Month: May 2017

Final (I said FINAL) Research Paper

I promise this is my last blog post on my BIG research paper, but I just wanted to wrap it all up nice and neat.

Writing about racial and cultural diversity on college campuses, I learned a lot about the past efforts and struggles of Santa Clara University students and faculty fighting for minority representation and acceptance. More importantly, I was able to reflect on how this has changed compared to today’s programs and events created for students of color. Not only are the efforts different between the 1980s, 1990s, and now, but the attitudes and behaviors towards diversity and inclusion are also contrasting. In the past, there was a strong trend of negative, destructive attitude towards minority students, harming them as well as their environment. Today, there is a powerful positive, optimistic attitude towards welcoming and accepting students of color as well as educating their student bodies. Overall, the voices of the conversations all had one common theme: diversity is important.

Problems?

Yes, I faced many problems. Let’s list them out…

1. The archives take A LOT of time to dig through to find valuable gems that forward my research.
2. Online databases can be difficult to navigate.
3. Writing without only synthesizing and finding where and how to analyze my research sources.
4. Figuring out what’s important and what’s not to the conversation I’m entering about diversity and inclusion.

Yet through these problems, I was able to learn how to better understand and tie sources in together to make a cohesive voice.

Things I Wish I Could’ve Done

There are so many things I could’ve written on and addressed concerning racial and cultural inclusion. I wish I could’ve expanded this to society and certain communities and cities. I wish I could’ve incorporated how diversity is beneficial to childhood and growing up. I wish I could’ve heard the opinions of more people with more detail than I did. Despite all of these wishes, I am still extremely proud of what I’ve found, analyzed, and learned about diversity in college.

Thanks for reading!

Going to the Library!

Since our professor was not available for our Tuesday class this week, my Critical Thinking and Writing class met up at the library (a.k.a. lieberry to some -_____-) to talk to the great Gail about research!

At the computer lab, Gail conducted some mini activities to help us summarize and consider the context and backgrounds of sources. She gave us links to certain academic journals and documents and asked us to write one-sentence descriptions of them. This included the general topic of the article, its author(s) and credentials, and where it was published. As a class, we then shared what we wrote and whether or not it would be good to include in our annotated bibliographies and papers.

What I Learned 

I learned how easy it can be to find a wide range of information simply by looking at the resources available and searching a few things up. Looking at the periodical, I was able to find out some background of the article as well as the journal itself. Searching up the names of the authors, I discovered where they taught, what degrees they have, and what they specialize in. These seemingly small but essential facts can help me create my annotated bibliography and my final research paper. And it was all possible by simply looking!

Thanks for reading!

Back to Where It Began

This week I headed back to where it all began: the Archives.

Trying to finish my annotated bibliography, I needed sources on diversity and inclusion at Santa Clara University from the 1980s and 1990s. I picked up from where I left off in Week 3, stepping into Chicano Studies and the Student Involvement Center. In the Chicano Studies box, I found sources written by the lovely Inez Gomez as well as student organizations like M.E.Ch.A-El Frente. In the box for Student Involvement, I discovered more information on the Multicultural Center and the aftermath of the 1985 UNITY movement.

Documents and Differences

Unlike my last trip to the archives, I searched in different areas of studies with the help of Sheila Conway (check her out!), the head of the SCU Archives. She pulled information from the Vice Provost of Student Life and Student Resource Center that had some new information on diversity and inclusion on campus in the 80s and 90s. For example, I examined a documented called “A Weekend on the EDGE” with EDGE standing for “Empowerment, Diversity, Growth, Excellence”. This was a program weekend institute for diversity awareness training and leadership development specifically made for faculty. In the packet included the itinerary and activities meant to educate the SCU staff on what diversity meant and how to go about it. Finding sources like this made me, once again, excited and invigorated about my research, knowing that useful and interesting information found its way to me.

Sum It Up!

I know this blog post is quite short, but that’s because I’m saving all the juicy goodness for the main course: my final research paper. Consisting of 7-8 pages of fun-packed information, I promise it’ll be worth reading because you’ll not only learn more about SCU but about diversity and maybe even yourself.

Thanks for reading!

Welcome Back, Friends!

This week we’re back to talking about research, but with a twist. Instead of talking about the incredibly fascinating stuff I’ve found, I’ve decided to take a step back and consider how my sources piece together in the greater puzzle of my research.

Wait, So What’s With the Title?

As always, subtitle, you have great questions. The title has to do with what territory or what space the research goes into. On the other hand, the gap refers to the holes left from researching that leave questions or a lack of information.

