Month: June 2020

Categories
Oral History SMU

Active Listening, Mentors of Color, & Working in an Oral History Project

This blog post is written by Nia Kamau a rising junior at SMU who is double majoring in Human Rights and International Studies with minors in Economics, Public Policy, International Affairs, and Arabic. She is currently a Research Assistant for Voices of SMU, an Honors Scholar, worker for the Human Rights Program, and a Residential Assistant.
I was a freshman at SMU when I started as a Research Assistant with the Voices of SMU Research Project (VOS). If you’re not familiar with the project, it is an innovative oral history project that preserves the stories of SMU alumni of color. As a Research Assistant, I conduct interviews with these alumni and gather information from the interviews on how SMU can attract and retain students of color. During my first few weeks of SMU, the lack of diversity on campus stood out like a sore thumb. Black upperclassmen, in their way of initiating the new Black students, told us stories of recent racially motivated instances on campus that had led to “Black at SMU,” a student-led movement in 2015 that confronted the university administration with ten demands to address campus diversity. It quickly became clear to me that SMU was not a place where every student felt safe and at home on campus.
SMU is certainly not unique in this way, rather our story is the reality of many predominantly white institutions (PWI) in the South. Instead of staying complacent with this problem, I was inspired by the student leaders of “Black at SMU” to find out how I, even as a freshman, could make SMU a richer environment for students of color. Voices of SMU seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so!
While I joined Voices of SMU to serve and better the SMU community, I have benefited from the experience in several ways.   

Growing as a Listener

One significant way I have grown is by becoming an active listener. It’s about intently comprehending what the narrator is saying and asking strong follow-up questions that build on the interviewee’s story. Interviewing requires focus, intentional engagement, and being OK with not being the center of attention in a conversation.
This can be challenging! In many ways, being a good listener is the opposite of the dominant American culture, which is all about self-expression and making our opinions heard. Often, when having conversations with others, I find myself so busy thinking about what I want to say next that I am not really listening to the other person.
But Voices of SMU challenged me to practice attentive listening, to listen for the sake of asking better questions rather than coming up with a clever response. Listening is a skill, and my time with VOS has benefited me in my personal relationships as I have practiced making conversations less about myself and more about learning from the other person.

Connecting with Mentors

Like many PWIs, SMU has very few professors of color, much less Black female professors whom I might look up to as mentors. Honestly, I was a little hurt and disappointed when I realized that I might never have a Black professor during my time at SMU. While I have been fortunate to find mentors on campus of other genders and races, I felt like I was missing out by not having opportunities to be nurtured by Black female faculty and staff.
However, I have connected with numerous Black female alumni who have filled this gap by participating with VOS. They have been more than willing to support and advise me. The SMU graduates themselves relate to my SMU journey. The community of Black female mentors I gained from the project has been invaluable.
These two areas of growth have made Voices of SMU one of the highlights of my SMU experience. While I thought that joining this project would be a way to help SMU, the project has also invaluably improved my life for the better.
Categories
Meet the Team Oral History SMU

Joining the Voices of SMU Oral History Project

This blog post was written by Jonathan Angulo. He is currently a PhD Candidate at SMU’s History Department. His research focuses on undocumented economies in the Imperial-Mexicali Valley California Borderlands during the mid-twentieth century. 
During the Summer 2019 break, Professor Jill Kelly (SMU’s historian of Africa) emailed me about an opportunity to work for an oral history project. I was a Ph.D. student at the time and was excited to hear about the job. I decided to reply to Dr. Kelly about my general interest, and we decided to discuss this alongside Cindy Boeke, Assistant Director for the Norwick Center for Digital Solutions. Professor Kelly emailed me a day later with the job offer, and I was thrilled to join the team. Since then, I have thoroughly enjoyed working with faculty, staff, students, and alumni.
I spent my first week familiarizing myself with normal procedures. For example, the project meets weekly to discuss who we have interviewed, who we plan on interviewing, and how we want to improve the initiative. I had an enjoyable experience getting to know everyone working for Voices of SMU.
In the first month, Camille Davis, my fellow Ph.D. classmate, introduced me to others and taught me about normal procedures. Elisa McCune informed me on how to edit and access transcriptions. She also showed me how to create and edit metadata information for the archives. I also got to meet Robert Walker who is the audio and visual backbone of Voices of SMU. He also showed me the amazing oral history studio where we interview narrators.
One of my favorite experiences is seeing the Research Assistants’ work. India Simmons is the Senior Research Assistant and leads our weekly gatherings. She also networks with school organizations to find SMU alumni, so they can discuss their histories at the university. Seeing how the students have expanded the project and continue to makes me proud of their work.
Research Assistants like Nia Kamau have highlighted the histories of SMU alumni. For example, Nia, Cindy, Camille, and I formally presented to the SMU Black Faculty and Staff Association. Ms. Kamau discussed the importance of multicultural organizations and mentors to Black students. She argued that both factors greatly contributed to the students’ success.
Camille, Joan, Nia, and Jonathan after presenting for the SMU Black Faculty and Staff Association
Since the coronavirus pandemic, Professor Kelly, Cindy, and Joan (SMU’s archivist) have masterfully provided us opportunities to work remotely. Fondren Library (where we interview narrators) is currently closed, and we do not want to expose others to the virus. As a result, the research assistants are working on numerous projects which will be featured on our blog and website.
I look forward in continuing to work with Voices of SMU to discuss the experiences of communities of color at the university and make them accessible to DFW communities and abroad.
Categories
Oral History SMU

