BGSA Blacklight and History Fact Day 3

Black Graduate Student Spotlight

Brian L. McGowan

Brian joined the Center for Postsecondary Research in July 2009. Brian is a doctoral candidate in the Higher Education and Student Affairs program at Indiana University. He also serves as a reviewer for Research and Brief as well as the On Campus sections of the Journal of College Student Development. Prior to attending Indiana University, Brian served as an Area Coordinator for Rutgers University.

Job Responsibilities
Project Associate for the NSSE Institute for Effective Educational Practice
Research Interests
Brian’s research interests include the social construction of race, gender, and sexuality at predominantly White colleges and universities; issues and challenges facing college men of color, and racial/ethnic disparities in college student outcomes. His most recent publications and conference presentations have been related to the role of race and racism in the experiences of Black male resident assistants on predominantly White campuses, and perceptions of diversity among students of color.
(I didn’t have to do much work on this one, his job did all of the work for me http://cpr.iub.edu/staff.cfm?iuid=blmcgowa)

Brian is currently dissertating and preparing for life after Bloomington. In the time he has been here, Brian has attended numerous BGSA events and quite possibly knows well over half the 400 Black graduate students enrolled at IUB. Accomplished scholar, proven artist (he sings and plays the piano), and effective networker (Brian really knows everybody). Join me in saluting a brother, friend, a fellow Blackademician, our Brian Lamont McGowan.

We support you in the struggle, rejoice in your accomplishments, and want to share the load of your burdens. BGSA celebrates Black History Maker – Brian L. McGowan.

Black History Fact

On this day 57 years ago Alabama Governor George Wallace lost his fight to prohibit Black students from enrolling at the state’s flagship university. The University of Alabama admitted its first Black student, Autherine Lucy, on February 3rd, 1956. She was expelled three days later “for her own safety” in response to threats from a mob. In 1992 Autherine Lucy Foster graduated from the University with a master’s degree in education. The same day, her daughter, Grazia Foster, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in corporate finance.

BGSA Blacklight and History Fact 2

Black Graduate Student spotlight:

Crystal Partee. Crystal Partee is 4th year optometry student in the IU School of Optometry. Hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, Crystal is a graduate of Georgia State University, the past president of the National Optometry Student Association – IU Chapter. Currently in her optometry rotations, Crystal is fitting people for glasses, checking eyes for cataracts, and providing primary care for the visually impaired.

Black History Fact 2

The Benjamin Banneker Center serves as a Community Center for the Near West Side of Bloomington, IN. The Banneker Center used to be the Black High School for Bloomington and Monroe County youth who were not allowed to attend the city’s segregated secondary schools. Now the center is open throughout the week for basketball pick up games and community-centered events.

Black Graduate Student Spotlight

My Brothers and Sisters,

My name is Carl Darnell and I am the Education Chair for BGSA. As such, I aim to enlighten and educate the community on Black History, both locally and worldwide. First I would like to introduce you to a fellow member of BGSA then provide you with history fact about Black at IU.

BGSA Member “Under the Blacklight”

Family, please welcome Blair Chance. Blair is one of the few, very few, Black medical students at IU Bloomington (there are only two in the class of 2016 cohort). Blair is relatively new to IU Bloomington, but she frequently attends BGSA meetings and social events. Moreover, Blair has been an active participant in IU Recreational Sports, playing intramural basketball on weeknights. BGSA welcomes and salutes Black Historymaker, Blackademician, Blair Chance.

Black at IU

1. The Little 500 Sit-In
On May 8, 1968, around 50 African-American students gathered in the stadium where the little 500 bike race was to take place the next day. They were demonstrating mainly to show their dissatisfaction with the discriminatory clauses in fraternity charters, but also to protest the discrimination elsewhere on campus and the low numbers of African-American students and faculty members. They barricaded the stadium and wrote a list of demands, stating they would stay put until each fraternity proved they had eliminated the discriminatory clauses or until the university ceased to recognize those organizations that failed to comply. Indiana University’s president, Elvis Stahr, and other members of the administration worked with the students to appease the demonstrators. The University was later applauded for its swift and effective way of working with the protesting students (http://www.cardinalstage.org/slideshows-good-behavior-bad-behavior/).

