Color Experience Research Paper

Schools systematically subjugate minority and black students when a school’s enrollment contains a huge racial majority. If students have no exposure to persons of different ethnicities, cultures, races, and religions, then these students will experience culture shock when they confront “other” people. Even in our class, we talk about black and minority students as another group, one that differs from “us.” We think about the inequalities in school systems as problems we need to fix, not as problems that have influenced our thinking and affect us as prospective teachers. For example, a white graduate student with

Color fills our world with beauty. We delight in the colors of a magnificent sunset and in the bright red and golden-yellow leaves of autumn. We are charmed by gorgeous flowering plants and the brilliantly colored arch of a rainbow. We also use color in various ways to add pleasure and interest to our lives. For example, many people choose the colors of their clothes carefully and decorate their homes with colors that create beautiful, restful, or exciting effects. By their selection and arrangement of colors, artists try to make their paintings more realistic or expressive.

Cultural consciousness must flow from faculty development. Culturally responsive faculty development should assist educators in developing cultural consciousness; in other words, understanding one’s own culture and how it affects his or her interaction with others (McCalman, 2007). Faculty should learn that class and race differences are not solely the problem between them and students; professors must be able to acknowledge power imbalances are pervasive in society, institutions and policies,

Teaching in racially diverse classrooms often leaves educators feeling uncertain about how to proceed and how to respond to historically marginalized students. There is pressure to acknowledge and accept students of color with different perspectives, to diversify the syllabi, be more aware of classroom dynamics, and pay attention to how students of color experience the learning process.

Despite the prevalence of racial discrimination in higher education, not enough is known about Latina/o students’ experience with racial discrimination and racial microaggressions in higher education. The extant explorations of racial discrimination on university campuses have primarily focused on the experiences of White, African American and Asian American college students. The research that has examined Latina/o experiences of racial microaggressions in higher education has largely focused on non-HSIs. Consequently, it is imperative to understand the unique challenges of Latina/os in higher education, including how university racial climate and experiences with discrimination/oppression influence

Black students are often dissatisfied with their campus climate (Harper, 2013). Black students often entered PWIs expecting to experience racism at some point. Furthermore, Harper (2013) found that Black students, on average, make-up approximately 5.3% the total enrollment at 20 of the largest universities in the United States. This positions most Black students to sit in classes where there are no other Black students, especially for Black males, STEM majors, and students in honors courses. The impact of being alone and feeling isolated is captured in what Harper et al. (2011) refers to as onlyness—“the psycho-emotional burden of having to strategically navigate a racially politicized space occupied by few peers, role models, and guardians from one’s same racial or ethnic group” (p. 190). Experiencing onlyness leads to further isolation in that individuals experience stereotype threat or the fear of fulfilling behaviors related to negative stereotypes about members of a social group. Stereotype threat leads to self-conscious and inauthentic behavior.

According to Obear and Martinez (2013), race caucuses “can be a powerful multicultural incentive to deepen the competencies of higher education administrators and student affairs practitioners to create equitable, inclusive campus environment for students and staff” (p. 79). This article discusses how diversity training targets racism on college campuses. Race caucuses can deepen the competences of higher education leaders by making it possible for them recognize racism, internalized dominance, internalized oppression, and its impact on personal and profession development within the institution. By using this type of methodology, universities are slowly seeing social and organizational change that eliminates racial barriers.

Throughout my lifetime I will cross paths with many different people. These people could be friends, colleagues, teachers, professors, or significant others, all of any race or cultural background. When meeting someone for the first time, it is very easy to make assumptions about that person without knowing anything about them at all. We’re all human, we all do this. In her essay, “A Prostitute, a Servant, and a Customer-service Representative: A Latina in Academia,” Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender, and Race Studies, Carmen Lugo-Lugo claims that what students assume about their professors advocates their attitude toward their education. Racial stereotypes challenge us to consider our own expectations of what we should get out of a college education, and who or what constitutes a college professor. She vigorously uses emotional appeals and establishes her tone of voice using style and word choice in a concerned, direct manner to argue that students make personal or racially-biased assumptions about their teachers/professors, resulting in a lousy attitude towards education.

