Spelman Is Out in Front on LGBT Issues

May 17, 2011, 3:04 pm

Not long ago, I wrote an essay for Diverse Issues in Higher Education about Spelman College and how it is a role model for all colleges and universities in terms of the tremendous monetary and voluntary support it receives from its alumni. I feel compelled to write about Spelman once again.

Recently, the college held the Audrey Lourde Historically Black College and University Summit, which focused on LGBT issues within African-American and HBCU communities. The event was supported and embraced by Spelman’s president Beverly Daniel Tatum and was attended by representatives from HBCU’s across the nation. President Tatum opened the summit by acknowledging the long-term partnership of Spelman’s founders, Sophia Packard and Harriet Giles. Historians, without mention of their personal relationship, have written about these two white women extensively.

Although an event like this might be commonplace at many (certainly not all) majority institutions, it is not the norm at HBCU’s. Black colleges and universities have been slow to address the issues of LGBT students, including the homophobia that exists on campus. A few years ago, my colleague Shaun Harper (an HBCU graduate) and I wrote an article entitled the “The Consequences of Conservatism at HBCUs.” We found that many HBCU’s across the country—via policy or practice—were not supportive of LGBT issues. At some HBCU’s, gay and lesbian students were not allowed to form student organizations, while at others those students were openly harassed on campus.

Spelman College is leading HBCU’s in opening up conversations about the needs and concerns of LGBT students. These types of conversations need to take place on HBCU campuses throughout the nation. For too long, gay and lesbian issues have been ignored at HBCUs, leaving behind a significant percentage of African-American students who are looking for support as they pursue their educations and develop their personal identities.

Perhaps what I liked most about Spelman’s summit was the action orientation. Fueled by a report by Spelman faculty member Beverly Guy Sheftall, the summit recommended that HBCU’s embrace LGBT support groups, workshops around issues of sexuality and hate crimes, and domestic-partner benefits for faculty and staff.

I look forward to watching HBCU’s respond to these forward-thinking recommendations on their campuses. It is time that HBCU’s use their educational vantage point to empower LGBT students so that they have equal educational experiences to their heterosexual counterparts. The commitment to social justice that is needed to support LGBT students has always been present at HBCUs—it just needs to be pointed in a new direction.

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anonytrans

“Spelman College is leading HBCU’s in opening up conversations about the
needs and concerns of LGBT students. These types of conversations need
to take place on HBCU campuses throughout the nation. For too long, gay
and lesbian issues have been ignored at HBCUs,”

Are they talking about “LGBT” issues or “gay and lesbian” issues? They aren’t synonyms, and the two groups’ needs and concerns (as this quote puts it) are quite different.
sgray17

Audre, not Audrey Lorde: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/audre-lorde
katisumas

I’m happy that translators are getting a bit of recognition and the academic public is getting a modicum of education on the translation process.

Translation, the re-creating of a text in a new language, that is into a new form capable of carrying a similar content with equivalent yet different stylistic grace, is very much misunderstood, particularly in the United States. Like other English speaking countries, we suffer from a grievious translation imbalance. Very few foreign texts are translated into English in contrast to non Anglophone countries where not only numerous English texts but also texts from other language are translated.

Because so very few works are translated into English, we miss out on much of the world’s literature and thinking and culture. This imbalance reinforce US ethnocentricity and our deafness to the lived experience of people around the world.

Venuti, is one of my favorite translator and theoretician of translation. I wholly agree with him that translation is interpretation and that it calls for theorization.

Here are a couple of excerpts from his speech “Towards a Culture of Translation” the whole of which can be found through the link in the news announcement above:

“…. every literary and critical practice embodies theoretical concepts as assumptions that at once enable and constrain the practice. Such concepts make possible a translation, determining what form it will take. Translators routinely assume a concept of good literature in choosing foreign texts for translation, as well as a concept of good writing in making certain verbal choices while excluding others during the translation process. These concepts constitute a theory, even if they remain inchoate, unarticulated, or unconscious. They depend on more fundamental assumptions about the nature of authorship and textuality and their relationship to the world, which in turn rest on even more basic ideas of human subjectivity, of what it is to be human.”