For example, the materials I have found from the Santa Clara University Archives deal more with diversity within the 1980s and 1990s, specifically with the Chicano Studies Department and the UNITY movement and the Multicultural Center. Sources on the Chicano Studies Office show how the administration of the university has dedication and motivation to forward minority student development academically, professionally, socially, and personally. With letters from the Director Inez Gomez, the detailed plans and reports on the status of the Chicano Student Resources, particularly on their improvement as well as points to work on. Regarding the Office of Student Life, the UNITY proposal sets the groundwork for the importance of representing and embracing minorities on campus as well as the establishment of the Multicultural Center. Yet, all of these acts become extremely controversial on campus, leading various groups to publish newsletters and works in response to them. Overall, the voices of the university administration and the students 20-30 years ago are heard clearly in these sources, as if they were just spoken.

As far as the gap, I found that they were ABUNDANT in archival research. Since the documents are arranged in a particular order, it does not always make chronological sense. Sometimes the packets are even stapled in the wrong order! This creates confusion and frustration in not being able to find the correct or relevant information. Besides this, gaps in my understanding of certain positions, programs, and movements developed as I dove deeper into the rabbit hole of archival research. For example, the results of the UNITY movement became unclear once I looked more at the sources filed with the packet. Finding strange emails and notes, I could not figure out the exact result of UNITY, looking at pieces that referred to the results instead of stating them.

Territory + Gap = ???

Overall, thinking about the territory and gaps of my archival research allowed me to not only see the problems with my style and researching itself but also showed me what to focus more on to collect an abundant, useful group of sources. Territory revealed where I currently am in comparison to where I need or should be. Gaps reinforced the idea that research, especially archival, is not always complete or even easy and that we need to create meaningful connections between the sources as we continue the search for answers.

Thanks for reading!

Now to Our Regularly Scheduled Program…

For this week’s blog, I was given the topic of comparing and contrasting my method of researching to that of author and professor Margaret Kantz. Getting a break from researching is actually the opposite of what I wanted to focus on since I feel as if it’s just gotten good. Yet, let’s indulge ourselves with a bit of reading on how to write on research.

Kantz and Konversation

Kantz begins her article with the idea that, “Although the researched essay as a topic has been much written about, it has been little studied” (Kantz). Obviously, she hasn’t read all the sources about research that I have (but that’s besides the point). Delving into her study, she creates a hypothetical student named Shirley based on the average and standard behaviors of students when it comes to researching. Kantz comes to the three conclusions: “1) Many students like Shirley misunderstand sources because they read them as stories. 2) Many students expect their sources to tell the truth; hence, they equate persuasive writing in this context with making things up. 3) Many students do not understand that facts are a kind of claim and are often used persuasively in so-called object writing to create an impression” (Kantz). Unlike the other articles I’ve read, Kantz has a slightly different observation of what students have been doing incorrectly in researching.

Personally, I did not run into the same issues that Shirley encountered. Looking at different sources online and in the archives, I took the materials to be factual and representations of thoughts and opinions of their time. Yet, I had a difficult time grasping the second and third assumption Kantz make. To me, I saw the persuasion aspect of an article, or even my own writing, as a unique angle adopted by the writer. However, it is important to be able to recognize this and the importance of it.

 

Kantz’ Fixez

Providing solutions to her observations, Kantz analyzes the actions and difficulties of researching through several methods. For example, she uses a triangular diagram created by Kinneavy. Giving it a new spin, she renames the parts as the following: “the Encoder is the writer of the text, the Decoder is the student reader, and Reality is the subject matter. Readers may consider only one point of the triangle at a time, asking such questions as ‘Who are you?’…Other questions would involve all three points of the triangle, e.g., ‘What are you saying to help me with the porblem you assume I have?'”(Kantz). With these questions, Kantz calls on students to thoroughly examine sources and analyze them with a grain of salt. In addition, these heuristic questions are meant to aid the writing process.

Drawing on my personal experiences, I find that the triangular method is something that I do subconsciously when analyzing materials for research. Yet for those who struggle with understanding sources this process can be very useful. Overall, I did not necessarily agree with or experience many of the phenomenons that Kantz was discussing. Frankly, I’m a little tired of reading about research, but that’s just my opinion.

Thanks for reading!

Back to the Bases (get it? it’s like basics) 

It’s Week 6 and it’s time to dive into the Big Bertha of research assignments! To do this, I used the information learned from the lovely librarian Gail who instructed my Critical Thinking and Writing class as well as my Asian Americans and Popular Culture class, which I took last quarter. Finding the OmniFile link, I immediately typed in “(diversit*) AND (college OR university) AND (race* OR ethnicit*)” in to the given search bars. Happening almost instantaneously, I received roughly 3,000 results from just a few words. It was like magic.

