Themes such as oppression, difference, and interconnectedness arose during Tuesday’s Brown Bag lunch in which six faculty members gave their perspectives on the quote that also served as the symposium title: “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”
Held in the Center for Women’s Studies, the panel discussion focusing on diversity was part of the campuswide celebration for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Being from India, assistant professor of educational studies Nisha Thapliyal talked about how King adopted Mahatma Gandhi’s principles of peaceful and nonviolent struggle for social justice.
“We [need to] look for the many ways in which we’re deeply interconnected,” Thapliyal said, “and resolve the current conflicts produced by our histories of inequality and oppression, knowing we are interdependent on each other for our continued existence and well-being.”
Helene Julien, associate professor of French and women’s studies, brought feminist insight to the discussion. Citing black feminist bell hooks, Julien said our charge is to eliminate not only all forms of oppression, but also the constructs that make oppression possible.
Using the metaphor of the boat, Ken Valente, professor of mathematics and university studies and director of the LGBTQ studies program, cautioned that being in the same boat “requires a great deal of patience and a sensitivity to the ways our lives variously intersect.”
Pamela Prescod-Caesar, associate vice president for human resources, talked about her experience as the only person of color in school, after, at the age of 7, she and her family immigrated from Barbados to Boston.
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“We must take the opportunity to enlighten those who may be unaware or misinformed,” she encouraged. “We must remove the inequities and speak out against those acts of unkindness, disparate treatment, or the blatant ‘isms’ that are out there.”
Also speaking at the symposium were political science professor Stanley
Brubaker and assistant professor of mathematics Joaquin Rivera-Cruz.
As moderator, Vice President and Dean of the College Charlotte Johnson led a question-and-answer period during which students and faculty offered comments on the panelists’ presentations as well as how the discourse applies to ԱƵ.
“We’re all in the USS ԱƵ,” said Provost and Dean of the Faculty Lyle Roelofs. “Given that, how do we best take advantage of being in this circumstance together? For me, it starts individually, with understanding education as the chance to absorb other perspectives very different from your own.”
The symposium was co-sponsored by women’s studies and Africana and Latin American studies.