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Dispatches from the Front American Indian Student Concerns at Ohio State by American Indian OSU Student May 12, 2003 I am writing this on the behalf of my fellow American Indian students and myself who are tired of being ignored, silenced, and dismissed with words of support that those in the position to help us feel we want to hear but do not follow through with positive actions. This year has been one of the toughest to be an American Indian student at The Ohio State University. Originally I was looking forward to this academic year. We had made a lot of progress in the previous year in having our first American Indian Month of events and all of our hard work to bring the Memorial Day Powwow to campus was met with success. Yet this academic year has been nothing but a slap in the face. I feel as though it is imperative to discuss how the American Indian Student Services office was formed at Ohio State before going into the current inexcusable issues that have taken place in the search for a new American Indian Student Services Coordinator. Ohio State established the office of American Indian Student Services after legal action was taken by the current American Indian students at the time to gain equal representation on campus. In actuality, OSU fought not to have the office because American Indians, to them, were too much of a minority to even be classified as such. The students took Ohio State to federal court on the grounds of overt racism, and won, forcing the university to ! establish the American Indian Student Services office. At times I am in shock that this happened, but what is really is hard to comprehend is that this all took place just 10 years ago. This year started as the last year ended, in a state of turmoil at the Multicultural Center. There has been an unbelievable turnover rate amongst the coordinators and the former director of ESS, Sheila. The American Indian students unfortunately were not able to escape this upheaval, and in the beginning of the academic year the former AISS coordinator resigned under questionable reasons given by the director. It cannot be stressed enough that the American Indian students have an intimate connection to the coordinator position because of the history of the position. Losing a coordinator is always hard, but to not have one at all was extremely rough, not to mention illegal in terms of the federal mandate, but we managed. It was at this point around the beginning of the month of November that we as American Indian students began to lose our connection to the Multicultural Center, the place that is supposed to be our support structure on campus. Last year, our hard work to bring the Powwow to campus was extremely successful; in fact it was so successful that at the beginning of this year the MCC had it labeled as one of its signature events. Throughout November and January we had dialogue with the MCC to express our need to reserve a space on campus for the Powwow, so that even more students, faculty, staff, and community members would be able to attend, in the hopes of reaching an even larger population that last y! ear. We had determined that the French Field House would be the best location, and an approximate cost for the weekend, $2,000-$3,000 dollars, was determined after speaking with building services. While all of this was going on it was the understanding of all the American Indian students that we did not have a coordinator. However when we suggested later that we could use the money that the MCC had saved from not having a coordinator to pay for the Powwow space, we were informed that from the start of the November that there had been an interim coordinator who was being paid half-time to fill the position. To our surprise the MCC thought it was a good idea not to support the Powwow, but to pay for the salary of someone who for the first two and a half months did not ever even bother to come to campus or to contact any student or community member, not even the leaders of the three student organizations that are supposed to be advised ! by the AISS Coordinator. Since we have found out that there is an interim coordinator she has been on campus less than 10 times since November when she was hired. She lives in Athens, teaches in Athens, and is going to school in Athens. The MCC decided that if it hosted four events for the year, it would meet the student’s needs, as was stated to us by our interim coordinator two and a half months after she had accepted the position. We are not so much upset with the interim coordinator, as we are disappointed that the MCC has such a blatant disregard for American Indian students that it would view this as serving the students. While we are not upset at the interim for only having four events what we have an issue with is the complete lack of consideration for what we deem important to us and our community. The events that have taken place are nothing more than a nod to cultural tourism and have not addressed any issues on how American Indian students are to succeed at Ohio State.! But I guess if she is not expected to even come to the office more than once a month we should not expect communication from her or for her to understand and address any of the real issues and concerns for American Indian students on campus. Another example of the complete disregard that the MCC has for its American Indian students was the accusation that the American Indian Council owed nearly $1,000 to the Multicultural Center in an expense from more than 3 years ago. We were not told what the expense was, who it was addressed to, or how it could be an issue as the bill was for a period of time that the American Indian Council was not even a student group on campus and there was not a coordinator of AISS at the time. However, this fact was ignored along with the fact we never had a budget over $300. Our concerns with the veracity of the bill were overlooked because the administration was positive that we were at fault. On top of th! is, it was pre-determined how we were to pay off this mysterious bill. We were to do a fundraiser at the Powwow the Multicultural Center had decided not to support. It was not until the bill was shown to us that we were able to show the administration that the bill was for the Indian American Association. All along they were looking for IAA and not AIC, but we were still not believed by the MCC. We had to show them the on-line information for the IAA, after which there was no apology made for the Multicultural Center’s complete ignorance of cultural student organizations on campus, and their unfounded accusations of debt toward the American Indian student leaders. While all of these concerns weigh heavily on us as students, it is the handling of the search for the full-time coordinator of AISS for next year that has pushed many American Indian students over the edge. From the beginning there was an extremely late start to the search, which led to a rushed search process with little time to develop a strong paradigm in which to structure the candidate selection criteria. It was highly encouraged to use the method of the Asian American search committee to judge the candidates. However the multitude of cultural differences between our two different cultural backgrounds and student needs makes their model difficult to restructure to our needs. The search committee did make changes to the qualifications, but we were forced due to time constraints,! to work within this improper framework. An additional issue is why did the Asian American search committee was allowed such an earlier start over the American Indian search committee. Most disconcerting is the new policy that the directors of the MCC decided, without any discussion with the search committee. The interviews will be held this week. The candidates were not informed of this decision until Thursday of last week. The MCC had not contacted any of the candidates since the candidates turned in their applications. They were given less than a week’s notice that they were to come to Ohio State to give a presentation and interview all day. Some of these candidates are traveling all the way from San Francisco, California, and less than a weeks notice is highly unprofessional. Not ! only were they uniformed about having to come to Ohio State, but also the presentation topic has not even been selected. There has been no time for the search committee to discuss the possible topics. The students and community members, who are an integral part of the American Indian coordinator position, were given half a week to rearrange their lives in order to be able to attend the presentations. The most pressing issue with all of this unilateral decision-making is that two of our top candidates have felt they could no longer pursue the position. This simply is not acceptable. Even if they truly cannot be considered for the position there has been no attempt to contact other possible candidates for an interview. If contact was to be made we would be giving them no more than a couple of days to prepare, which is a form of pre-selection and cannot be tolerated. This time frame simply does not fulfill the MCC’s stated goal of getting the most qualified candidate for the AISS coordinator position. As students at Ohio State we feel that we are entitled to all of the rights and privileges that! other students receive on this campus regardless of our racial or ethnic identity. It is extremely disheartening to me to be faced with the reality that my thoughts and concerns for the safety and well being of my person and my fellow students are completely disregarded by the very offices and people who are here to help me. I hope that this letter will be the beginning of the necessary steps that must be taken in order to correct the grievous acts that have been perpetrated upon all American Indian students at The Ohio State University. |
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