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Hi, my name is Rose Varner Gaskins, and I'd like to welcome you to the Office of Multucultural Student affairs
I am the director of the office, I've been at Hopkins for 14 years
I work with a number of student groups
our main charge is to support multicultural groups
We have about 21 multicultural student groups registered at Hopkins
they include anything from multicultural groups
such as African American, Asian American, American Indian, and Latin American students
The greatest benefit, I feel, in having an office of Multicultural student affairs is
supporting the needs of multicultural students
it's often that the greater society does not understand
the need or the difference in treatment
for multicultural students at a predominantly white campus
for a student to be able to come in after having experienced
something uncomfortable, racial or whatever
they need some type of supporting office that will say,
that will allow them an opportunity to process the experience
Our office helps students process
and figure out how to handle those types of situations
Should we respond? Because it's not always that you should...
when something is blatantly ignorant,
maybe it's a time where you don't respond.
If it's something where you can provide a teaching opportunity,
then maybe you do respond.
I'm happy to say that after working here for a number of years,
we have truly been able to find ways of
working together
and that makes me excited as a director
I feel that we have greater
opportunity of working with greater numbers of students,
I find that students themselves
or we feel that students themselves see the office
as a supportive entity
We see great divesity at Hopkins,
and therefore that diversity needs to be represented, supported
multicultural students need to feel that they are indeed
an important part of this university
culture always brings
something to the table
that does not exist without diversity
and when I say diversity, I mean colors, I mean
I mean culture, I mean size, I mean some of everything.
Some of the programming that we have,
such as SEED, Students Educating and Empowering for Diversity,
offers also an opportunity for students to learn more about diversity
and offers students an opportunity to
to be a part of a teaching entity
where they are learning about other cultures, but they
are also teaching about other cultures...
One of the things that we repeatedly hear
is white students say
"It just seems to us that there's so much opportunity for multicultural students to have"
"greater levels of programming"
and, so they feel left out of something that is happening for cultural groups
Cultural groups feel that
"whites have it all" and so you don't understand that
We are just trying to find opportunities to have a piece of the pie
so though it looks to you that we are...
we have it all, because we have special programs set aside for us,
it is because
we're not where we should be.
That we're still side load, we're still separate...
though we are all at the same university,
we, very often, more times than not, are working in separate communities.
what the office works toward
is the time where we won't have to have an office of multicultural student affairs
where there is greater support for multicultural students
in the larger society, in the larger setting.
So that we're all working together,
that there is greater understanding for
multicultural groups, that
there is greater understanding and therefore teaching
in classrooms about all of history,
not just white history, not just European history
not just 90% of what we teach at Hopkins being about
white students, white society, the larger society
but where we're teaching all of history.
That's what this office looks forward to.