Identify: The addition of a new, intersectional cultural center that houses University of South Carolina’s (UofSC) Office of Multicultural Student Affairs (OMSA) and related programs will positively impact students and staff who are members of underrepresented communities, and in turn, the University as a whole.
Understand: Being a member of an underrepresented, minority, or otherwise “stigmatized” group can have detrimental effects on a person’s health and development, depending on the nature of their environment and surroundings. In social psychology, one of the main identified problems that members of underrepresented populations face is known as the “cost of concealment" (Gilovich, Keltner, Chen, & Nisbett, 2016). Colloquially, this can be expressed as the mental and physical toll taken on an individual stemming from hiding one’s identity, usually in order to “fly under the radar” or assimilate into what is considered acceptable mainstream culture. While many members of underrepresented communities engage in various types of concealment, there are real, negative consequences of not living as one’s true self. Conversely, there are also downsides to living one’s truth, which is why concealment occurs in the first place. Many LGBTQ+ individuals fear backlash around coming out, those with “invisible” disabilities sometimes mask them in order to avoid stigma, and many Black people often engage in “code-switching” in order to counter prejudice or biases held by white people.
A photo of me marching in the Famously Hot South Carolina Pride Parade in 2014.
While generally stereotyped as bastions of liberal thought and diversity, college campus environments are not utopias for underrepresented communities and quite often still perpetuate many of the fears and worries directly relating to concealment. Outside of social psychology theories, like the cost of concealment, that would lead us to believe that universities should consider the needs of those in underrepresented communities in order to ensure the success of all of its students, multiple studies on higher education have detailed the benefits of creating a campus climate that is inclusive of students of all backgrounds and identities as well. The recommendations listed in these studies typically include the importance of cultural centers at institutions of higher education, specifically at predominantly white institutions (PWIs). One such study claims that cultural centers as well as other “population-specific services and resources” have been linked to “increased satisfaction, retention, and civic responsibility” among the students utilizing them. Numerous universities across the United States have already implemented dedicated spaces like these in order to ensure that the needs of underrepresented student populations are met, and a Southern PWI like UofSC could follow this precedent by upgrading the space it has allotted for OMSA.
Solution
Organize: The 2020 Vision movement began in late 2015 with a group of students advocating for intersectional change on the UofSC campus. With goals of promoting equity for minority and underrepresented students, broadening the diversity of the student population, and furthering social justice initiatives, I and two other co-organizers planned a walkout based on twelve demands structured around these goals. The sixth demand reads: “We demand that our university increase the funding allocated to the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs. Additionally, we require that OMSA be housed in a new cultural center that celebrates all identities. As campus continues to grow, it is imperative that support for all students continues to grow.” By serving as the catalyst to push for structural change at UofSC, those who participated in the 2020 Vision walkout actively confronted issues at the University despite potential pushback. In taking the first steps towards a more equitable university, we prioritized the changes we wanted for the University over our own personal comfort and convenience.
In furthering the goals of 2020 Vision, I have participated in much of the follow-up with UofSC administration concerning the status of the demands since the November 2015 walkout. As of April 2017, administrative efforts are under way to enact these demands, yet none of them have been fully accomplished. While OMSA has been provided a designated space (The Intersection) in the basement of the Russell House University Union (RHUU) where the off-campus student lounge was once located, this space relegates students and staff in OMSA to a small, difficult-to-find location that continues to limit OMSA programming and is not the cultural center that student activists envisioned. Furthermore, when compared to the also recently renovated, but centrally-located and technologically-equipped, Leadership and Service Center (LSC) in RHUU, it is obvious that The Intersection lacks in both resources and space.
Establish: In furthering the mission of 2020 Vision, specifically the demand for a multicultural center, future student activists must continue to advocate for the importance of such a space. As a leader of the 2020 Vision movement, I will inform these younger students about the history of the movement and where we stand now, connect them with administrators, and assist them with the beginning phases of advocating for a cultural center. I am currently in the process of documenting the 2020 Vision movement as my Honors Senior Thesis project, which will be available as a resource on campus and serve as a recorded history for these future student activists. These activists should be able to build upon the progress made by past leaders of the 2020 Vision movement and hopefully, engage in meaningful discussions with University administrators about the creation of a multicultural center.
This discussion must be taken seriously and prioritized by those with the power and resources at the University to implement such a center, and should feed into the formation of a truly diverse and representative committee to discuss the needs of OMSA and the purposes of a new cultural center, as well as to make decisions and coordinate with the University offices that are concerned with the construction of new buildings. As university budgets and financial records are not widely available to the public and are only accessible to students through long and complicated request processes, it is reasonable that this discussion about a new cultural center would occur with administrators who are knowledgeable about the University’s many budgets (as well as other insights like campus goals, multi-year plans for the university, etc.). Thus, this committee would include any administrators or officials usually consulted over matters of new campus buildings, as well as OMSA staff members, students in OMSA, and representatives from other student groups and organizations, such as Student Government. This last category of student representatives should be truly representative of those doing the work to make change on campus: the committee should include students who are involved in activism on campus, to whom I will serve as a mentor to during this process.
