BY KYLEE HIGGINS
“Gary doesn’t care about black people.”
This sentence led the Bradley University community on a twisted scavenger hunt to piece together the spray-painted words, which were in six different locations on campus. The words, accusing University President Gary Roberts of racism, were discovered April 23 and were promptly power-washed away the same day.
While the university can wash away the words, the impact of them has not been so easily erased.
From the total 5844 students enrolled in the fall of 2017, 454 are African-American, which makes up about seven percent of campus. A decade ago, Bradley had a total of 6053 students, with a total of 351 African-American students, making up nearly six percent of campus.
Despite the seemingly low numbers, Vice President for Student Affairs Nathan Thomas said diversity is a goal of Bradley’s, one that is focused on in the newly created Strategic Plan.
“Our student body is almost 30 percent underrepresented students, and for a predominantly white institution, which we are, those numbers aren’t bad,” Thomas said. “The perception is that we’re not diverse, but we have universities calling us and say, ‘How in the world did you increase your underrepresented student body population by 10 percent in two years?’ So, I think some of that, the correction of the misperception, has to be a part of the conversation.”
While Bradley is aiming to make the campus more diverse, it still may be hard for students who are African-American to be included within the community until that happens. Where the campus falls short in the student diversity, it recognizes that and utilizes a building on campus, the Garrett Cultural Center, to aide students who need it.
Standing between a parking deck and an academic building, to most students, the Garrett Center is in the way of getting to class. Some don’t notice it at all. To others, the Garrett Center is a beacon, where some find their main source of solace.
With it’s dated exterior, the Garrett Center has not aged well, compared to its neighbor, the Caterpillar Global Communications Center. If it is noticed, it’s because of its stark difference to its counterparts. For senior journalism major Aamir Mitchell, the building’s appearance would be the first thing he would change about it.
“The Garrett Center desperately needs to be remodeled because it is horrible; just like the architecture of it all, it’s not really inviting, which is, I think, a travesty,” Mitchell said.
Even for some students who utilize its space, they scuffle about, rushing to set up for their latest event or important meeting. In the midst of the chaos, the history of the Garrett Center is lost, erasing its meaning entirely.
While the building is often overlooked, its namesake was hard to miss in his day. As the first African-American professor at Bradley, Romeo B. Garrett must have stuck out during his time at Bradley as he earned his master’s at the university and started teaching sociology after.
As an African-American man, Garrett noticed the lack of knowledge about African-Americans in the community as well as in history books. To search rows and rows of books at the library and finding nothing representing a specific culture is daunting, so Garrett decided to write his own.
In addition to his works, Garrett worked tirelessly to educate students about African-American culture and led conversations to hire more African-American faculty and staff on campus. By the time of his retirement in 1976, Garrett had memorabilia that filled six filing cabinets, two books and a scholarship dedicated to him.
Where Garrett’s legacy left off, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion picked it up. Expanding to students of all races and including sexuality and religion in their representation, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion follows Garrett’s footsteps by hosting events, bringing speakers and providing an environment for all students to feel welcome, according to Chase.
“Our main mission is two-fold, to create meaningful connections and to foster an inclusive environment, and what that means is to basically create a sense of belonging for students that are here, through programming, through education and through community,” Chase said.
One program Chase was particularly excited about is Bradley Advocating for Diversity, which is used to start conversations in the Bradley community about themselves and their peers but in a way that calls for action in how a person can work to change society to be more inclusive.
“That program gives students the chance to facilitate dialogue about diversity and inclusion with their peers, which is a very unique platform to have,” Chase said.
Going past just educating students, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion also serves as a sanctuary for underrepresented students to get the best experience out of Bradley. According to Chase, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion realizes that the students are the focus, and without them, the homey feeling of the office would become lonely and cold.
“The highlight of my job is to be able to hang out with students,” Chase said. “I talk to students regularly. They find this as a sense of home away from home, and they really enjoy and appreciate it.”
According to Chase, part of being the place where students can come to be included has to also be ready to help students with different needs they may have.
“Some students come with ideas of what we can do better and differently. Other students come with questions and concerns about their experiences here, and finally, other students are just trying to navigate and are looking for more resources to do that,” Chase said.
Despite it being a home for many, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion is not where the efforts to diversify campus should begin and end, according to Chase.
