“Welcome to La Casa. Dynamic Community. Deteriorating Spaces,” reads a poster that features a photograph of the dilapidated couch and crumbling brick wall in La Casa Cultural’s basement. “We’re overflowing,” another says, accompanied by a statistic: “3,760: Number of Asian American Students at Yale. 180: Number that fit inside the AACC.” Another, in simple white text against a blue background, reads: “Our patience has run out. We demand a plan of action to be released by the Yale administration by April 1, 2015.” These posters form part of collaborative campaign between the four Cultural Centers on campus that reflect their common goal to garner further aid from the administration toward the challenges plaguing their communities.
The recent resignation of Rodney Cohen, former dean of the African-American Cultural Center, was a victory for the students’ campaign for change and brought renewed focus to the issue. However, an administrative response by April 1 seems unlikely. In an interview with the Herald, Dean of Yale College Jonathan Holloway, GRD ’95, said that when students involved in the campaign reached out to him, he expressed that their demands were unreasonable and that he would not concede to them. “I totally understand the students’ frustrations with what is seen as the inattention of the administration over time. And I totally understand the students’ frustration with the pace of change in just this year alone,” Holloway said. “Students are here for a very short time, the administration is here for a much longer time. … The pace of change feels different [depending on] where you are.”
From an administrative standpoint, change has been happening quickly, Holloway said. Three searches are underway for directors of three of the four Cultural Centers. “Getting those moved as quickly as we have, they have no idea what a big deal it was to have these searches launched so quickly,” Holloway said. This past November, an external review of the Cultural Centers took place, which Holloway said was meant to bolster the case for increased support for the Centers. Yet students still feel there’s a lack of transparency and communication between students and the administration surrounding the Cultural Centers—and that the issues surrounding the centers are so longstanding that they can wait no longer.
The Af-Am House was founded in 1969, in the wake of the Civil Rights era, when universities began actively opening their doors to African American students for the first time, Dean Holloway told me. “Students would show up on campus and say, ‘Huh. So there’s nothing in the curriculum that speaks to our experience and there’s no place here that feels like our place.’ And simply put, that led to the House’s birth.” Holloway said that this same thinking led to the founding of three additional Cultural Centers: La Casa Cultural in 1974, Asian American Cultural center in 1981, and the Native American Cultural Center in 1993.
The role of the Cultural Centers within the Yale community has become broader since their inception and more encompassing of students outside their respective racial and ethnic traditions. The Centers have become home bases for numerous student groups as well. “It’s exciting to see the Centers broaden their ambition and for students to express their curiosities across all kinds of spaces,” Holloway said.
A recent change in leadership in the Af-Am House reflects this change and growth in the Cultural Centers and the visions students have for their future. On March 16, 2015, Holloway emailed the student body to announce Dean Rodney Cohen’s resignation from his role as the director of the Afro-American Cultural Center. “He felt that his vision for the center was not what the students’ vision for the enter was, and that there was no way to reconcile the two,” Dean Holloway said. Cohen’s resignation followed a petition signed by over 147 students and alumni demanding Cohen’s removal, which was presented to the administration in a meeting this past February. “The Afro-American Cultural Center is no longer fulfilling its historic mission of serving as a cultural, social, and academic space for black students,” the petition stated. “The apathy and disengagement of Center Director Rodney Cohen is at the center of the issues we face.”
Student letters included in the 69-page petition for Cohen’s removal indicate that the House—both its physical space and its role in the lives of students—is far from this ideal vision. Alexandra Williams, SM ’17, wrote: “The kitchen is practically empty (no utensils). The ‘game room’ has a mere two couches and no games. The library is occupied by a couple dozen old books and an out-of-date computer. The house has lost its energy…”
But the ideas for change extend beyond Cohen’s resignation and the House’s physical state—the hope is largely to create a more social space. Freshman Coordinator at the Af-Am House, Michael Johnson, JE ’18, said that he hopes the House can be used as a space for students to escape the typical pressures that accompany life at Yale. “I just want to see the house be a multifaceted place,” Johnson said. “A place where people can come not just for academics, but a place that’s like a home away from home where you can just relax and chill and take breaks. That’s my vision.”