Additionally, the cultural center may be selected as a wing within a new student union (rather than a separate building) that can house other offices in addition to OMSA, such as International Student Services. The RHUU was constructed in 1955 and is the oldest standing university union among SEC universities; in fact, the newly elected Student Government cabinet for 2017 ran on a platform that expressed the need for a new and updated university union. If the RHUU is chosen as a target for renovation, this committee should have representatives from OMSA and underrepresented student populations to advocate for a cultural center’s inclusion in this process.
Create: The designated committee would be tasked with making decisions about how to structure a new university union or stand-alone cultural center in a way that caters to the needs of all students it is intended to accommodate. A few key decisions to be addressed by this committee will include major architectural plans, dissemination and source of funds, and interior design of individual spaces within the building.
Structure:The new building should be designed in a manner that takes into account all of the various populations it will be serving. Considerations for the building’s architecture must be made in a way that champions intersectionality within the multicultural space. In practice, this looks like open-concept spaces that allow the flow of students, faculty, and staff within the center, in addition to areas designated for specific student populations or organizations. If designed as a space within a new university union, prioritization of the cultural center must also be high on the list of considerations: this space will not be effective if it is, yet again, relegated to a basement in an obscure wing of the union. It must be easily accessible (with such disability accommodations made to allow everyone the ability to access the center) and close to other areas and departments within the building that students regularly access (i.e. LSC, various restaurants, meeting rooms). This will provide not only a comfortable space for the students already utilizing OMSA, but allow other students outside of OMSA to engage with different underrepresented populations. This removal of barriers between students has the potential to further the idea of intersectionality throughout all of the UofSC campus rather than relegating it within OMSA solely, the significance of which is emphasized in my first Key Insight. Additionally, this space has the power to encourage students of differing backgrounds to engage with one another, in the line of thought that contact has the power to weaken the outgroup homogeneity effect and consequently, the creation of monoliths, as illustrated in my third Key Insight. Considerations for the building’s overall architecture undoubtedly extend beyond these factors, but these considerations must be made in order to ensure a mission of diversity, inclusion, and intersectionality at UofSC.
Distribute:The issue of funding is a complex one, especially at an institution of higher education with various bureaucratic levels. As mentioned before, there is limited access to budget information for non-administrative members at UofSC, and it is practical to place university administrators on this committee in charge of deciding the source of funding for this new cultural center or student union. However, if a new student union (including the cultural center within) is determined to be the best course of action for UofSC’s goals and mission, then the non-administrative members of the committee should be consulted on issues of how this funding is distributed among the various spaces within the student union, so as not to unjustly allocate uneven funding amounts based on prejudices towards certain organizations or departments.
Design:If a new cultural center is to be effective in reaching its goals of providing a safe space for underrepresented students and promoting intersectionality, it must have amenities that reflect the needs of these student populations as well as OMSA staff members. The spaces in the center should be inviting and modern, taking into similar considerations that were made when UofSC’s LSC was renovated. What this looks like should be intensely discussed by the committee (as this is another area in which funding will be involved), with student and staff voices prioritized, as they will be the primary users of the space.
Evaluation
Measure: In looking to define the University’s success in implementing a cultural center on its Columbia campus, potential metrics could include first-year retention rates, graduation rates, number of new applicants (and consequently, acceptance rates), and other basic measurements widely used to determine the success of a university. Additionally, campus-wide climate surveys could broadly track the success of underrepresented students through self-reported measures, as well as more informal surveys issued to different student groups. Metrics like these can be implemented longitudinally to show the effects of the cultural center over a period of years in order to ensure that it is being utilized by staff and students in a way that furthers student involvement, growth, and success, and promotes a positive campus environment.
Furthermore, one-on-one discussions with student leaders and staff could map success on an individualized level and guarantee that the multicultural space is living up to its full potential and the expectations of those who helped in its creation. Finally, positive press that the University may receive from the creation of a new cultural center, especially in the aftermath of a surge in activism on college campuses nationwide, could be another way to measure the cultural center’s benefit for not only the student populations it serves, but also the university at large (and its reputation).
The first graph displays the University of South Carolina's most recent enrollment data based on race and the second graph displays the state of South Carolina's racial demographic breakdown.
Reflect: Always keep in mind that no matter how in-depth or large the scale of the project is, there is no single initiative that will be the fix-all to a university’s campus climate issues. Building a cultural center will not “end racism” (or homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, etc.) on UofSC’s campus, but this space does have the potential to be the home for the diverse body of underrepresented students at UofSC, as well as foster much-needed dialogue, innovative and progressive thought, and social justice endeavors.