I should add that Thom & I have already come up w/ this list:
-facilitating Vassar's community relations w/ Poughkeepsie--org tour of Pok for incoming freshmen, VC staff should publicize community events to students
-a space & a full-time employee solely devoted to WC/1st gen students (thanks for that idea Smith!)
-more equitable employment/diverse staff for admissions, and/or workshops for that staff about class awareness
-admin needs to be aware of "hidden costs" students face (furnishing dorm room, laundry, caps & gowns for graduation, interview travel costs, GRE/teachers' exams, etc etc)
6 comments:
Open and public discussions of class issues and classism among students, administrators, and faculty, perhaps?
And investigations as to structural forms of classism in econ classes. An example, that people who are presently wage laborers are somehow "fortunate" enough to be wher they are in socioeconomic terms, yet it's ignored that ppl who do wage labor are doing so under socioeconomic pressure.
I know it's an idea that in its infancy and clearly isn't a priority, but what about that idea we talked about on Sunday of there being some way to identify/work with AAVC to set up an infrastructure to get in touch with First Gen/WC alums? (i.e. maybe a field on your AAVC profile to add that info?) FYI- they're loving this stuff. My Vassar Alum April e-newsletter had an article on the conf.
To follow up from what I posted last night, I was thinking in the shower this morning and I think the main thing to emphasize - and I think especially to Cappy given her remarks this weekend - is that there needs to be a sort of consciousness that it's fine to get us to elite colleges, but you need to be ready to have things in place for us once we get there. It isn't enough to just get us in the door . . . What is the point of socioeconomic/cultural diversity if you don't have things in place to allow those students to flourish once they're there?
I feel like (most of) the administration - and to be honest, a lot of the student body - is really approaching this issue as if once you make it to Vassar, you've got automatic and equal access to resources. And it just doesn't work that way.
i completely agree, & there are other staff members/spaces for those students that enter in under the heading "diversity"--blegen & their staff mem, alana & theirs...we need ours dammit!
you can totally figure this place out--its resources, its culture, etc.--by yourself or even with the help of your cia/vaca/saca etc, but it takes a while that way...and why not make it easier from the beginning?
hmm, the Class Issues Center?
. . .SOOOO how'd it go?
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