For the most part, Johnson defines the Af-Am House as a safe space. “But like anything, it could be improved,” he added.
According to Johnson, the Af-Am House is used frequently—for other organizations and events—but isn’t used as regularly as a space for rest and respite. “I would say the house is used a lot, but not many people use it as a chill, laid back spot,” he said, “The house used to be more of a social scene. We’re trying to get back into that.”
One way in which the House is encouraging students to take advantage of its space is through “Late Nights”— or 10 p.m. study breaks with food and games. “More people need to know about them,” Johnson said. These events began two weeks before spring break.
Other students who wrote letters included in the petition agreed with Johnson’s vision for the house. “My ideal vision for the house is a place that is socially, intellectually, and service focused,” Williams wrote in her letter. “A house that provides the infrastructural support for students to not only study and do homework but also to engage in important conversations about topical issues and to support our interaction with the New Haven community.”
Other cultural centers have similar hopes—and struggle with similar problems. On Wednesday night, I walked to the Asian American Cultural Center to meet with Co-Head Coordinators of the Center Hiral Doshi, BK ’17, and Jessica Liang, TD ’17. After I rang the buzzer, they took me upstairs to a green room with a broken lamp standing in the corner.
Doshi and Liang’s ideal vision for the AACC is a thriving community that meets students’ needs: where they can attend events, hang out, do their homework. They hope that the AACC can have a bigger presence on campus and become a hub for activities and events. But currently, the Center’s location and physical infrastructure limits the its capacity to grow and provide for students. The AACC is a 10-minute walk from Cross Campus, which makes it difficult for students to come and relax. Many student groups are unable to use the Center for meetings and events because the biggest rooms in the house can squeeze in just 40 to 60 people. The AACC’s kitchen often isn’t large or up-to-date enough for many of the food events that student groups want to host. And then there’s the building’s physical state.
“On the outside, everything looks fine and dandy,” Liang said, “but then you begin to look a little closer and notice all these little details.” Many of the ceilings have cracks. The floors in the Center are sagging. Many of the doors don’t open and one recently fell off its hinges. The storage closets that student groups use are overflowing.
“Our door doesn’t exactly close,” Liang noted. “You have to conscientiously pull it shut, which just poses a safety hazard at night.”
The building itself isn’t meeting the students’ needs, Doshi said. “No matter how many carpets you change, no matter how many walls you re-paint, it doesn’t change the layout of the space or the size of the space or its structural issues.”
The administration needs to take action, Liang and Doshi said. “A lot of times, diversity only seems to matter when Bulldog days rolls around,” Doshi said. When Doshi and Liang were peer liaisons planning events for the freshman class, they had to budget their spending more carefully. “But when it was Bulldog Days, it was ‘don’t worry about it—everything will be handled,’” Doshi said. The coordinators want to see YCC become more involved in the Cultural Centers, and would like the administration hold more events in the Cultural Centers. Accessibility to distant Centers could be improved by adding them to shuttle routes. And although Doshi acknowledges it’s a “huge ask,” she believes that the AACC needs a new space in order to function as it was meant to.
The administration and students alike agree that the Cultural Centers are vital to allowing all students at Yale to thrive, but differ in their vision for how—and how soon—change can occur. “We have to stop acting like this is a problem of ‘the other,’” Doshi said, “Because ‘other’ people of color hurting hurts you, too.” To Doshi, this means paying more than lip-service to diversity and instead acting affirmatively to meet students’ needs. But, according to Holloway, “The kind of change students are seeking can’t be feasibly completed in four months.”
With the addition of two more residential colleges in the Fall of 2016, the urgency for greater support of the Centers will only increase as they prepare to provide resources for a larger student body. Holloway says that the administration is moving as quickly as possibly; students say that they aren’t moving fast enough. For now, it seems that the Af-Am House, La Casa, AACC, and NACC can only wait and continue to make their voice heard.