Black Campus Life

Antar A. Tichavakunda

Description

An in-depth ethnography of Black engineering students at a historically White institution, Black Campus Life examines the intersection of two crises, up close: the limited number of college graduates in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, and the state of race relations in higher education. Antar Tichavakunda takes readers across campus, from study groups to parties and beyond as these students work hard, have fun, skip class, fundraise, and, at times, find themselves in tense racialized encounters. By consistently centering their perspectives and demonstrating how different campus communities, or social worlds, shape their experiences, Tichavakunda challenges assumptions about not only Black STEM majors but also Black students and the “racial climate” on college campuses more generally. Most fundamentally, Black Campus Life argues that Black collegians are more than the racism they endure. By studying and appreciating the everyday richness and complexity of their experiences, we all—faculty, administrators, parents, policymakers, and the broader public—might learn how to better support them.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

1. Learning About Campus Life from Black Engineering Majors

2. Understanding the Past and Present of West Side University

The Black Community

3. The Time and Space to Engage in the Black Community

4. Johnson's Story

The Black Engineering Community

5. Examining NSBE: How Black Engineers Do It for the Culture

6. Jasmine's Story

The Engineering School Community

7. Organizational Involvement: Diversity Dilution and Antiblackness

8. Informal Relationships: The (Im)Possibility of Peer Collaboration

9. Nina's Story

The Mainstream Wsu Community

10. Negotiating Racism: Is Mainstream Campus Life for White Students?

11. Martin's Story

12. Sociology and the Blues of Campus Life

Appendix
Notes
References
Index

Sujets

• Éducation
• Education
• Tertiary education
• Ethnic studies
• Student life

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438485928
• Langue: English

Extrait

BLACK CAMPUS LIFE
SUNY series, Critical Race Studies in Education

Derrick R. Brooms, editor
BLACK CAMPUS LIFE
THE WORLDS BLACK STUDENTS MAKE AT A HISTORICALLY WHITE INSTITUTION
ANTAR A. TICHAVAKUNDA
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
This book is freely available in an open access edition thanks to TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem)—a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of University Presses, and the Association of Research Libraries—and the generous support of the University of Cincinnati.
The text of this book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
© 2021 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Tichavakunda, Antar A., author.
Title: Black campus life : the worlds black students make at a historically white institution / Antar A. Tichavakunda.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021] | Series: SUNY series, Critical Race Studies in Education | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781438485911 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438485928 (ebook)
Further information is available at the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Gran and Pop-Pop. I did my best work.
Contents
L IST OF I LLUSTRATIONS
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
C HAPTER 1
Learning About Campus Life from Black Engineering Majors
C HAPTER 2
Understanding the Past and Present of West Side University
THE BLACK COMMUNITY
C HAPTER 3
The Time and Space to Engage in the Black Community
C HAPTER 4
Johnson’s Story
THE BLACK ENGINEERING COMMUNITY
C HAPTER 5
Examining NSBE: How Black Engineers Do It for the Culture
C HAPTER 6
Jasmine’s Story
THE ENGINEERING SCHOOL COMMUNITY
C HAPTER 7
Organizational Involvement: Diversity Dilution and Antiblackness
C HAPTER 8
Informal Relationships: The (Im)Possibility of Peer Collaboration
C HAPTER 9
Nina’s Story
THE MAINSTREAM WSU COMMUNITY
C HAPTER 10
Negotiating Racism: Is Mainstream Campus Life for White Students?
C HAPTER 11
Martin’s Story
C HAPTER 12
Sociology and the Blues of Campus Life
A PPENDIX
N OTES
R EFERENCES
I NDEX
Illustrations Tables 1.1 WSU Engineering Undergraduate Full-Time Student Composition 2.1 Introducing Four Students 2.2 Different Worlds, Different Practices 7.1 Number of Full-Time Undergraduate Caldwell Engineers 2016–17 12.1 Campus Social Worlds and Their Tensions A.1 Interview Sample Figures 3.1 Black Spaces on Campus 5.1 The Black Engineering Social World 7.1 The Caldwell Social World
Acknowledgments
Writing, in many ways, is an act of faith. First and foremost, I thank God for using me as a vessel for any good that comes out of this work. This book was a community effort. I have to acknowledge, however, my mother. Thank you for talking to me every day, listening to me rant about things only a mother would listen to, and supporting me in every way possible. Thanks for the smiles in your voice. Thanks dad for helping me keep things in perspective and your support. Thanks for giving me a powerful name and teaching me to be proud of who I am and where we are from. Thanks Aziza for being you. Thanks Lynnie for your constant positivity and support. To all of my family, thank you for always welcoming me with open arms even when research, schooling, and work makes it tougher to get back home. I am because we are.
In writing this book, I was deeply reflective of and grateful for my schooling. I am a proud product of DC Public Schools. My experience navigating DC Public Schools and being taught and coached by people who nurtured and loved me shapes my work. To my teachers from Shepherd Elementary School, Alice Deal Junior High, and Benjamin Banneker Academic High School—thank you. Thank you to my professors at Brown—Carla Shalaby, Diana D’Amico Pawlewicz, Kenneth Wong, Thomas Lewis, and Corey Walker—who believed in me, pushed me, and planted the seed of doing research. Further, it was also at Brown where I got my first taste of Black student life at a predominantly White institution. I would not have been interested in this topic were it not for the amazing friends I made at Brown and the Monster Alpha Gamma Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated.
My friends are my adopted family. Every day I am reminded of how lucky I am to have so many good friends. Shouts to Shepherd Park. I am also fortunate to have made such great friends in graduate school and as a professor. You all are my world. Thank you all for putting up with me and my needy to obnoxious ways. Thank you for reading drafts, being my biggest fans, and forcing me to celebrate every little win. Thank you all for believing me when I did not believe in myself and for being my therapists before I had one (and helping me see that therapy was okay). I have leaned on you all more than you know.
I am eternally grateful to my advisor/mentor/coach/friend, William G. Tierney. More than just getting by, I have wanted to make you proud. Thank you for pushing me to write this book, for your mentorship, and for working with me. Thank you to my mentors who read the earliest drafts of this work, especially Zoë Corwin, John Slaughter, and Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo. You all continue to inspire me and have laid the foundation for this book.
I, of course, have to acknowledge my editor Rebecca Colesworthy. Thank you for shepherding this work and helping me understand what writing a book is about. I also am appreciative of the Critical Race Studies in Education series editor, Derrick Brooms. Thank you for your incisive feedback as well as your friendship and mentorship. And to the readers who engaged with the first iterations of a junior scholar’s first book—thank you. Your feedback and reflections took this work to the next level.
Thanks to my favorite NSBE chapter, my focal participants. You all inspire me. When I was writing by myself for hours on end, I thought of you all. I wrote my hardest because of you—because I could not let you all down and because I witnessed your resolve to succeed no matter how hard you had to work. Outside of making this research possible, you all treated me like family—especially after I paid my NSBE dues. The title of NSBE dad is one I will forever wear with honor.
1

