Bronson Lemer <blemer SPAMFILTER @hotmail.com>
Thursday 14 October 2004
One campus group is taking steps to erase racism on campus.
Training Our Campuses Against Racism will hold public forums from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday in the library porch and from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday in CMU 101.
The forums will provide MSUM students and the community an opportunity to respond and discuss the findings of the TOCAR survey, which the organization conducted last year.
TOCAR was formed in 2001. The organization promotes equal opportunities by advancing multicultural understanding and confronting ethnic and racial prejudices.
The group spent a year developing a survey, which gathered information related to perceptions of racial and ethnic issues in the community. The survey was then administered to students, faculty and staff at MSUM, Concordia College, NDSU and Minnesota State Community and Technical College. The findings of the survey are published in this week's issue of The Advocate.
Amy Phillips, professor of social work and TOCAR committee member, hopes the discussions will help further the TOCAR cause.
"The results express a spectrum of ideas about racism," Phillips said. "The survey helped show that there are significant differences of how white individuals and people of color view our campus."
For Ferman Woodberry, Campus Security director and member of the campus services anti-racism team, the forums are a step in the right direction.
"The forums will provide an open dialogue to discuss these issues," Woodberry said. "That's the central point of TOCAR - to establish a safe environment where we can openly discuss these issues."
Phyllis May-Machunda, chairwoman of the American multicultural studies and co-chair of the TOCAR collaborative, hopes to gather feedback from the community and campus and form an anti-racism plan by next fall.
"We want to have the community realize what we are trying to do and then move our campus toward an anti-racist community," May- Machunda said.
Woodberry came to MSUM in October 2003, after serving as security coordinator for St. Cloud (Minn.) State University. Within the first month at MSUM, Woodberry noticed the campus' efforts to correct racism in the community.
"There are really dedicated people working to squash racism on this campus," Woodberry said. "St. Cloud State is struggling with these same issues and they are just starting to develop a plan for curbing racism on their campus."
As part of the campus services anti-racism team, Woodberry and others are looking at ways to change the nature of racism on campus. One way is through education programs like the training sessions offered through Minnesota Churches Anti-Racism Initiative (MCARI), a training program designed to educate people about racism in communities. MSUM, NDSU and Concordia will offer the first level of training Nov. 4 through Nov. 6.
Woodberry completed all three levels of training between October and February. After the training, Woodberry realized that the issue of racism is far more complex than he imagined.
"It's more than what I have experienced or what others have experienced," Woodberry said. "The only way we can make this environment a healthy one is to look at what starts racism on this campus and how we can change that to make this environment a healthy one for future generations."
Lemer can be reached at blemer@hotmail.com.