Learning from Voices of SMU and Growing with the Experience

This post was written by Carson Dudick (Class of 2020). She graduated with majors in History and Human Rights on the Public Policy Track and with minors in Law and Legal Reasoning and Women’s and Gender Studies. Ms. Dudick will continue her graduate education at the University of San Diego.
Since I graduated last month, I have been reflecting back on my time at Southern Methodist University. One of the largest impacts on my undergraduate career has been the Voices of SMU Oral History Project. I started on the project in the spring of my Freshman year in 2018 through a course called “Doing Oral History.” My first interview with the project, with Germaine White, I was incredibly nervous. At the time, I had no idea what I wanted to major in or do in my future. But after Dr. Kelly provided me the opportunity to stay on campus for a summer research assistantship, my future became clear. I grew in my interview skills and research abilities, resulting in the job becoming less work and more enjoyable. I decided to major in history due to this project, and it influenced my second major within human rights. The advice from the alumni on future goals, undergraduate grades, and university involvement altered my experience as a student. I focused more heavily on my grades and became involved in numerous student organizations. Furthermore, I pursued my passion for the legal sector due to their advice on postgraduate objectives. Now, I will start at University of San Diego Law School in Fall 2020. Not only did the interviews alter my experience, the team of individuals working on the oral history project were influential in my life. Although everyone improved my time as an undergrad, Dr. Jill Kelly and SMU Archivist Joan Gosnell became mentors to me. Both women encouraged me in my future, provided necessary advice, and became role models for myself. After graduation, I know that this project will stay with me due to the valuable lessons learned and the important people it has placed into my life.
Carson completed over thirty interviews for the Voices of SMU Oral History Project. Here we share several:
Gene Pouncy (Class of 1974 & 1976) received a B.F.A and M.L.A. from Southern Methodist University. In the interview, he discusses growing up in South Dallas, attending SMU with his brother, and being in the university’s football, track, and field teams. He taught English Composition at El Centro College in Dallas for 34 years.
Delia Jasso (Class of 1976 and 1993) discusses growing up in Oak Cliff during the 1960s and 1970s. At SMU, she was involved with Los Chicanos (an organization advocating for more educational investments for Hispanic students). After graduating, Ms. Jasso became a Dallas City Council Member, helped found the DART/UTA Transportation Leadership Academy, and started the Hispanic Alumni Homecoming Reception.
Categories
Multicultural Greek Life Oral History SMU

