping to try to recruit more minority students because especially certain communities are untapped by Uni students,” Reese explained. “I think we're always going to have professors' kids … but there's a whole lower class of minority students that really hasn't been tapped at all.

“I think that having a community of people of those races who are going to be able to be truthful about what it is like to actually be at Uni, that's what's really going to make a difference [in recruiting minority students].”

In terms of retention rates, she added: “I'm not sure if dropouts have been really a problem in the past … but I think that especially for minority students and especially from my personal experience, there are a lot of things about Uni that can make your Uni experience a lot more difficult if you are a minority.”

Why is it needed?

Is it fair for minorities to get special attention? Why support a special group for this small subset of Uni students? Adams gave us her perspective on why the new minority student advocacy program is needed.

“I felt just like Liz that we needed to build a strong community between all of us, because there's so few of us and our problems might not be recognized by the non-minority people of the school, because they don't exactly understand what we have to go through on a daily basis.”

Uni minorities' need for a supportive community is not only visible to the minority students themselves, but also to some non-minorities.

“I think when you look at Urbana-Champaign, there is an African American community that's pretty strong, but there is no such thing as a white community,” biology teacher David Stone commented. “I think that the African American students, what they have to do, unlike anybody else here, is that they have to make the decision to leave a community, before they can come into this one. So I think it's really important to put in that support right away.”

Feeling alone is something that Adams can sympathize with, based on her experiences at Centennial High School, which she attended before transferring to Uni her junior year.

“Being a person who has been involved in the gifted program and in honors classes, I've had the experience where I'm the only minority in the classroom, the only black girl in the classroom,” she said. “When you get to that kind of level, there's the education gap.”

According to Reese and Adams, these are the kind of experiences that non-minorities cannot always understand. Reese believes that being the sole minority in a classroom can have a negative affect on the daily lives of minority students, while other students may not be conscious of this phenomenon.

“Whenever something is brought up about racial minorities, everybody looks at you,” Reese said.

She added: “The culture you are raised in impacts your social activity and academic understanding. Cultural differences change how we make sense of our education.”

With Uni's unique environment comes a unique set of problems. Unintentional resentment may arise among non-minority students when the school's intense academic atmosphere of competition gets out of hand, as illustrated by the perception of affirmative action.

“I think one of the most difficult things about being a minority student at Uni is this whole idea about affirmative action,” Reese explained. “Although affirmative action has been a really great thing for minority students, it does lead toward a lot of resentment towards them. When it comes to applying to colleges, people tend to think of your chances of getting into college as better than theirs [if you are a minority student] and inherently undeserved.”

All these factors contribute to the need for a minority student advocacy program, she said.

“It has been my experience that the best way for students to be successful is to have a community to fall back on,” Reese said. “So what I'm trying to do here is to build a community that will be happy and successful.”

Reese summarized, “The minority student advocacy program is needed because there are so many racial issues that need to be acknowledged and discussed by the student body. Bringing more minority students to Uni alone will not make Uni a climate that is great for all its students. In order to do that we need to get people talking and doing, no more hiding race under the table.”

Participant reaction

Program participants have expressed mixed reactions to it. In total, 27 Uni students were invited to be part of the minority student advocacy program. When Reese and Adams are included, the group consists of 13 African American students, 13 Hispanic students, and three American Indian students. All were selected based on how they self-identified on their school registration sheet at the end of the summer.

Although the Gargoyle surveyed all program participants, only one student replied via e-mail, and several were interviewed in person. A student who wished to remain anonymous said of the program: “I don't know how necessary it is. It is a very fun group and I love hanging out with them. … It is nice to be able to talk to people about a culture you're passionate about.”

Subbie participant Simone Ballard, who is of Native American descent, said that she was excited when she first heard about the program, especially because of the connections that it gave her to upperclassmen and people who share her culture. She even added, “I hope I can be a minority student leader.”

Her feelings were shared by subbie Kahlilah Cooke.

“I just thought that it was a good way for all the minority students to get to know each other. It's a good way to see exactly who is a minority student,” she commented.

Other participants feel a bit more skeptical as to the program's structure.

“It just seems like it would separate the class,” senior Josh Mitchell said. “It just singles out people who they consider minorities, and everyone else who is technically a minority but wouldn't fit into that. … It's like saying that they don't count or something.”

The anonymous participant added: “I can't say that personally I've ever felt the effects of being racially attacked or felt like a minority. I love different cultures, though, and it is a very culturally diverse group, naturally.”

Next in Part 2: Controversy and reaction. Click here for article.