What Did You Find, Celine?

Thanks for asking, subtitle. I found an academic journal called, “Precollege Exposure to Racial/Ethnic Difference and First-Year College Students’ Racial Attitudes” written by Nicholas A. Bowman and Stewart Dafina-Lazarus discussing how the racial backgrounds of students and their past exposure to different racial groups translate into the next stage of their lives: college. Specifically, the authors sought to recognize how impactful interracial and racially homogeneous friendships and experiences that occur in high school are in forming attitudes towards diversity in college and beyond. Interesting, the article also failed to have a bias towards any particular racial group, drawing assumptions and suggestions based on its survey of 4,000 students from 28 various universities. 

But, What Were You Looking For? Well…

After experiencing how difficult online database searches can be last quarter, I went into this initial search with optimism and without a goal in mind, simply browsing around. I was lucky enough to have a more controversial and interesting topic this time (compared to boba). Even though I was not looking for anything particular, this first source actually connects well to the research I’ve conducted in the past via the SCU archives and online surveys. For example, it relates to how I distributed my survey to first-years exclusively. I did not intend to limit my responses in this way, but it ended up being an advantage since they could draw upon their recent high school experiences to answer the questions.

The tutorial we read did not particularly address any issues I encountered, yet I have knowledge about the type of problems that online databases cause given my past experiences. Fortunately for us, we had to amazing Gail to guide us with how to find the best sources in the most effective way, allowing me to find this gem of an article.

Thanks for reading!

P.S. Hope you love the magical references 😉

What’s This All About???

Welcome to May or better known as Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Heritage Month! (Wow, that’s a long name.) For the entire month, Santa Clara University’s Office of Multicultural Learning and Multicultural Center will be enjoying Asian heritage through various events on and off campus.

APIDA Community Dinner

This past Thursday, I attended the first event on the calendar. Actually, it was the first APIDA event EVER, but we’ll get into that later on. Packed with around 60 students and faculty, the room was filled with laughter, happiness, and excitement as individual tables engaged in different activities. For example, we each had posters to write our hopes and dreams for more awareness and inclusion of APIDA students on campus. Presenting them, every table was enthusiastic and truly passionate about their identities and helping the identities of others. Also, the posters were cute.

Besides this and having somewhat better food than Benson, we heard Dr. Valerie Francisco-Menchavez, a Scholar-Activist and SFSU Professor, give a presentation on the history of Asian model minorities and how we have progressed from that. Lighthearted yet meaningful, she introduced interesting perspectives of the situations Asian Americans today face. For example, she mentioned the Cambodian Town of Long Beach, California that had one of the lowest high school dropout rates in the country. This is true despite the fact that Asian Americans are the most educated, high-income group in the U.S. Bringing up issues like this, Francisco-Menchavez demonstrated how Asian Americans are easily misrepresented and still need awareness and most importantly, help.

My Takeaway

Although initially unsure about attending, I’m extremely grateful and glad that I did because I learned so much about not only what my peers face but also what Asian Americans in general face in terms of exclusion, racism, and mistreatment. Hearing the students talk about their experiences revealed my misconception of Santa Clara University as a somewhat diverse community, or at least aware and educated about diversity. The injustices that my peers talked about that occurred on campus broke my heart, not because they were also Asian but because it is something that should happen to no one.

Speaking to others at my table, I realized that many micro-aggressions occur on campus, often without us realizing. A Community Facilitator in San Filippo and member of many MCC clubs, Maddie brought up the fact that even Benson participates in cultural appropriation, making vaguely Asian dishes as the daily special or putting up Japanese lanterns and decorations for Lunar New Year (usually celebrated by Chinese and South Asian cultures), a week after it occurred. Looking back to when I saw these, I remember thinking, “Oh, at least they’re trying”. But, Maddie brought up a key point that the inaccuracy of such actions still affected her negatively, making her feel stereotyped and lumped into an “Asian” group.

Despite all of this, I am proud that students and faculty have coordinated this entire month dedicated to APIDA heritage to bring light to the issues and how to effectively address them. Yet, the fact that this is the first year in the entire existence of SCU that this month is being celebrated disappoints and pains me. It has taken Santa Clara University 27 years to finally celebrate APIDA month since its establishment in 1990. However, they said its better late than never and I am thankful for all the students and faculty who worked to make this happen.

Thanks for reading and I hope to see you at APIDA month events!

What’s Good? What’s New?