Voices of SMU: Creating Diverse and Inclusive College Campuses

This blog post is written by Nia Kamau a rising junior at SMU who is double majoring in Human Rights and International Studies with minors in Economics, Public Policy, International Affairs, and Arabic. She is currently a Research Assistant for Voices of SMU, an Honors Scholar, worker for the Human Rights Program, and a Residential Assistant.
“Voices of SMU” is an oral history research project that interviews alumni of color from Southern Methodist University. While participating in this project, my goal was to collect student stories to diversify the SMU archives and study how the university can attract and retain students of color. During the fall and spring semester, I interviewed sixteen alumni of Black, Latinx, and Indian ethnic identities. Nine of them came to SMU for undergraduate studies, and seven of them were SMU graduate students. Fifteen of the interviews were conducted on weekdays during the morning or afternoon at the SMU Norwick Center for Digital Solutions. One was virtually recorded through Zoom. The interviews lasted between 45 to 90 minutes long.
The dialogues focused primarily on the alumni’s time at SMU. Interviewees discussed why they came to the university and what school resources helped them succeed. The alumni, being diverse in disciplines and ages, had numerous responses and perspectives. One significant pattern in the alumni’s responses was the importance of multicultural organizations in their SMU experience.
The majority of the interviews are available online at the “Voices of SMU” website. Others are reserved in the SMU archives exclusively for research purposes. The project ultimately casts a light on the untold stories of underrepresented SMU students. It provides the university an opportunity to reckon with its historical struggles with race and to strategize on improving diversity and inclusivity on campus.
The interviewees spanned different ages and careers, from engineering to human rights to education. However, there were some common themes in their stories.
Alumni endured difficulties fitting in on campus—a common theme throughout the interviews. One narrator described her many attempts to get involved in SMU’s primarily white organizations, such as Program Council and Student Foundation. However, even from the beginning, she found these organizations had a “who knows who” dynamic, meaning many students of color lacked connections with white upperclassmen and struggled to enter the organizations. She felt that, as a Black student, she was limited to only Black organizations. A different alumna was told as a high school student that she did not look like the typical SMU student. When she came on campus, she felt the truth of that statement because of her Indian background and often felt invisible as white students acknowledged her white friends more than they did her. Another alumna felt the opposite. She expressed feeling like the “face of the race” in her classrooms, meaning that she represented her entire race to her peers, which she noted was a massive burden for a teenager. Another narrator discussed how major SMU student organizations and events specifically targeted white students and excluded students of color. Students of color were given the responsibility of creating their own community and social life, which this alumnus expressed was an unfair burden to bear.
Alumni shared that they coped with these feelings through multicultural organizations. The institutions provided spaces where they could feel safe and comfortable on campus. Interviewees described the Rotunda Scholars Program—a university-run program that supports underrepresented students on campus—as an initiative that provided a community of diverse peers, academic support, mentorship, and campus connections. One narrator underestimated SMU’s lack of diversity when he arrived at SMU; however, he was welcomed by a community of people of color through the Rotunda Program. The initiative helped him become more comfortable living on his own and away from his family. Another interviewee said her network was built off her relationships in the same program.
Another organization many students discussed was SMU’s Multicultural Greek (MGC) and National Panhellenic sororities and fraternities. SMU currently has two multicultural sororities, Kappa Delta Chi and Sigma Lambda Gamma. Both were historically Latina and developed into communities for all races. SMU’s multicultural fraternity, Sigma Lambda Beta, also has Latino roots and has become a diverse organization. One alumna said that joining Sigma Lambda Gamma was the first time she felt seen on campus. Another interviewee argued that joining the fraternity was the “best decision” he made at SMU. It was through this organization that he professes to have grown more socially conscious. It became the SMU community he could depend on. Another alumna repeated this point, saying that MGC became her primary network off campus as well, as it connected her to powerful leaders from her ethnicity.
Another narrator started an organization specifically for Black women. This organization was called the Natural Hair Network (NHN) and is currently referred to as FRO. She was inspired by the lack of organizations celebrating Black hair. Around the same time this student came to campus, several posts connected to SMU that depreciated Black women went viral. In response, the student created NHN to provide people of color with a space to be affirmed in their physical appearances. Many interviewees expressed how this diversity in their social lives helped compensate for the lack of diversity in their classrooms. Other programs mentioned were the McNair Scholars Program, which helps students of color pursue graduate degrees, and the SMU Human Rights Program, which is known for offering classes and spaces for the empowerment of marginalized communities.
Overall, I concluded that multicultural organizations play a significant role in making students feel comfortable at SMU. Many narrators expressed feeling out of place when arriving at the university. Alumni argued that Multicultural Greek life, Panhellenic Greek life, and Rotunda Scholars made the campus feel like home.
Interviewees said that these organizations gave them spaces to be themselves and express the cultures they were raised in. However, the burden of developing these communities is one that white students on campus do not have to bear. Ultimately, the university needs to invest in organizations specifically for students of color as much as they spend on dominant student groups.