Welcome to Tufts, a delinquent community with morons and geniuses, progressives and conservatives, jerks and sweet souls. People of all backgrounds and identities comprise this community. Now, this home is yours, so I challenge you to make it your own. In my past two years at Tufts, I have experienced tears and laughs, triumphs and defeats. Tufts has become my home, my community, and my family.
Through my personal interactions, I have realized that Tufts is not what it seems. It is not the conscious, progressive, and diverse place it claims to be. Through my involvement with the Asian American Curriculum Transformation Project (AACT) and the Coalition, I began to see that Tufts is not only an institution, but also a corporation that cares more about its economic welfare than the progression of its students and their pursuit of knowledge.
I became sickened by the reality that my history professor's idea of the "Emerging American Society" is one that examines the history of the United States with only a secondary examination of the impact of people of color. I became sickened by the hate crimes that happen every single year on campus and the lack of an institutionalized, prompt response to educate and inform the student population. I became sickened by Tufts' endorsement of a certain campus publication that promotes racism, sexism, and homophobia.
Last year, a group of students from all backgrounds and experiences formed a group informally called the Coalition, and we began to alert the campus of neglected problems within our respective communities. Working with students appalled by indifference, we organized into the wee hours of the night and presented our frustration at the Trustee luncheon held last spring. Through our efforts, the administration responded by granting Tufts students a full-time tenure track position to address the history, literature and study of the Asian-American community.
However, that was just the beginning. This year, we are looking forward to the implementation of policies and changes at Tufts that address our concerns. The following are some of our plans of action for this coming year.
First, we hope to create a body that holds campus publications accountable for their content. This body would listen to the concerns of Tufts students, preventing and penalizing organizations that spread messages of hate targeting individuals and groups.
Second, the AACT Project will continue to work for the inclusion of the Asian-American perspective in the Tufts curriculum in a variety of ways: through the establishment of new courses, modification to existing courses, and hiring of competent, sustaining faculty to teach these courses across all departments.
Third, the Latino Curriculum Transformation Project will begin, with the immediate concern of creating a new faculty position and finding a professor who can fill the need for instruction in Dominican and Puerto Rican literature and culture within the Romance Language Department.
Fourth, we will examine why we have seen a continuous problem with the retention of faculty of color at Tufts, but it appears little research and analysis has been conducted on the reasons for their departures.
Fifth, we see a desperate need for effective, mandatory diversity training for professors and during freshman orientation - which we will begin to address.
Last but not least, we will begin to try to eliminate frequent hate crimes on campus. There needs to be institutionalized, immediate administrative responses to hate crimes to inform the whole student body. Furthermore, proactive programming needs to be created to prevent hate crimes, so that the community will not just be programmed to respond when incidents occur.
These are just some of the diversity problems that need to be addressed at Tufts. You have the opportunity to jump right in, be proactive, and make a true difference. The Coalition was formed last year, and now it is time for it to flourish and to make sustained improvements to Tufts.
As freshmen, you bring fresh perspective, energy, and creativity into our community. Tufts is far from perfect, so I challenge you to grab on to these opportunities to make a difference and to embrace and better your home for the next four years.
David Wu is a junior majoring in Psychology and American Studies.
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