“In interpreting the source text, the translator alters it in the most material way. It is detached from its originary context where it supported meanings, values, and functions specific to the source language and culture, and it is simultaneously inserted in a different context, created by the translation, where it supports meanings, values, and functions specific to the receiving language and culture. To assert that translation is transformation does not mean that no correspondence, formal or semantic, exists between the source and translated texts. The point is rather that a literary work is much more than any such correspondence: it is a complex cultural artefact that never survives intact the move to another language and culture where it comes to signify, to be valued, and to function differently ….. I am arguing that a ratio of source loss and translating gain cannot be avoided or resolved, and the only way that a translation can do right abroad, in relation to the source text and culture, is to do wrong at home, making an appreciable difference in the cultural norms and institutions of the receiving situation, contributing to a change, for instance, in how a foreign literature is perceived in translation.”

” … To translate according to the hermeneutic model and to be capable of addressing translations as interpretive acts, translators must be equipped with an array of qualifications that they do not receive from the prevalent workshop pedagogy. These qualifications start with advanced proficiency in a foreign language, but include the ability to write a variety of styles in the translating language with clarity, precision, and resonance. Translators must also possess a broad and deep knowledge of translation traditions in the translating language and culture, i.e., a historical grasp of theoretical concepts and practical strategies. And they must be specialists in the fields in which they translate as those fields have developed in both the foreign and the translating cultures. “
http://twitter.com/DevinHughes Devin

Hi Sally,

Thank you for your thoughtful feedback on our service. You certainly touched on some points that we’ve talked about ourselves, and I’m happy to continue the discussion.

You’re absolutely right that giving advice online has been around for quite some time. However, while high school students outnumber counselors by 500:1 nationwide and get under 30 minutes of personal advice a year, finding accurate information elsewhere has been a growing need. When a student finds good guidance on the web (and there is some “not-good” stuff out there), one thing they’re not getting is personal attention. To that end, the ability for a student to log on and be instantly connected, face-to-face, to a counselor across the country, is pretty cutting edge.

Becoming a counselor on Unigo requires submitting content to our immense library of free admissions and financial aid advice. Each one of our counselors has had their expertise reviewed by our editorial staff and been approved as a provider. One of the many benefits of getting to know all of our counselors, is the ability to host a free matching service that pairs students based on their backgrounds, interests, and goals, with counselors who specialize in helping students like them. Before a chat, and in response to a great point you made, we do have tools available for students to fill out comprehensive profiles including anything and everything they’d like to share, from high school courses and test scores, to their extracurricular activities and prospective majors. Upcoming features will allow for even more pre-chat communication, giving each counselor as much, if not more, information about a student as their high school advisor would have. The result is a counselor and student who are a great fit for one another entering their conversation knowing exactly what they want to accomplish.

Lastly, a major advantage of the video sessions on Unigo is that a counselor can really ‘listen’ to what a student is saying. Widely accepted research says anywhere from 50-70% of all human communication is non-verbal (some even say over 90%), and being face-to-face can facilitate some of the most honest conversations a student and counselor can have. Counselors are often tasked with helping students discover what they really want in their college experiences, and need to break through as many communication barriers as they can to get to the truth. We’re excited to bring them together, essentially in the same room, no matter where they live. Beyond all of that, video sessions also allow for impromptu questions as a student learns more about the admissions process in real time, and don’t require the inefficiencies of the back and forth that comes with email conversations.

Thanks again for your comments, and we hope everyone enjoys the service!

Devin Hughes

VP Marketing & Strategic Partnerships, Unigo.com
eseyran

Dear Dr. Roberts,

My first critique is going to be based on “…And nighttime
calls to prayer prolonged some students’ jet lag but also prodded them to ponder
public religion in the two republics.” comment of yours… Turkeyis a Secular
Republic since 1923, universities in Turkey operate in regular business hours ,
curriculum and academic activity of any kind is never scheduled according to
the prayer times or religious activity of any kind, at the Republic of Turkey.
A professional who spend six years, teaching in Turkey should have known this very fact. My second critique again, a
statement of yours in the article, implies Arabic as a language close to
Turkish, some how this comment also implies Arabic as a prevalent language that
local people speak… In Turkey –Turkish is spoken. Turkish language belongs to
Ural Attallic family of languages. Turkish has no similarity either to German
or to Arabic. English and Arabic on the other hand are both classified under Indo-European
languages and Arabic and English are more similar to each other in structure and
grammar compared with Turkish due to their relatedness. I am a bit disappointed
with the fact that, a faculty after spending six years teaching in Turkey could
still remain confused with the language and the constitutional standing of the
country. On the other hand other than these two points, over all this is a nice
article and thanks for sharing your point of view with us.
a1lbertthe

