RDC and CGRAS submitted the letter below to Clark University Provost David Baird on November 23, 2015. The letter asks for additional space and resources in Dana Commons for religious minorities and LGBTQ+ students, as well as renovations to the already existing McCann Resource Room, which will remain a space for students of color. If you support the requests outlined in the letter, please sign it and forward it to friends and colleagues who you think will also be supportive.

November 23, 2015

Dear Provost Baird,

We write as representatives of CGRAS and Reclaim Dana Commons (RDC), a coalition of student groups who as the name implies wish to regain space in Dana Commons to be utilized by minority students on campus. Through a series of discussions we have recognized that our resource needs intersect, particularly with regard to space.  Thus we have collaborated to develop a plan to meet our shared needs and are writing to request your assistance in bringing this plan to fruition.

We greatly appreciate your decision to grant CGRAS office space in Dana and your willingness to renovate the McCann Resource Room (MRR).  These changes will be very beneficial to our respective constituencies and to the promotion of diversity and inclusion across campus.  However, as we have discovered in our discussions over how to renovate the MRR and to utilize the new CGRAS offices, while these spaces are necessary for the realization of our goals and missions, they are not sufficient.

Allow us to explain.  As you will recall, last summer you discussed with Professors Denise Bebbington, Betsy Huang and Paul Posner along with Shauna Rigaud (then Director of Academic Advancement and supervisor of the MRR) ideas for renovating the MRR.  During that discussion, you requested input be elicited from the students regarding how to renovate this space.  In order to accomplish this task, CGRAS organized a student forum held October 1, 2015.  Though there were a variety of issues discussed at this forum, discussion of how to renovate the MRR was perhaps the most important.  A student committee, chaired by Jeronda Scott, the incoming President of the BSU, was formed to address this issue.

In the process of discussing how to renovate and utilize the MRR, it became apparent that many students of color felt uncomfortable with the increased interest in the MRR sparked by the forum.  They felt that this heightened interest in the MRR created a situation in which they would be expected to share this space with many other student groups that historically had not shared in its use.  In addition, discussions among a diverse set of student groups revealed that students who identify primarily on the basis of religion and students who identify primarily on the basis of gender and/or sexuality desired distinct spaces of their own.

Meanwhile, CGRAS has realized that the planned move to Dana will solve some space problems while creating new ones.  On the positive side, all programs participating in CGRAS and all students affiliated with these programs will now have a safe, common space in which to dialogue and interact.  This will be a substantial benefit to CGRAS as it seeks to promote collaboration among its faculty and students that enhances diversity and inclusion in Clark’s curriculum and social programming.  However, on the negative side, in the move to Dana both Women’s and Gender Studies and Peace Studies will lose valuable space that they currently rely upon to fulfill their respective missions.  Crucially, both programs will lose library space and Women’s and Gender Studies will also lose its seminar room.  These are substantial losses to these programs that the proposed allocation of office space to CGRAS does not remedy.

Discussions between CGRAS and RDC have produced a possible solution to the problems identified above.  Thus, we propose the following:

1.     For Students of Color: In accordance with its original charter, the McCann Resource Room remains a space for students of color and their representative organizations, including the Black Student Union (BSU), Caribbean Students Association (CASA), Latin American Students Organization (LASO), Asian Culture Society (ACS), South Asian Students Association (SASA), Chinese Students Association (CSA) and Middle East and South African Cultural Society (MENA).  Priority for the use of this space will go to race related groups, but religious groups can also hold larger meetings here as approved by the Office of Multicultural and First Generation Support. The Administration engages in discussion with the student committee formed to develop plans for renovation of this space and pursuant to these discussions the space is renovated in accordance with plans agreed to by the students and the Administration.

2.     For Students Who Identify on the Basis of Religion: The first floor space under the stairs near the prayer room be converted into a space for religious groups and the prayer room itself be renovated to accommodate the respective needs of distinct religious groups.  The space should be able to host small meetings, have a storage space (such as cabinets), house religious accessories such as prayer rugs, and have a small library of books and other media. 

3.     For Students Who Identify on the Basis of Gender and/or Sexuality and for Women’s and Gender Studies, Peace Studies and CGRAS:  The space on the second floor of Dana currently occupied by the Writing Center be reconfigured to provide for: (a) library space to house the Women’s and Gender Studies and Peace Studies collections; (b) the creation of the Cynthia Enloe reading/multi-media room in honor of a much respected scholar and teacher whose work bridges Peace Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies; (c) seminar space to host talks, round-tables and CGRAS-related seminars; and (d) space to be utilized by student organizations that have a gender/sexuality focus (OPEN, Spectrum, Choices, Topics, Vagina Monologues, Feminists United) for meetings, social activities and as a resource area.

This proposal provides a means by which diverse student constituencies can have space to address their unique identity and programmatic needs and yet remain united under one roof – the epitome of diversity and inclusion.  As such, we believe that the Administration’s agreement to provide us with the resources necessary to realize this plan will provide tangible proof of its commitment to address the frustration, needs and demands expressed by students in President Angel’s recent Forum on Race.  The repurposing of Dana Commons in the manner that we propose promises not only to ameliorate the pervasive sense of exclusion on the part of minority groups across campus but also to create positive opportunities to cultivate diversity and inclusion in Clark’s curriculum and campus life.  It is in the hopes of realizing this vision that we respectfully request your support.

-RDC and CGRAS