In a message from the Dean of Students to the Tufts community at the opening of the Pachyderm, Bruce Reitman encourages students to "get out there and get to know your classmates, particularly those who aren't just like you."
Reitman also said that, "how each of us experiences being here will be defined in large part by the ways we interact with one another."
But one well-respected college ranking guide claims that some question how deep those opportunities for interaction are at Tufts. In the Princeton Review's annual "Best 345 Colleges" guide, Tufts was ranked seventh in the category of "poor race/class relations." The rankings and school profiles were gathered from 100,158 student surveys from 345 colleges. Last year, Tufts ranked fifth in the same category.
Indeed, students have long questioned whether the activities of the culture houses and the assignment of minority freshmen to minority peer leaders does more to segregate the Tufts community than to diversify it.
"Tufts is diverse, but it's so superficial," one Asian American student who wished to remain anonymous said. "As long as the percentages are there, the University doesn't care."
"Sorry to burst your bubble," another student agreed.
In the past, Tufts has focused on making the school more diverse, but it is only now starting to concentrate on improving race relations among the students already on campus, according to Dean of the Colleges Charles Inouye.
The need for improvements in the climate on campus was evident in the ethnic breakdown of the class of 2006. Though the number of minority students admitted was comparable to recent years, the percent of those admitted who chose to attend Tufts was down.
In the class of 2006, six percent are African-American, seven percent are Hispanic, 14 percent are Asian-American, and one percent is Native American. Although the number of Asian-American students rose, these statistics represent a decline in the number of African-American and Hispanic students.
Some say that the Princeton Review rankings turn minority students away from Tufts. Latino Center Director Rub?©n Salinas-Stern pointed out, however, that it's hard to pinpoint a single reason as to why the percentages fluctuate. 92 students in a class is still an improvement from his arrival in 1993, when "Latinos were not even a presence on campus," he said.
A number of cultural resources, from centers, extracurricular groups, and habitats, are on campus to support minority students. Those who run and participate in these resources have mixed perspectives on the role they play in race relations on campus.
"I think Latinos see a center for them and it makes them feel good," Salinas-Stern said. "It doesn't mean that if they [are active in the Center] that they're segregating themselves."
One African-American senior said she thought students feel pressured to involve themselves with culture centers when they first come to Tufts because they don't know what to expect from college. "For many African-American students, we've come from schools where we were the only black person in our school, or in our classes," she said.
"When you come here you want something different. I think the change [from high school to college] scares some students too, they feel pushed into the culture groups when they come here," she continued.
That's not always the case, said Li Ouyang, an Asian-American Peer Leader, who wrote letters to incoming freshmen over the summer inviting them to the Asian American Center. "A lot of the advisees are hesitant to get involved with the house. They say, 'I'm Asian-American, but I don't want to be pigeonholed or stereotyped to this house,'" she said.
Regular involvement with a culture group or house doesn't make for a lack of interaction among cultures stressed Ouyang. "Our events are open to everyone and publicized to the whole school. The purpose of the center is to educate the University," about Asian-American culture, she said.
Director of the International Office Jane Etish-Andrews said that the same was true of the International Center. She pointed out that the International Orientation Program invites both international students and Americans. "We're not isolating international students but rather bringing groups together and making friendships," she said.
Senior Laura Horwitz, a Caucasian student who frequents the Asian-American Center, said she was proof that racial interaction can occur at culture groups. "People have this misconception that culture houses are only for people of that culture. They're not," she said.
Sometimes, though, the centers struggle to make this kind of interaction. Asian-American Peer Leader Andrew Tong said "there are Asian-American specific events to educate [Asian-American students] first about the issues before they go out and educate their peers."
However, there is no specific program to encourage students from other cultures to get involved. "If you don't come looking for the Center, you're not going to find out about it," Tong said. "I feel sometimes that our programs aren't geared towards others." He thinks the reason is not because of disinterest or prejudices but rather a lack of resources on the part of the University.
"No one has a desire to put on an event and only have Latinos show up. It's never our intent, in fact, it's a disappointment," if only Latinos come, Salinas-Stern said.
The problem is neither the culture houses nor the students Tong said. "Even if you do have the initiative, there's no one there to support you."
But administrators say they are there if students ask. "My door is open anytime if someone has a problem with diversity issues," Inouye said. "My own background is one that makes me sensitive to these issues." Inouye is of Japanese decent.
"The last time we had a bombing of the US my parents were put in a camp. On 9/11, my response was probably different than most people," he said.
Inouye is well aware of racial problems at Tufts. "It's not like I don't know it's going on or don't think it's important. Right now, coming out of this [administrative] transition, the money stayed in the budget. We think it's important that faculty and students request that money," Inouye said.
Horwitz thinks students shouldn't have to do the asking. "We don't have a lot of administrator support for interaction," she said. "You can talk about kids having cliques anywhere but I think it's ridiculous to put it on the students. At a lot of schools, there are culture centers all in one building. We don't have anything like that."
Salinas-Stern agrees that there needs to be more structure between the different cultural groups. Former Vice-President Mel Bernstein, who left for Brandeis last year, used to act as a facilitator for the culture groups. "I think that's missing... someone who took all that time and it's never been replaced," Salinas-Stern said. "There needs to be a place where there can be a healthy discussion about these issues. We need more connections with high-level administrators."
Some students also question what the University was doing in terms of educating students in the classroom.
"The past couple of years we've been working on bringing more Asian American courses to Tufts," Inouye said. "Next on our list are more Latino classes, then Native American."
Some students say that the cultural centers and groups play an integral role in supporting students' personal growth. "I feel people complain [that the] campus is segregated, but a part of college is finding yourself," Li Ouyang said. "Often we're not comfortable enough to reach out when we're just trying to establish our own identities."
"In elementary school I didn't want to be Chinese," Ouyang said. "I was embarrassed by my parents. I was 'whitewashed,' as they call it. Then, I wanted to just be Chinese and embrace what that means. Now, I seek a balance."
But even at the university level, finding that balance can be difficult. "It's hard to do both," said one Indian student. "My home friends are hanging out with all Indian students at their schools or they aren't. There is no in between."
One African-American student said that, "people tend to sit with who they're comfortable with." Often, she said, this leads to one situation: "mostly all my friends are black."
"I don't know that it's an issue on campus; in some ways, it's just what's out there in the world," she said.
"We have to be realistic," Salinas-Stern said. Complete integration "is not something that happens in society."
But this problem is emphasized at Tufts, said one Caucasian student, because we are so diverse. "I guess most of my home friends don't have the minority populations that Tufts has at their schools, so it's harder to gage," he said.
Students also questioned the technique Residential Life and Learning uses to pair first year students with roommates. "I was a Peer Leader and I noticed a lot of roommates were put together by cultures. It might isolate students by doing that," one student said.
Director of Residential Life and Learning Yolanda King said that this must have occurred by chance. "It goes into a computer which selects randomly," she said. "There is a roommate questionnaire to ask student preferences... but it does not get into those issues."
King attributes these matches to requests from students to live with friends from home.
"We're going to attempt to fix the problem," Inouye said. "You can put money on it that we will come up with solutions as early as November... directly addressing issues of diversity - not just domestic but international, economic, and cultural as well."
"Issues of diversity have come up again and again," he said. "We hear the message, we're not stupid."
Veronica Aguilar contributed to this article.