On Friday, May 8 a group of around 50 black students set up camp inside the stadium where the Little 500 was to be held the following day. The group was led by Rollo Turner, Robert Johnson – president of the Afro-Afro-American Students Association (AAASA), and IU basketball player Kenny Newsome, and the main issue was discriminatory clauses in the national charters of fraternities on campus. The students barricaded themselves within the stadium and let it be known that they would block the Little 500 race from taking place unless all involved fraternities provided proof that such clauses were either eliminated or would no longer be honored at IU. Armed and armored with sticks, helmets and improvised shields for defense, the students remained non-violent throughout the three day sit-in.

Diversity Toy Drive 2012

Diversity Toy Drive 2012

December 18th, 2012 – Bloomington, Indiana

For the second year in a row Indiana University doctoral student Carl Darnell has coordinated a unique kind of toy drive. Originating as the Black Toy Drive in 2011, and developing to include a larger scope as the Diversity Toy Drive, this Christmas-time donation stemmed from a conversation Darnell had with his mentees and students in the Hudson & Holland Scholars Program (formerly the Minority Achievers Program). The HHSP scholars and Darnell came up with the idea when discussing the root issues leading to racial prejudice and discrimination. The students posited that many rural and suburban youth may not interact with people outside their race until high school or even college, by which time, feelings of otherness and white superiority may have already developed. The students of the HHSP freshman seminar course believed that spreading diversity awareness to rural youth as early as possible would be the best solution for stopping racism in a generation.

Taking into consideration the upcoming Christmas season and knowing the message delivered to children through toys and children’s stories, Darnell and the scholars proposed the class put on a toy drive as a class project. If the toys and children’s books resembled Black characters, children, still developing their ideas of normalcy and aesthetics, would see that their Black dolls were just as pretty as White dolls, and that their Black action figures had just as strong a kung-fu grip as their White toys. As an act of resistance and awareness, Darnell further proposed that all the toys be purchased in Bloomington. Traveling from store to store in South central Indiana, it can be challenging to find a doll or action figure that doesn’t have blue eyes. Darnell hoped the numerous requests, in-person and over the phone, for Black toys and children’s books would prompt local stores to have more diversity represented on their shelves.

Concerning the anticipated recipients of the donations, it was decided that the toys should go to the most needy pre-K and elementary school children in the surrounding city and county, regardless of race or ethnicity. So that possible donors would understand what kind of toys were desired, the drive was originally named the Princess Tiana toy drive, Princess Tiana is Disney’s first Black lead animated movie character. Partnering with the Black Graduate Student Association, of which Darnell was the vice president, the idea was adopted as the Black Toy Drive. To be fully inclusive of the Latino and Persian students in the HHSP freshman class, the scholars proposed a change in the name to the Diversity Toy Drive on the undergraduate side, BGSA continued the drive on the graduate and professional student front as the Black Toy Drive 2011. The toys and books collected in 2011 were all delivered to Middleway House New Wings shelter for battered women and children. Due to student publicizing and coverage in the student newspaper, BGSA members Darnell and Sam Davis had to make two trips to deliver all of the donations. In the second installation of the drive, the list of partnering campus organizations and anticipated community beneficiaries were expanded.

In an effort to further link IU diversity initiatives to Monroe County diversity support agencies in a “town and gown” partnership, Darnell linked the Black Graduate Student Association, the students of the Hudson and Holland Scholars Program, the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center, and Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in a city-wide toy drive designed for people to bring in toys that “looked like them” and represented diversity. Additionally, the toys were delivered on December 18th to the original beneficiary Middleway House New Wings and to two new support agencies in the city of Bloomington. At the suggestion of a HHSP student leader, the Villages foster care center for kids was added to the list of beneficiaries. Finally, after several members of the BGSA attended the Crisis Pregnancy Center’s 2012 fundraising gala where a BGSA member was the keynote speaker, in honor of the speaker Tomika Ferguson and her baby Camille, the group decided to donate one-third of the toys to the CPC’s Hannah House for new mothers and infants.