Due to the mismatch of race from teachers to students in schools, the minority students have a harder time receiving a higher education.“When minority students see someone at the blackboard that looks like you, it helps you reconceive what’s possible for you,” said Thomas S. Dee, a professor of education at Stanford University. By having a teacher with the same race as the student, creates a bond in knowledge of the barriers that minorities have to jump through. It also lets students see that even though they might be in a tough situation, they are able to receive a high level of education and may be able to reach their dreams. In an article in the Nea Today titled When Implicit Bias Shapes Teacher Expectations, they explain that the opinion

In addition to the psychological impact they face, African Americans are showing that they feel disconnected from their respective schools. At schools across the country, from the University of Missouri to Ithaca College to Stanford, minorities are conveying that implicit yet institutionalized racism creates an emotional distance between them and their white peers and staff. Many black students not only have to deal with institutional racism, but they also have to engage in academic and social environments that fail to recognize microaggressions (Green). Discrimination can make it difficult for students of color to engage with their campus in the way that their white classmates do. In addition, black students are tired of having white administrators

In recent weeks a growing debate across campuses has arisen over the remaining racial divide that has left some students feeling disenfranchised by the universities that seek to teach them (Hui 2015). This growing dissent can be seen from Missouri to Princeton as students protest and object to what they claim to be a culture on university campuses not contusive to learning or to minority groups (Newman 2015). At Princeton University much like at the University of Missouri students are becoming increasingly vocal about the difficulties facing those of color at institutions that do not adequately address their needs, or in the case of Princeton fail to sufficiently acknowledge a legacy of racism in their institutions (Hui 2015). This

In order to study the need of a racially and culturally diverse college campus, the journey and battles fought must be dicussed. While there is a lack of diversity on college campuses today, they are not completely devoid of people of color. However, there was a time when college campuses were one hundred percent Caucasian. Jonathan R. Alger, Jorge Chapa and a team of researchers conducted studies on various college classrooms. They then went on to publish their findings in a book titled Does Diversity make a Difference? The purpose of their paper was to discuss the importance of diversity and reveal the effects of non-diverse campus. They begin their book by taking a look into the history of diversity in America. The start of the Civil Rights movement along with President Lyndon B. Johnson’s war on poverty took place in the mid 1960s. These events forced the country to face the reality of the people of color in America. These Americans of color did not have equal access to education, jobs, housing, or other valued resources (Alger et al. 2000). College administrators and faculty were starting to understand the necessity of a diverse campus. The realized that people of color had just as much to offer to the United States as the Caucasian majority. During that time, “many higher education faculty members and administrators were deeply concerned that abandonment of race sensitive admissions and hiring, at a time when most minority groups continue to be unrepresented in higher education, will severely limit campus diversity and would undermine the learning environment for all students.” (Alger et al. 2000). Additionally, a lot of the traditionally white colleges and universities were provoked and questioned by the concerns of their students. The universities and colleges began to notice their inability to extend the same educational

Students of color have their experiences at school belittled. “When students look to counseling, they are often told their racialized experiences are in their head -- that the college or university is color blind.” Dr. Ebony McGee, assistant professor of diversity and urban schooling at Vanderbilt's Peabody College of Education and Human Development

Since I started this class, I have a learned a great deal about cultural diversity in the classroom and abroad. My perspective has changed slightly but my knowledge of this subject has improved. In my family, my father taught me about the civil rights movement and the evils of segregation in the U.S. My parents taught me to be tolerant of all humans, no matter what they look like, how they dress, or their sexual orientation. My family has always been liberal thinkers who taught me the dark history of racism and bigotry in this country. As an educator I would be accepting to all race, creeds, and religious peoples.

Josh Packard, a Ph.D.-holding sociology professor at the University of Northern Colorado, finds that white students bring no substance to the classroom, as they only discuss about the white ethnic groups. However, black students tend to discuss their experiences and tie them into the academic content. In doing so, over a majority of “white [students] specifically referenced comments made by minority students in the classroom” (150) when writing in their reflection journals. This shows the profound impact that one comment by a black student can have in a