UC Davis Magazine Online
Volume 20
Number 2
Winter 2003
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Call to Community

UC Davis is taking steps to ensure that the campus pulls together and not apart in the face of racial and religious tensions.

By Jan Ferris Heenan


Students clashed over war with Afghanistan at a rally in October 2001.

It’s not unusual, in a university town, for people to read. But this year at UC Davis, everyone is reading the same book.

From freshmen to faculty, staff members to civic leaders, hundreds of people across the university community are turning the pages of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, the true account of a culture clash between Hmong refugees and the medical workers who treated the Hmong family’s severely epileptic daughter.

The book’s popularity with both town and gown is the result of a careful attempt at cultivating common ground. Facilitators with the Campus Community Book Project are using the story, by Anne Fadiman, as a springboard for workshops and other discussions on cultural diversity.

The initiative is one of many to take shape at UC Davis over the past two years to ease racial and religious tensions that have troubled the campus.

Cultural conflicts

Tension between student groups is not a new phenomenon, but in the past several years in particular—as the campus’s “minority” population has topped 50 percent—divergent viewpoints, poor communication and, in some cases, racism, have sparked conflict. Incidents have included a fight in fall 2000 between members of two fraternities—one predominantly white, the other mainly Asian-American—first at an apartment complex and some weeks later at “the Rocks” along the Yolo Causeway levee.

A contentious student-body election added to campus tensions in early 2001.

A group of conservative students challenged the victory of a slate composed of Hispanic, African-American, Asian, Muslim and gay candidates. While the election outcome ultimately withstood challenge, the divisive and often personal rhetoric exchanged by the parties polarized the student community.

Other incidents engulfed UC Davis in 2001, from a newspaper ad in the California Aggie decrying slavery reparations to arson at the Jewish Hillel House, in which a window was broken and an Israeli flag set afire, spreading flames to the building’s roof.

The tensions in recent years have been eye-opening for many students. Vicky Vang, a fifth-year communications student, moved from Thailand to the United States as a child. Vang, who is Hmong, says she’d never felt persecuted because of her ethnicity until two years ago, when fighting erupted between the white and Asian-American students.

“That’s what college does. It makes you more aware of your surroundings, of all the inequalities that are out there,” Vang said.

“Sometimes ignorance is bliss; you don’t really question these things. [High school] history books don’t talk a lot about African-Americans, Asian-Americans.” And UC Davis’ efforts to open dialogue are “a good start,” Vang says.

Global troubles hit home

Rally photo
Students supporting Palestine and others supporting Israel faced off at the Memorial Union Plaza in April.

The events of Sept. 11 brought both new challenges and a calming sense of unity to the UC Davis community.

Throughout the year, students initiated protests and demonstrations—for peace, for war, pro-Palestine, pro-Israel. While police were a visible presence on some occasions, the events did not turn violent. “Promote Respect,” a November 2001 lunchtime forum led by Rahim Reed—UC Davis’ first associate executive vice chancellor for campus community relations—and Provost Virginia Hinshaw, helped set the tone for the year, many say.

“What we tried to do was to get people to understand that we encourage them to debate, that we want to promote free speech without the specter of hate and violence,” Reed said.

A number of other university-led events followed Sept. 11, including educational forums and faculty lectures on such topics as the Taliban, Islam, terrorism and civil liberties. A program on the Middle East was held in Freeborn Hall, allowing the campus community to hear about and discuss some of the issues at play. A reconciliation forum was hosted by ASUCD. And administrators, joined by others on campus, also reaffirmed the Principles of Community, first adopted by UC Davis in 1990.

Among other things, the 300-word document calls for fostering mutual understanding “among the many parts of our whole” and affirming the right of freedom of expression on campus. The statement concludes with the promise to “strive to build a true community of spirit and purpose based on mutual respect and caring.”

The events of Sept. 11 gave new life to such tenets, many, including Reed, believe. “I think we made it a very positive experience, which is not to say we weren’t challenged. We were challenged, as was our nation, to not become unglued, to not turn on one another,” he said. “But I think overall, as a community, we were able to come together.”

Janet Gong, assistant vice chancellor for student affairs, agrees. Last year was somewhat calmer on campus than the two years prior, she said.

“We didn’t have as much daily, continuing conflict concerning local issues that we had the year before,” said Gong. “Some of that was probably due to the mood in our country and across the campus—the desire to come together as a community, even when difficult and controversial issues continued to pull us apart.”

But as Middle East tensions have increased, so has unrest at campuses throughout the country. Incidents have gotten particularly ugly at UC Berkeley, where a cinder block was thrown through a glass door at the campus Hillel House and a protest calling for divestment of firms doing business with Israel led to a scuffle and arrests. The troubles have prompted Gov. Gray Davis to weigh in with his own list of steps that the University of California and California State University systems should take to combat anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance. Among his requests: that campuses review free-speech guidelines, comb course descriptions to ensure “that they are forums for intellectual inquiry and not vehicles for discrimination, intimidation and hate,” and promote civility and tolerance.

Says Gong: “The year ahead has the potential to be quite a controversial one, particularly as the campus again mirrors the issues of global conflict that are close to home for many of our students.” Recognizing that potential, Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef, in his fall welcome letter and convocation address, affirmed the value of discourse but asked the community to keep it civil.

“Our university, as should all, welcomes the reasoned exchange of thoughts, ideas and opinions, and a number of forums will be organized for this purpose,” wrote Vanderhoef. “We all will be educationally enriched by discussions of this nature; let us resolve together that they will be conducted with civility and respect. We are, after all, a university. We must remain committed to maintaining a campus climate that promotes free speech without the specter of intimidation or violence, and we must always strive to foster a sense of inclusiveness.”

