Students of color reflect on their experiences at the University of Iowa

Even though she grew up in Naperville, Ill., a largely white Chicago suburb, Ashley Lee still experienced culture shock when she arrived in Iowa City to attend the University of Iowa.

'I was overwhelmed by all the white faces,” she said, recalling a trip to Kinnick Stadium during freshman orientation. 'I felt really uncomfortable. ...

It was just my interactions with people who don't come from diverse areas and they come here and they have these ideas about me.

'They just have misconceptions, and their ideas of what blackness should or shouldn't be didn't align with who I was or how I acted, so it was just very problematic.”

Lee is a sophomore majoring in English. She's the secretary of the university's NAACP chapter and one of the coordinators of I, Too, Am Iowa project in which people of color use images and words to share their stories of being part of the UI community.

'It's just hair ...

Stop touching it!,” one submission reads.

'Stop being colorblind. People are different. We must respect those differences,” says another.

'Yes I am black but NO I am NOT from the ghetto!!,” states a third.

This is reality for some UI students. University data shows that the undergraduate population includes 21,974 students as of fall 2013, and 15,680 of them (71.4 percent) identify as white.

The project is the Hawkeye offshoot of I, Too, Am Harvard, a photo campaign that has expanded into a play since students at the Cambridge, Mass. school began compiling the images earlier this year.

I, Too, Am Iowa already has more than 50 unique posts on its Tumblr page. Members of the UI NAACP and the university's Black Student Union have collaborated to coordinate the project and hosted a second photo shoot for submissions on March 25. They are also accepting original works of writing and visual art.

‘I'm not alone in the microaggressions I receive'

'Even though I don't go to an Ivy league school, I feel the experiences go across the entire board, not feeling good enough to some extent but understanding that I was admitted to the school and I did work hard to get there,” Lee said of feeling kinship with the Harvard project.

'I'm not alone in the microaggressions I receive ...

. It really just reinforced the need for something like this, to show that these aren't isolated experiences. It's time for the (UI) administration and community members to understand what other students are going through, the privileges they have and work to make a more inclusive community.”

In a Psychology Today article, Derald Wing Sue defined microaggressions as 'the everyday verbal, non-verbal and environmental slights, snubs or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory or negative messages to target people based solely upon their marginalized group membership.”

Lee is right - she's not alone.

Her friend Chris Simpson, a UI sophomore from Chicago, also experienced the tandem of culture shock at the lack of students of color and microaggressions upon his arrival in Iowa City. Simpson, who lived in a predominately black neighborhood on Chicago's South Side but attended a mostly white high school, said he was able to adjust quickly to the UI atmosphere.

'I'm the kind of person who gets along with anybody. I talked to a lot of different people of a lot of different races,” he said.

'The only thing is because I'm African-American everyone assumes I'm an athlete, even my adviser. Other than that, I haven't had any problems. ...

At first it was kind of weird because I didn't play sports in high school. After awhile, I got used to it.”

Data collected in spring 2013 for the Student Experience in the Research University survey, which the website states, 'is administered online to all degree-seeking undergraduates,” shows that 85.2 percent of the 5,307 UI participants somewhat agree, agree or strongly agree with the statement: 'Students are respected here regardless of their race or ethnicity.”

Susan Albertine, vice president in the Office of Diversity, Equity and Student Success for the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U, of which the University of Iowa is a member), said these incidents and attitudes matter when it comes to learning environments.

'Students pretty quickly pick up negative vibes. They know if they're feeling welcome or not,” she said.

'We talk a lot about encouraging communities to be thoughtful about their own mindsets and the reason you do it, honestly, (is) you want everyone to thrive. People generally get that but they don't always know how.”

Simpson said he believes that the UI is welcoming to students of color even though their numbers aren't large.

Lee's experience has been different.

'When you do have race neutral policies or a colorblind mindset, the focus tends to be on white students because whiteness is considered the norm, so students of color don't get the recognition they deserve in order to feel welcome here,” she said.

'I just feel unwelcome in certain spaces, like I'm intruding on some sort of environment. ...

When I'm at the Iowa Memorial Union and I go in there to study, I get kind of a weird vibe from people.”

A story of segregation?

Ariana Witt graduated from the UI in 2011. A black woman from Waterloo, she cannot recall experiencing frequent racial microaggressions or discrimination during her time on campus. Yet even though she considered the student body to be diverse, something else was at play.

'I think the population was segregated. I want to believe it wasn't because I was a black girl in classes with white people, Asian people, African students, etc. and with people for all over the country and the world. But that was the classroom. When it came it ‘hanging out' with students socially, I feel like at its core there was separation,” Witt wrote in an email to The Gazette.

She noted that her social circle was 'nearly exclusively white” and yet 'social separation” among students from different backgrounds was the status quo.

Witt's observations parallel Lee's.

'The school is very segregated when it comes to student life,” Lee said. 'There's just a level of ignorance and I'm really irritated with it. I was kind of indifferent to it at first ... but at this point, I've changed a lot since I've been here.”

Those experiences are very different from how Lena Hill characterizes her time in Iowa City and at the UI.

Hill, an associate professor of English and African-American Studies, moved to Iowa from North Carolina eight years ago. Her husband Michael also is a professor at the UI.

Hill said her family's interactions with people in Iowa City have been overwhelmingly positive, but she acknowledged that her experience is not universal.

'I feel like I have more in-depth conversations with graduate students of color, and that may be a little bit different,” said Hill, who actually had Lee as a student. 'I think students have mixed feelings about whether the campus is welcoming or not.

'Some that I know who have come and gotten very involved - BSU or (with the Black Graduate and Professional Students organization) - immediately find community. While they may have some complaints, they settle it. Others do feel not completely at home. I'm not sure why that would be.”

Hill spoke at length about the kindness her church community and neighbors exhibited when her daughter had to undergo and recuperate from surgery. Her daughter's teachers and classmates at Weber Elementary School in Iowa City also were very charitable, Hill recalled, as were the colleagues of both her and her husband.

'Their only complaint was that we didn't allow them to do more,” she said. 'I would have to be a person with a really hard heart to look at Iowa City and not see a community that is wonderful.

'...

Overall, we've had a really positive experience. I think that's because we have a lot of black friends. The people we spend the most time with are our friends of color, but we sought that out when we got here.”

Efforts

Lee said that, beyond adding more submissions, there aren't larger future plans for I, Too, Am Iowa.

'We just want to have more discussion on campus that speak to these experiences and definitely try to push for some sort of change from the administration somehow,” she said.

Lee voiced support for a zero-tolerance policy for racial discrimination, a required course in cultural competency as well as expanded areas of study focusing on people of color such as Latino and native American studies.

Albertine, of AAC&U, said many universities are struggling with how to deal with increasing diversity.

'They don't always know how to take care of it, how to take care of themselves, how to take care of their work with changing populations of students, so we're helping them to be more purposeful,” she said. 'More often I hear people saying, ‘We see changes in the student population and we are not sure how to change.'”

Albertine praised efforts to increase student engagement - through training professors in culturally responsive teaching and multicultural awareness activities through intergroup dialogue - as ultimately enabling learners of all backgrounds to thrive.

Even though Witt no longer lives in Iowa City, she said she'd appreciate more work - in the form of scholarships and additional funding for programs and activities - from UI administrators to nurture, grow and understand the population of students of color.

'Make a bigger push to increase recruitment,” she said. 'Effort goes a long way with showing dedication to something as important as improving the climate for students of color. I want to see my leaders try.”

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