The event overall was a success, and stakeholders on the Indiana University Bloomington campus, as well as the citizens of Bloomington, seem thankful and anxious for this diversity awareness activity, the social justice exercise, this partnership called the IU BGSA Diversity Toy Drive.

BGSA Mentoring Program Kickoff

The Black Graduate Student Association at Indiana University has partnered with the Hudson and Holland Scholars Program, Women of Color Leadership Institute, and the Black Student Union to provide undergraduate students with mentors in IUB’s graduate and professional schools.

 

BGSA held its kickoff/meet-and-greet for the Mentoring Program on November 14th, 2012, and is set to hold its next program-wide event in January 2013.  The meet-and-greet, facilitated by the Hudson and Holland Scholars Program in the Scholars Resource Room (Memorial Hall 007), was well attended and productive.  Food was donated by Chipotle, music was provided by DJ KO, and most importantly, more than 20 undergraduate students were able to make connections with some of  IU’s Black graduate students.

     Mentoring Program coordinating committee Katrina Overby-chair (BGSA Vice President), Melody Barham-mentor liaison (BGSA Historian), and Carl Darnell-mentee liaison (BGSA Education Chair) began the event with introductions, followed with the significance of mentoring for underrepresented students at predominantly White institutions, and ended with a charge for both the mentors and mentees to put in the effort to make their relationships a success.

 

Any and all interested in assisting, participating, or contributing to the BGSA Mentoring Program may contact IU BGSA via Facebook or Twitter @BGSA_IU #mentoring

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There is a concerted effort under way to increase the 4% representation of Black students at IUB to 8% as promised by the IU President McRobbie and the Board of Trustees.  In preparation for the incoming masses of underrepresented students, student organizations like BGSA, Black Student Union (BSU), Men and Women of Color Leadership Institute, Multicultural Outreach Recruitment Educators (M.O.R.E.), and the Hudson and Holland Scholars Advisory Council, are actively establishing initiatives such as the BGSA Mentoring Program to support students of color at Indiana University Bloomington. The time for rhetoric has passed; if you want improve your situation and the situation of your fellow brothers and sisters, get involved.

  

“Tell me, and I will forget; show me, and I might remember; INVOLVE me and I will understand.” – as quoted by Mahja Zeon, speaker at the Rosa Parks Commemoration to Resistance 2012.

Fist Up

Mentoring

Four percent

Black students make up for percent of IU Bloomington’s enrollment. In fact, Black students have made up 4% of the student body since 1975.

To bring awareness to this issue the IU Black Graduate Student Association, the Hudson & Holland Scholars Program, and the Marshall Black Culture Center have teamed together to host a commemoration to resistance in honor of Ms. Rosa Parks, we have also begun collecting donations for our second annual Diversity Toy Drive, and we are in the process of preparing for our first call-a-thon of the year in conjunction with the Office of Admissions. We are committed to not only bring awareness to diversity issues on the campus, but we also intend to be three change we want to see. Others have taken our cause and spread the message to their new jobs, schools, and communities. At this point we’ve spread the message to Ohio, Pennsylvania, and of course Bloomington, Indiana. Our story has been featured on NPR, Bloomington’s Harald-Times, and IU’s student newspaper the IDS. Just this evening alone, December 10, 2012, we were interviewed on Bloomington’s community radio station WFHB and meet with IU’s student governing board, the Indiana University Student Association (IUSA). The bottom line

is that we know all students are not being treated equally, so we want to do something about it. Find out the information for yourself, analyze the results to get an idea of the root of the problem, and actively engage in developing and enacting solutions to the problem.It can be done, and regardless of how alone you may feel, know that you have people on your side. Your ally, your advocate, your brothers & sisters of the 4%. Fist up.