Hi Eseyran, thanks for your note, and glad you liked the piece. I didn’t intend to imply that Turkey isn’t a secular republic, nor, obviously, that most Turkish people speak Arabic. On the other hand, hearing calls to prayer is an aspect of life in Turkey, a reflection of the country’s religious culture. I’d stick to my comparison, as I did in my teaching. I’m interested in the relationship between religion and politics in different settings: America is a secular republic, but obviously Protestant Christianity is an important part of its cultural life, though now perhaps less influential than in the past. Regarding language, there are a few words in modern Turkish that sound like their Arabic counterparts, a holdover from the Ottoman era.
trax530

Arabic is NOT an Indo-European language. It belongs to a very old family called Afro-Asiatic, which has several branches: Ancient Egyptian, Berber, Cushitic, Chadic, Omotic, and Semitic. Arab is part of the Semitic branch, along with Hebrew and Amharic. These branches are widely accepted by historical linguists.I wonder who is spreading the false notion that Arabic is Indo-European? Sounds like anti-Semitic propaganda.
eseyran

I am not an expert on Arabic language. The article implied Arabic as one of the prevalent languages in Turkey so that I respond. Turkish is spoken in Turkey not Arabic, and Turks use the Latin alphabet since 1928 if I recall the year correctly. Turkey is a Member of NATO, is a member of Council of Europe since 1951 and a European Union candidate country. Also Turkey and Israel have been close allies in the region over in the past decades. Thousands of
Jewish Scientist welcomed at Turkish Universities in the Second World War Era
when Holocaust was taking place inside Europe, and looking at the history Turks
are the last people could be named as anti-Semitic.
eseyran

Thanks for your point; I know there is no direct comparison
in the article but there are implications as I have stated. And obviously Turkey
still carries the imperial cultural heritage of the Ottoman Era, where the borders of theempire stretched from the borders of Vienna to Caspian Sea and from
Polish-Lithuanina Common Wealth in the north to Yemen in the South. Why than
historical, political, and socioeconomic relevancy of this vast territory is
being undermined. Turkey is a Eurasia democracy, with a strong infrastructure.
I cannot see an exotic oasis there when I look at.
sallycv

This is a topic that some of us working on internationalization from the system perspective spend a lot of time
contemplating, but about which little has been written or presented
publically. I applaud our colleagues for launching the discussion in this
forum. For system level actors, the balance between
facilitating the engagement of the individual campus with overseas partners and
impeding the one-on-one bilateral collaboration is one we struggle with
regularly. It is essential that all of us who are charged with a system
level international role regularly examine our efforts through the lens of this
challenge.

At the State University of New York, Office of Global
Affairs, we discuss among ourselves and with our colleagues who represent the
international offices of the 64 constituent institutions that comprise SUNY, what contributions are most effectively made to internationalization at
the system level that are unique in nature or bring value not found in
single-institution efforts – and what activities are best left to individual
institutions to explore independently. We very much share the concern
conveyed by Professors Kinser and Lane, our SUNY colleagues, that each
institution be able to participate in the international sphere in the ways that
are most meaningful and beneficial to its unique mission.

Without a doubt, in order for a system international office
to be effective, a delicate balance needs to be struck between responsible
quality assurance and respect for unique institutional mission, between
facilitating program development and replacing or superseding individual campus
program development efforts. We certainly don’t see this as a
mission accomplished in our institution, but rather as a daily challenge.  Here
are some of the ways that we think a system effort can add value without
diminishing individual campus efforts:

·
Provide structures and services that facilitate
individual campus internationalization
·
Provide quality assurance mechanisms to protect
the interests of students and safeguard the reputation of the university in its
activities outside the U.S.

·
Offer professional development and networking
opportunities to campus personnel in the various professions related to
internationalization (ISSS, study abroad, recruitment, admissions, among
others)

·
Management of consortia of campuses for specific
international activities

·
Management of overseas offices for support of campus
engagement in specific regions