CONTEXTUALIZING THE PODCASTS
Why Student Activist Leaders
Dear Reader,
As I approach my final weeks of my senior year, I had time to reflect on a conversation I had over the summer with current Student Relations Advisory Committee Chair and Associate Professor in the School of Education, Gina Cervetti. Professor Cervetti and I met because of our joint work while I served as student body president. We met in the context of the Office of Student Conflict Resolution’s amendment cycle for the Statement of Student Rights & Responsibilities, and our conversation led to an exploration about what the ideal Michigan should look like.
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The University of Michigan’s institutional values include equity, diversity, liberty, and justice. The mission statement calls for developing leaders and citizens who will challenge the present and enrich the future. Unfortunately, those values and mission are not always upheld. The School received a F grade on USC’s race equity report. Bias incidents are still regular occurrences. Our student demographic composition is still far from representative.
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Yes, my past year as Student Body President has given me a behind the scenes look at the valiant work many administrators are doing to improve our campus—including addressing food insecurity with the opening of the Maize and Blue Cupboard in the basement of Betsy Barbour, the implementation of the Go Blue Guarantee for tuition, the new space for the Trotter multi-cultural center, and more. But, we, as a campus community, still fall short in our mission, and unfortunately often times fall short for the most vulnerable communities on our campus.
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For me, the ideal Michigan has a campus community where invisible and visible identities ranging from race, ethnicity, religious views, gender, sexual orientation to students who identify as sexual misconduct survivors, students who struggle with mental illness, students with disabilities, do not predict the quality nor the potential of each student’s Michigan experience. Our future campus should be an oasis of love, acceptance, inclusion, support, intellectual curiosity, a desire to do good, and willingness to productively challenge each other in a world that too often seems full of hate and discrimination.
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One of the greatest shifts in our campus’s mentality during my time here was the adoption of the holistic model of wellbeing. In response to the nationwide shift in concerns of mental health, the holistic model frames an individual’s overall well being by using 8 distinct dimensions including social, physical, financial, and mental well being. The shift towards the holistic approach was critical in helping illuminate and articulate how factors ranging from discrimination and bias to physical safety are not just immoral or wrong, but fundamentally toll and degrade individuals who endure it.
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So, how do we get to our Michigan of the future? This may seem cliché, but it starts with today. More specifically, it starts with ridding our institution of structural bias and discrimination, including ensuring our hiring practices do not perpetuate bias structures and disproportionally affect vulnerable communities. Or more simply, ban the box! It starts with ensuring the accessibility of our campus and the ability to reach one’s potential is not voided by financial barriers. It starts with listening to and working with student activists such as the members of S.C.O.P.E. to ensure inclusive and equitable admission policies. It starts with ensuring that our internal sexual misconduct investigations do not re-traumatize nor place an undue burden on survivors to disclose. It starts with actively improving the diversity of our campus amongst students and staff and investing deeper into our institution’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan. It starts with being present and responsive to our campus community, especially in the face of hate. It starts with treating the Flint and Dearborn campuses more equitably. It starts with accepting that students’ academic experience is only a part of their larger Michigan experience. It starts with listening to the interviews of student activist leaders and supporting their work.
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It starts with taking what many view as abstract, politicized ideas, and using our institution’s holistic model of wellbeing to humanize, understand, and equitably improve the Michigan experience for many members of our campus community.
Our Michigan of the future is achievable, but requires action.
Thankfully, action has begun. Who is on the frontier of these efforts? Student activist leaders.
By providing a platform to share their experiences, I hope my podcast series will help elevate and empower some of the many student voices committed to a better Michigan. Accordingly, this project helps illuminate the individuals behind on-going advocacy and humanize their experiences.
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I hope you'll take the time to listen to their stories.
Sincerely,
Daniel Greene