Learning About Campus Life from Black Engineering Majors
Negroes love and hate and fight and play and strive and travel and have a thousand and one interests in life like other humans. When his baby cuts a new tooth, he brags as shamelessly as anyone else without once weeping over the prospect of some Klansman knocking it out if and when the child ever gets grown.
— Zora Neale Hurston , Art and Such, 1938
I joined other first year students in the tradition of walking through Brown University’s Van Wickle Gates in Fall 2007. Brown’s 7 percent Black population was different from the majority Black public high school I graduated from in Washington, D.C. As a Black student on a predominantly White campus, race shaped much of my collegiate life. The parties I went to, the fraternity I joined, the classes I took, the leadership positions I held, and the friends I made were informed by my societal positioning as a cisgender Black man. My experience as a Black student on a predominantly White campus was complex, difficult in many ways, but full of life.
The difference between my undergraduate experience and what I often read about Black collegians led me to this work. Research and popular media centering on Black collegians’ experiences on predominantly White campuses often highlight the racist experiences Black students shoulder. From White nationalists marching through campuses, to campus police profiling Black students, to seemingly monthly videos of students and faculty wearing Blackface or saying the n-word, to the more insidious, everyday racial slights Black students hear on campus in the form of microaggressions—racism shapes the campus experience for many Black students. If you ask me if racism influenced my time at Brown, my answer would be, “Of course.” I can recall the sting of White peers averting eye contact with me outside of class. I can recall the sick feeling of wishing I had said something in response to the question White students often levied at me, “Hey, you’re on the basketball/football team, right?” I can recall replaying these moments over and over in my head long after they happened. Research examining racism’s hold on campus remains vital.
Yet, if you ask about my experience at Brown in general, my answer would be more complex. I would tell you about the impromptu freestyle rap battles in Harambee, the Black affinity residence hall. I would tell you about how my friends and I, under the name Pain Revisited, won Brown’s Intramural Basketball Championship. I would tell you about the prof