Building community

tree-planting photo
A ceremonial tree-planting was part of a Call to Community event in May.

The campus has long valued multiculturalism and has fostered a supportive environment through a number of initiatives— the establishment of the Cross-Cultural Center and development of strong ethnic studies programs, to name just two. But the ethnic and religious tensions in recent years have prompted the campus to equip itself in new ways to improve the climate and build a stronger sense of community.

Many point to the hiring of Rahim Reed as a particularly significant and symbolic step. While the campus has had a position devoted to matters of diversity for more than a decade, the post has now been elevated to the highest level, with Reed reporting directly to the chancellor and the provost/executive vice chancellor. Not only is it the first time in the campus’s history that a top-level post has been solely devoted to issues of community, diversity and multicultural education, but it’s a first for the UC system.

“I think that really was a sign that the senior administration on the campus gets the need for a strong and high-level commitment to thinking through how we deal with these issues,” said Stephen Russell, director of the 4-H Center for Youth Development in the Department of Human and Community Development and a member of the Davis Human Relations Commission. “They realize that we need people whose jobs are dedicated to thinking about this on a regular basis,” said Russell, who also co-chairs the Chancellor’s Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues.

Other significant steps UC Davis has taken include:

• Creation of the Campus Council on Community and Diversity, an advisory group that recommends ways to strengthen and maintain the bonds of community at UC Davis.

• Creation of the Diversity Action Administrative Council, an ongoing group of senior administrators who coordinate efforts across campus.

• The Chancellor’s Awards for Diversity and Community, now in their third year, which recognize and reward outstanding efforts of individuals to improve relations.

• Hiring of additional staff in such academic programs as Asian American and Native American studies.

• Training in conflict management, cross-cultural and multicultural education, particularly for Student Affairs staff and other UC Davis employees who work with student employees and interns.

• New policies for the use of the Memorial Union Plaza. Last year the seating and fountain areas on the south side of the Memorial Union replaced the Quad as the campus’s most popular place for student activism. The new guidelines aim to protect free speech while also ensuring access to buildings and increased safety during organized events.

• A Principles of Community Center. Students voted in November to increase their fees to fund a number of new programs and facilities, including a new building that will bring together and provide improved space for several student services. The new facility may include the Cross-Cultural Center; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center; the Women’s Resources and Research Center; and Student Programs and Activities Center.

• The Campus Community Book Project, a pilot program that grew out of post-Sept. 11 discussions among members of the Campus Council on Community and Diversity. It aims to create a common experience for as many people as possible by using workshops and other book-related events as launching pads for discussions on diversity.

“It’s my hope that, in addition to it being a point of conversation and dialogue, it will foster a sense of community,” said Karen Roth, coordinator of UC Davis’ Diversity Education Program. “The question is, ‘How can we in this multicultural state and campus ensure that we all feel valued and reflected in our community?’”

Many at UC Davis applaud that such efforts are already under way, including Fatima Mohamud, a senior program administrator in the UC Davis Washington Center. “There really is more diligence in the campus’s response to [recent racial and religious conflicts], and I think they are attempting to address them,” said Mohamud, an African-American and a Muslim.

Mohamud has attended ceremonial tree-plantings and other campus events aimed at promoting tolerance and diversity. “I think it’s helpful because you see a variety of people who are coming together, saying, ‘We all deserve respect. We are all opposed to hate,’” she said.

Lessons for life

Re-thinking how best to prepare students for the multicultural world awaiting them is an ongoing and necessary process, believes Robert Grey, who served as UC Davis provost in 1993–2001 and helped create the Campus Council on Community and Diversity.

“Bear in mind that students are coming to a far more diverse and complex environment than they have lived in before,” he said. “The university has always been a place where students have broadened their experiences in general.”

Students, in turn, have responded well. That’s the sense Judy Sakaki, UC Davis’ new vice chancellor for student affairs, has already gotten in her first months on the job. She says she has been encouraged by her conversations with students. Some have voiced concerns over strained cross-cultural relations, but many also want to help, she said.

“The university is the perfect place to work through these differences,” Sakaki said, citing Davis’ mosaic of ethnic and religious groups. “It can be incredibly rich. But in that mix, there are always opportunities for misunderstandings.”

There is something good to be said for cross-cultural crises in that they heighten awareness of existing problems, said Roberto Paez, who served as the chancellor’s special adviser on diversity issues between 1999 and 2001 and spearheaded the Chancellor’s Awards for Diversity and Community. That holds especially true for issues like the under-representation of female and ethnic minority faculty—which has been the subject of scrutiny, and some progress, at UC Davis in recent years.

“These issues have a ripple effect on students,” said Paez, who currently works on mediation and cross-cultural competency at the UC Davis Medical Center. Paez helped establish the position held by Rahim Reed. The latter shares Paez’s views on the need to integrate diversity into the “core mission of the university,” instead of the traditional view of multi-culturalism as something of “add-on” value.

By the time students graduate from UC Davis, they should be competent not only in their chosen areas of study but in their ability to communicate effectively across racial, ethnic, cultural and gender lines, Reed said.

“That is something that is part of the educational process for anyone who is going to be a leader, for anyone who is going to effectively negotiate this new millennium,” he said.

Jan Ferris Heenan is a Sacramento-based writer.

Photos by Neil Michel/Axiom and Debbie Aldridge/UC Davis Mediaworks.

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