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mugenderinequality · 6 years ago

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Next Steps

It is clear that Miami University has a long standing history of disenfranchising and excluding individuals whose identities are already marginalized. Not only has Miami allowed for the perpetuation of this marginalization, they have crafted a false narrative that suggests that they embrace, encourage, and support diversity despite little action occuring to corroborate this narrative. It is unacceptable that a public institution continues to ignore these issues, especially when one of the groups excluded by the university’s history and current policies makes up 50.6% of the student population. In order to change the culture surrounding diversity and the marginalization of students, the university must first change the way it treats its largest population on campus.

Students on Miami’s campus must take action to change the campus culture and ensure that women and other marginalized groups no longer face exclusion or oppression at universities that promise to support their personal and professional growth. In order to create this change, I propose a series of actions that students can take to create administrative change, as well as strategies of organizing these actions:

Actions:

Miami University needs to reorganize the structure of student organizations on this campus. Currently there is only one category for student organizations and they can be formed by any three or more students who have a faculty advisor. This is a good thing as it allows any student to form a group that they feel is missing from this campus, however we need more than one type of student organization. Miami needs to create multiple types of student organizations that would allow for different resources and expectations for organizations based upon recreation, conversation, activism, etc.

Miami must also restructure student organizations as a whole to ensure that faculty advisors are an active part of the organization. A new system should be implemented that would make the faculty advisors of organizations directly involved with the organizations as a resource for communicating their needs with those higher up as well as require the creation of an open line of communication from the students to the administration. This change would ensure that the needs of students are actually being addressed by faculty and administrators, rather than leaving it up to individual students to attempt to navigate the administrative system on their own.

We need to create a student action group that would advocate to university administrators the needs of marginalized people on this campus and put pressure on the university to make lasting change

Miami University has recently been known to meet with groups advocating for better policies and resources in order to protect marginalized students, yet no change has come of these meetings. There needs to be an action group whose sole purpose is to organize and communicate within the different channels of power in order to ensure that the needs of students on campus are met. Setting up meetings and talking about issues is clearly not enough. The university needs to be held accountable to their promise to promote diversity and inclusion. To do this we need to create a collective of students with marginalized identities, graduate students, faculty, and administrators who are unhappy with the current policies in place. The collaboration of these individuals would create a substantial group and will have more of an impact on the university administration that any individual or subgroup would have on their own. Women are not the only people who have been left behind by the university. By gathering individuals from all the groups who have been failed by Miami, the university will be forced to see that current campus culture does not adequately serve the majority of the student population’s needs.

As the previous two points have made clear, there is a serious structural hole in the communication channels between students and the administration. In order to address this, there needs to be the creation of an ASG committee whose sole job is to advocate for marginalized voices on this campus. ASG is one of the only organizations on campus that has the power to enact real change directly from the student body, and as such they must step up to help fix the culture on Miami’s campus. This committee would differ from ASG’s current Diversity Affairs Council, as it would propose legislation that meets the need of marginalized groups including women, LGBTQ+ individuals, international students, and racial minorities, rather than aiming solely to “dedicate ourselves to learning more about diversity in its complexities and exposing ourselves to new experiences. We work to foster more co-sponsorship of programming efforts and promote the activities of other student groups and administrative offices who are interested in issues of diversity,” as the ASG Diversity Affairs Council currently states as its mission.

Strategies:

I believe that one of the best ways to enact the changes proposed is by using the framework proposed by Naomi Clark to conceptualize how networks evolve resulting in a “reorganized assemblage.” Clark claims that there are four traceable moments that come together in order to create an effective movement, and I will explain how these can be used to generate institutional change at Miami University.

Problematization

This step is fairly self explanatory; it involves identifying the situation that is causing a problem within the institution and understanding that this problem can only be resolved by the involvement of specific parties.

In Miami’s case, the problem identified it the disproportionate amount of attention given to the idea of diversity and inclusion, despite having a long history of practices that oppose the implementation of diversity and inclusion. This problem can only be addressed if those individuals who have been excluded and disenfranchised from the university come together. In this case, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, people of color, students of the Myaamia Tribe, and international students constitute those who must come together to make change happen.

Interessment

The relevant interested parties, in this case all individuals and groups who feel that their identity has led to their disenfranchisement at Miami, are identified and become part of the larger collective group. During this stage, the relationships between the different individuals and groups must be coordinated in order to make clear the objectives of and links between all subgroups. This step ensures that the actions and circulation of information from the collective is not a “neutral act,” or one that serves only a portion of the collective, but instead makes it necessary that the collection benefits all involved parties.

As the previous step made clear, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, people of color, students of the Myaamia Tribe, and international students are the parties whose interests would most effectively create a collective with the power to create change. These groups must come together and disclose their own goals and expectations, and then relationships between the groups must be identified.

Enrollment

During the enrollment stage, the, the roles to be played by each entity, either individual or subgroup, must be negotiated. This allows the collective to “redefine the actors’ interests in such a way as to provide a shared problem space.” This step is important for the collective group to determine the knowledge and abilities each actor can play within the collective’s mission. It also helps to determine the levels at which different actors can play different roles. Each group is not at the same level in terms of privilege and experience, and as such some groups have an advantage of connection and power over the dominant public. This stage is crucial in order to find common ground between parties and negotiate the goals of the collective.

During this stage the groups will distribute their roles and determine the best course of action that utilizes the privileges and advantages of each group to best meet the needs of the collective.

Mobilization

This stage requires all members of the collective to condense their interests to form the message they wish to circulate. This stage will also require the various actors to be held accountable for their role within the collective movement. Mobilization requires putting an interest into action. Sub-groups will now work to spread their message and generate attention for the issues they aim to address.

At Miami, this stage requires all involved parties to compose a unified statement of their goals and the actions they will take to communicate these goals. Following this step, the collective can begin to take action against the dominant party whose actions and values they oppose. This step is incredibly important, as it provides students with the foundation on which to build their initiative and enact change. The collective formed of women, LGBTQ+ individuals, people of color, students of the Myaamia Tribe, and international students at Miami must follow through after the mobilization process. Without the continued dedication to their goals, change will not happen. This step has the power to spark a movement that will forever change campus culture, and it is up to the individuals in this collective to make it happen.

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