ACUHO-I News Blog

A dust-up at Tufts University has stirred the questions of who is allowed to make fun of whom, the limits of political correctness, the value of satire and the potential offensiveness of satire as well.

Alice Pang, a candidate for Community Union Senate, created posters advertising her campaign. “ALICE PANG” is printed across the top and beneath this, “small person. big ideas.” Pang’s picture is below this next to “Hurrah!” in parenthesies, and below that, “2013 senate; vote on thursday.” In an effort to poke fun at the what he percieved as excessive political correctness on campus, In-Goo Kwak, a student from South Korea, made a similar poster featuring his name and photo. He’s not running for Community Union Senate though. His tagline is “squinty eyes. BIG VISION.” Next to his picture is (“Kimchi!”) and on the bottom of the poster is “Prease vote me! I work reary hard!”

Predictably, many Tufts students are upset by Kwak’s poster. A number of organizations signed a letter denoucing Kwak’s action, and the director of the campus Asisan Center called him to complain on behalf of other students. Kwak seems bemused by the whole situation, noting that none of the offended students spoke directly to him (in fact, he attended a meeting on the subject unrecognized so he could hear what students thought of his parody). Kwak said he appologized to Pang, and she graciously accepted. He also finds it odd that many students expect him to be punished for an action he feels is protected by the First Amendment.

For its part, the Tufts administration has been taking a watch-and-wait stance, letting students discuss the situation without interference.

Have you faced issues such as this on your campus? Where’s the line between free speech and hate speech? Is that line a blurry one? How did you (or your administration) handle the situation?

A New York Times article reports on the roommate study we blogged about in June, in addition to several similar studies.  The comments area links to the NYT blog, to which a great story about Michelle Obama’s onetime college roommate is linked. In those comments, several posters have complained about “forced social engineering.” Of course, in assignments, there will always be students matched up with students of other races as roommates, accidentally or otherwise. Statistically, it’s inevitable.

How do you reply to charges like this, from parents and students upset with their assignments? Share ideas and tips in the comments, or visit ACUHO-I’s Online Network and discuss with your colleagues.

That sounds pretty snazzy, doesn’t it? Well it seems to be true, at least in terms of the racial diversity of students’ friends during college. Most students make friends within their own ethnic and racial groups, rarely venturing outside of that. However, residence halls, and assignments can be a fertile place for these preferences to be tweaked, according to “Interracial Friendships in the Transition to College: Do Birds of a Feather Flock Together Once They Leave The Nest,” an article in the current issue of Sociology of Education.

According to authors Elizabeth Stearns (University of North Carolina at Charlotte), Claudia Buchmann (Ohio State University) and Kara Bonneau (Duke University):

“Residential college campuses offer multiple settings for contact… First, college students tend to reside together on campus. Residence halls may be particularly conducive environments for fostering interracial friendships, given the close and sustained nature of the contact that is found in them. The more intimate and informal nature of residence hall life may serve to put roommates and hallmates on an equal footing in terms of status and provide a richer seedbed for forming friendships relative to the structured, formal settings of college classrooms.”

Moreover, the authors note, administrators can further encourage such contact through assignments and other residential programs.

Will the Millennials do what previous generations — the Boomers and the X-ers, namely — didn’t? Will they end the culture wars and usher in a more peaceful, equitable era worldwide? Two reports from the Center for American Progress, one focusing on the political views of young adults, and the other on their social and racial views, answer Yes.

The election of Barack Obama, the candidate of choice for a large majority of 18-29 year olds,  proves both points. A majority of millennials identify more with liberal values than conservative ones–and the conservative values they favor are those encouraging free trade, the privatization of social security and other domestic issues. They are liberal on social issues, particularly concerning gay marriage. And, as the report on racial views demonstrates, they are less likely to be concerned with race in part because they are the most diverse generations of Americans yet: 60 percent white and 40 percent minority: with 18 percent Hispanic; 14 percent black and 5 percent Asian.

Similar views have been reflected in other surveys of Millennials, and Neil Howe’s work.

However, big things were projected for the Boomers and X-ers, and while the world has certainly changed, the predictions didn’t pan out completely. The oldest of the Millennials are still getting started in the job market (if they are able to find jobs) and have yet to prove their worth as social movers n’ shakers. Do you think the Y Generation will keep their “progressive” values as they get older and change how the world works, or will their fate be the same as that of the Boomers and X-ers?

A selection of college housing and student affairs headlines from InsideHigherEd.com. Look for these on a weekly basis in the ACUHO-I news blog.

WESTERN EXPANSION: An emerging student group called Youth for Western Civilization opposes “radical multiculturalism,” provoking fury on some campuses where the message is viewed as intolerant:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/21/white

A CULTURE OF ASSESSMENT: Hofstra U. students did not think much of the services and community offered them, until the institution discovered and responded to their concerns via a cycle of surveys:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/23/hofstra

(FURTHER) RETHINKING STUDENT AID: As debate about structure of loan programs rages, aid administrators’ group offers broad (and presumably costly) framework for overhaul of entire system of financing students’ education:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/23/nasfaa