“One office can’t be responsible, solely, for making an inclusive environment for everybody, and most recently, the Strategic Plan is a platform that is highlighting diversity and inclusion with goal number three, specifically, where they’re talking about building a diverse and inclusive campus community, and that is a great statement to show the university’s commitment to an investment in diversity and inclusion,” Chase said.
To help spread the importance of diversity and inclusion on campus in the coming years, Chase said the creation of the Strategic Plan was done thoughtfully, with underrepresented students in mind.
“They did a really good job at collecting feedback [to create the Strategic Plan], and one of the key champions that we have, that is so instrumental to the Strategic planning process is [Nathan Thomas].”
In creating the Strategic Plan, Thomas said the goal of increased diversity and inclusion ended up with 25 action steps, all gearing toward making Bradley more diversified.
“The Strategic Plan has four overarching goals, and one of them is diversity and inclusion,” Thomas said. “That goes down to student body, faculty and staff, and it runs in some ways the gamut of diversity including ethnicity, but also some gender related pieces, Title IX. There’s a fair amount in there, and there are a lot of action steps. There’s a lot of work to be done.”
While Bradley attempts to address issues of diversity and inclusion on campus, the topic as a whole has always been a controversial one for colleges across the United States. With incidents such as the racism in the University of Missouri in 2015 show that issues of inequality have not yet been solved, other colleges such as Stanford University in California is praised as one of the most diverse colleges.
Other colleges go in the other direction, eliminating diversity and chances of racism altogether. This can be seen in Howard University, a historically African-American college located in Washington D.C. By doing this, people of color are able to express their culture without worrying about the implications of those expressions.
For Mitchell, he was accepted into Howard and was planning to go until financial issues caused him to attend Bradley instead. From this, Mitchell said he has been able to determine the differences from attending a predominantly white institution and a historically African-American college.
“I just wanted to be around a bunch of people that looked like me, that had the same drive as me and did the same type of stuff that I did,” Mitchell said. “I feel like that was my one opportunity to really have that experience on such a grand scale … but I didn’t get that opportunity, so it’s fine. The world isn’t all black, so that’s what they say is the benefit of going to PWIs, but I disagree because PWIs are segregated as hell.”
Compared to the days of Garrett being the first African-American professor in a sea of white coworkers, Mitchell said being an African-American student at Bradley today is not too different.
“You go in class, and you’re one of the only black people in the classroom, and then someone says something ignorant as hell, and you’re the only black person in the classroom, so everyone looks at you for a response. That can only further separate you from your peers because then you’re the person that’s different from everyone else,” Mitchell said.
He also sees it outside of the classroom, walking through frequented parts of campus.
“Everywhere [I] look there’s just more [white people than me], there’s just more, especially on the quad, you can see it for sure,” Mitchell said. “It makes me feel excluded because whenever I do see someone I know, which is most likely a black person, I get really excited when I see them … but other than that, I might as well be invisible.”
Even with represented students, junior psychology major Hannah Snidman has noticed a lack of diversity in different parts of campus. Despite that, she said she tries to be aware of her actions toward other students in her classes or around campus.
“I think the most important way to be inclusive is to make sure everyone’s voices are being heard. I attempt to be an ally to sexual, religious, ethnic, racial and ability minorities by making sure they get a chance to speak during group projects, class discussions, club meetings and more,” Snidman said.
Even so, Snidman has taken note of ways Bradley could be better represented.
“I think they can improve the most through faculty by attempting to hire more ethnic and racial minorities,” Snidman said.
Though Garrett retired over 40 years ago, the lack of people of color as faculty is still an issue today. Thomas noted the discrepancy between minority students and minority faculty is far too wide and said the Strategic Plan will aim to close the gap.
“The student body may change over, but the faculty and staff don’t change over as quickly, so some of these are long-term processes,” Thomas said. “[But] it has to mirror.”
Even with Bradley’s diversity is increasing, this university’s current climate can show both positives and negatives with the campus. With the spray-painted words showing dissatisfaction from at least one person, Bradley has a way to go before all students feel represented and cared for by the entirety of campus.
“[Bradley] can improve by actually being inclusive. Don’t just say you want a more diverse community or more interaction between people. You need to actually create events that have people interact with one another, so we can start to break down this invisible but very real wall that exists on this campus,” Mitchell said.