Student leaders see cultural apathy on campus

Correction appended

Princeton students do not seem to care about cultural identities on campus, student group leaders said at Wednesday night’s meeting of the USG Diversity Council.

“It seems to me that this year students are particularly apathetic,” said Tehama Lopez, a program coordinator at the Carl Fields Center who joined the student leaders. “I organized a Native American heritage program on campus. Someone from the United Nations was here, and only 12 people came.”

Attendance has not been strong at the council’s meetings, either. At its first session on Nov. 3, only six people attended out of the 39 student leaders who were invited. More than twice as many participants were at this meeting, however.

Princeton Association of Black Women president Nene Umoren ’10 agreed with Lopez, explaining that perhaps students no longer “see the use of certain affinity groups anymore.”

Student group leaders “are well aware of the importance of promoting cultural identities, but how can we impart that to a greater Princeton University community?” she said.

Dwight Draughon ’09, the former president of the Black Student Union, Black Men's Awareness Group and Hip Hop: Art & Life, said he believes that culture should be an integral part of the Princeton experience.

“If we’re ‘Princeton in the nation’s service and the service of all nations,’ then cultural classes should be a requirement,” he explained.

Draughon explained that student groups can bring these issues into the spotlight by hitting close to home.

“If you say you want to talk about AIDS in Africa, people won’t care,” Draughon said, “but if you talk about AIDS in New Jersey, people will find that more real.”

Other student groups, such as SpeakOut, which seeks to raise awareness about sexual assault on campus, have opted for creative ways of attracting the student body to their cause, Diversity Council president Mickheila Jasmin ’10 explained.

“One thing that SpeakOut did was put posters that said ‘One in four women are going to be sexually assaulted by the time they graduate college’ in one of four lecture seats in large lecture halls,” she explained.

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She said the posters were an effective way to bring issues into the daily lives of students who do not make an effort to attend events.

“You have to do novel things that integrate the fact that most people are focusing on coursework and [going] to class,” she explained.

Students Against Domestic Violence asked a professor to wear one of the pins the club was distributing to help its cause gain more exposure, Jasmin added.

Despite the bleak tone set by Lopez, Umoren and Draughon, at least one student group that addresses issues of diversity has experienced a different trend in participation.

Sustained Dialogue, an organization that holds weekly dinner discussions about race, gender and religion on campus, has seen a tripling in the number of discussion leader volunteers, publicity chair Reginald Galloway ’11 said.

“We see a lot of people … interested in being moderators, but the dining halls don’t have space for us,” Sustained Dialogue president Jinju Pottenger ’10 explained. “Because of this, we’re hoping to move into the eating clubs.”

In the meantime, the group will continue its mission of encouraging open discussion on campus.

“Sustained Dialogue is about forming personal relationships among the group,” Galloway explained. “I think we form a community, and our moderators have been great at forming personal relationships and encouraging people to come every week. I think that’s the key.”

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Dwight Draughon ’09 was also the president of three student groups. In fact, he was formerly the head of those groups.