Group to tackle racial issues

This week marks the beginning of a group that will discuss an age-old problem. A discussion group labeled "Conversations on Race" will come together once a week for five weeks to confront and address racial ties on campus and problems people have faced with racial biases.\nIssues involving racial hate crimes escalated after the graduate student Won-Joon Yoon was killed July 4, 1999. Doug Bauder, coordinator of Gay, Lesbian Bisexual Student Support Services and an original founder of the discussion groups, said the effects from that incident alone prompted him to take action.\n"The crime impacted me in ways that almost surprised me," Bauder said. "I was angered and outraged as an administrator at the University, as a Christian, a neighbor, as a gay man and as an American citizen. At every level of my being, I felt tremendously offended by this."\nNow, more than a year later, a well-organized and diverse group of students living in the residence halls has been put together by the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Division of Residential Programs and Services and the Commission on Multicultural Understanding. \nThe groups, one for each hall of residence, consist of a mix of races, cultures, sexes, religions and sexual preferences. Scott Zuick, vice president of programming for the Residence Halls Association, said providing this service within the residence halls is a great way to educate incoming freshmen.\n"Many of the people living in the residence halls are freshmen who have been sheltered from diversity their whole lives," Zuick said. "Many come from places where the people around them are the same race that they are. This program will introduce these students to a new reality, new people and new ideas."\nBauder said the discussions are designed to lift people out of their traditional roles in society and to get a first hand look at what it is like to be a member of a different race living on this campus through a different race. \n"We want students to find out, through personal accounts, what it is like living as an African American, a Latino or maybe an Asian American on this campus," Bauder said. "But it isn't all about non-white students. It is also for white students to understand what white privilege means. We want all students to move beyond their comfort zone."\nThe certain comfort zone people within the same race feel with each other is just human nature, Bauder said. One goal of the group is to break this barrier down and to understand what it might be like to be another race, he said. \nBarry Magee, the assistant director for diversity education, said most people do not possess the tools needed to understand someone else's race.\n"We all see the world through the lenses that experiences have given us," Magee said. "We also think that all of these experiences are the same for everyone. But they aren't."\nMagee said he wants the student group members to feel safe talking about race relations. He said the students should leave the group with an honest sense of their surroundings, a vision for the future and an understanding that not everyone has the same life experiences.\nThe discussions will be based on a series of video clips and interactive activities. They will be personal discussions focusing on growth as a person, Bauder said.\n"It will be people speaking from the heart, rather than an intellectual exercise," Bauder said. "We are not hoping for confessions of racism, but we are looking for a sense of recognition that racism does exist and does impact everyone."\nBoth administrators said they want to also help students facilitate a similar program in the spring, give them ideas on how to get involved in the community and challenge the students to take action.