I know that my previous blog was on the survey, but given that it can change drastically I wanted to give you an update!

 New Results!

Some of the results have changed including…

• Responder Makeup: 40% Caucasian, 25% Asian, 20% Hispanic/Latino
• 80% of responder’s friends are Caucasian, 65% are Asian
• 60% of responders are NOT associated with the MCC
• 75% of responders consider diversity important
• 55% of responders think of SCU as diverse culturally and racially

With 20 responders, these results have become more stable and have aligned with the diversity statistics provided by Santa Clara University. Besides the statistics and percentages, I presented short answer questions in the survey, wondering about the actual thoughts of the responders. It took a while but I finally received significant written responses and filtered out the troll responses.

What Does This Mean?

Responders said the university could improve diversity awareness by not allowing, “groups like Turning Point USA [to exist]; Address conflicts related to discrimination or insensitivity by doing more than just saying ‘Sorry that happened’ but by condemning the actions and punish those who are responsible for making a lot of students feel uncomfortable accordingly”. In addition, the administration could, “Hold and support more events involving diversity and publicizing them [and] incorporate it more into the curriculum of particular classes such as CTW, C&I, Diversity, Art…”. One response simply said, “Everything”. From these, it is clear that students recognize the need for improvement in the first place, showing how the population of SCU is aware of diversity. These responses provide good guidelines as to what should be changed as well as ways to accomplish that. Almost all the responses included some ideas for more events hosted and supported by the university and overall inclusion of minorities.

But What About The Majority?

On the other hand, some students replied to, “make the multicultural center open to caucauscism because right now they make me feel very uncomfortable and excluded” and that they, “have definitely heard [their] caucasians friends, maybe jokingly say, that the MCC is not inclusive of white students and they don’t feel accepted”. This also connects back to previous post of mines on the FTP! (check out this link if you haven’t read it), and how Caucasian students feel separated from the MCC. In my opinion, the goal of the MCC is to make racially and culturally minority students feel included and accepted at a university that is predominantly white. Therefore, it is contradictory to have organizations built around Caucasian culture when the group is the majority within the school as well as the country holistically. Yet, this doesn’t mean that Caucasian students cannot get involved in the events and programs of the MCC. For example, the current co-president of APSU (Asian Pacific-Islander Student Union) is white and has discussed his interest in APSU as loving the culture and the individuals, wanting to learn about and love Asian Pacific-Islander culture and become a part of the MCC. Overall, I believe that anyone, and I mean ANYONE, can join the MCC community, no matter our differences as students at SCU.

Thanks for reading!

What’s Up With The Title?

In my most recent class of Critical Thinking and Writing, we discussed surveys and the importance of them when conducting research. Surveys are essential for…

• • Gaining a sense of normal and outlier perspectives in a significant group of individuals 
  • Pinpointing the tendencies of certain populations based on specifically created questions
  • Seeing the overall opinions of a group that can be compared with other surveys 

Based on the question types, I realized I could receive different types of answers and information. For example, using a open-ended type inquiry provides more freedom and expression for the responder since he can write a short paragraph. On the other hand, a ranking type question provides to what positive or negative extent an individual sees a certain topic. Using this insightful information about surveys, I created my own relating to my topic of diversity and inclusion on the campus of Santa Clara University.

My Own Survey

Titled “Diversity at SCU Survey”, the responders obviously knew what they were getting into. Starting off with more basic demographic questions, I asked “What ethnicity/race do you identify with?” and “Are you a participant of the MCC?”. Next, I delved into my topic more with questions like, “Is the campus diverse racially and culturally?” and “How could the university improve to be inclusive of all students?”. With each of these, I was mindful to utilize the best type of question to get the information I desired, sticking to checkboxes and short answer forms. Creating this made me really excited to see exactly how students felt about my research topic!

And The Results Are…(cue the applause after)

From my 13 (and counting) responses, I realized that many of my assumptions about the population were wrong. In addition, I found that mindsets about diversity have actually changed significantly from the past, based on my research of the student population in the 1980s and 1990s. The more surprising statistics include:

• 84.6% of responder’s friends are Asian
• 53.8% believe the campus is somewhat diverse
• 53.8% believe the university administration addresses diversity somewhat well
• 6 out of 13 believe the key to improving inclusiveness among students is to be open, friendly, and talking to people

Overall, it became clear that students are aware of the diversity situation on campus as well as its importance, yet seem to provide solutions and answers that are easier said than done. Hopefully, this information will not only help with my research paper but also provide understanding to the students about diversity and inclusion and how to change it significantly.

Thanks for reading!

P.S. Check out my survey!