Explosion rocks Indianapolis

President Obama reelection party

My President still looks like me! Seems like a great occasion to take President Obama celebration pictures with everyone I can find, students, colleagues, and exited people simply passing by…

African Student Association Students and graduate student Lynette Anigbo

Paris and Carl celebrate President Obama’s Re-election

Angela and Carl

Exsenet and Carl

Alexis and Carl

Suzy and Carl

Zeta and Carl

TJ and Carl

Brandon and Carl

Bianca and Carl

Muhammad and Troy

JT and Malaika

Benjamin and Lynette

Lynette Malaika and JT

Come visit the Hudson and Holland office

Stop by Hudson & Holland for a treat! (this is not a trick)

Great surprise visit from Junior scholar Ashleigh Del Bosque. The candy Leah McRath brought hit the spot, and the morning ended with an advising meeting with Carl Darnell.

Leah has candy dishes, candy trays, and a candy cauldron in the Hudson & Holland front office (Memorial Hall West suite 008). M&Ms, tootsie rolls, gobstoppers, you name it, we have it all in HHSP. 

After getting your sugar rush upstairs, come down a level to stop by a program mentors’ office. Mentors Lynette Anigbo, Blake Luna, and Carl Darnell are covering program requirements and offering information on specific disciplines. Advisors Jennifer Poe and Dr. Miriam Attenoukon (Mimi) are registering students for classes.

Back upstairs newly minted JD Anthony Scott and Director Marsha McGriff (just started Oct 15, 2012) are repositioning Hudson & Holland for greatness, and would love for you to stop by and say hello.

It’s a great day in HHSP, come see us.

Teaching Activism

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It is 8 AM on a Tuesday morning.  The lecture hall holds 239 people and there are no more than 50 empty seats.  Freshmen are all around, some groggy due to the early start, others have their laptops and smartphones out searching everything but the subject of the day’s lesson, even more are leaning back in their seats counting down the minutes until 9:15, the end of class.

Today, unlike the rest of the semester, however, speaking to the class will be their graduate level associate instructors.  A group of three men and one women who resemble the diverse make up of the class (a stark difference from the average professor at a large, public Midwest research university: an old Caucasion male) approach the front of the room and begin a series of presentations on protests, revolts, rallies, and rebellions.

As the final instructor approaches the lecturn to finish off of the four presentation, he asks one hundred students to stand up.  Four students are given directions to yell the word ‘left’, another four students are instructed to yell ‘right’, and yet another four students are told to shout the word ‘up’, while the rest of the 88 students are instructed to yell the school’s colors, and all are instructed to do so at the specified time. On the count of three everyone shouts.  None of the students left in the crowd could here the words ‘up’, ‘left’, or ‘right’ being shouted. They could not here them individually, nor could they hear them together.  The only sound that could be heard was the voice, the will, the standard of the majority.

At that instant, the class of minority scholarship students realized that as merely 4% of the population, no one could hear their voices.  Black students make up 4% of the student body, the same goes for Hispanic/Latino, and Asian American undergraduate students as a percent of the student population.  The groups could not be heard individually, nor were their collective voices heard as 12% of the students.  To be heard, they would have to convince those around them, those not like them, those in the majority to shout with them, to be on their side, in order for their voices to be heard. Otherwise, the students would have to “do” something other than to just shout.

That day, the students learned what it takes to be heard, the instructors empowered the students with the history of revolts, the power of rallies, and the results of recent protests on the campus, and everyone involved left with a better understanding that there is more to it than sit-ins, marches, and speeches, to fully grasp and accomplish a level social justice in a setting such as the small Midwest town where the college is set, you cannot go at it alone or in small, minority groups, you must get people of all races and ethnicities to work together toward that cause.  That day the students got a lesson. That day the graduate instructors got to do more than just lecture, talk at, or proliferate, we had the chance to involve the students and really teach activism.

Students at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Trangender Support Center

Some put the lesson in activism to work two days later by going out to early voting, while others went out to tour all of the culture centers and sites of activism around the campus. My takeaway: there’s not much that I enjoy more than Teaching Activism.