REFUSE THE SILENCE: Women of Color Students Speak Out
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Breakdown of A Stereotype, Jackie Laryea
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
«Refuse the Silence» is a project that encourages women of color who are currently enrolled in or have attended elite liberal arts colleges in the United States to share their stories. These stories will be presented, in the form of a book, to college administrators with a suggested plan of action to improve the college climate for women of color.
We are looking for vivid and honest personal stories and essays about the experiences of women of color in elite liberal arts colleges throughout the United States.
We are looking to attract submissions that reflect experiences, friendships and realizations made during the college years. Themes to consider include but are not limited to,
• identity
• socioeconomic, cultural, racial issues
• classroom dynamics
• turning points
• depression
• challenging moments
• friendships
• dating
• student/professor dynamics
• sex, sexuality
Contributions will be accepted in the form of a letter, journal entry, video, personal reflection, and/or essay. Entries should not exceed ten pages. Your submisions will be cautiously edited for grammar and comprehensibility. Unfortunately, we will not be able to include everyone's submissions. Priority will be given to those who submit their work before the September 1st, 2010 deadline.
We hope that you will use your voice and share your story with us. Let us refuse the silence and show the world who we are, who we are becoming, and how we can help others.
We invite you to share this information with your friends, family members, and classmates so that we can have as many voices possible involved in this important discussion in our communities.
Sincerely,
Morgane Veronique Richardson
HOW TO SEND YOUR SUBMISSIONS
Eligibility
1. Must be a self-identified woman of color who is or has attented a liberal arts college in the United States in the last four years
2. Must be at least a second semester freshman
Along with your submissions, please include:
•a brief biography (2 - 3 sentences) with your first name and last name (last name optional)
•a photograph of yourself
•ethnicity
•age
•where you are from
•what college you attend and what years
Also, please include a list of suggested areas of action that, you believe, will better the liberal arts college environment for women of color.
Send your electronic submissions to: refusethesilence_gmail.com
Deadline: September 1st, 2010
Note: By sending in your submissions you are giving permission to distribute and publish your work. If you have any specific requests regarding your submissions and the way that it should be distributed/published, please include a note and I guarantee that your requests will be honored.
PERSONAL STATEMENT
Hey!
I'm Morgane Richardson and I'm collecting the stories of women of color students and graduates from elite liberal-arts colleges in the United States. Since I'm asking for your stories, I would like to tell you a bit about myself, and what I hope to accomplish with this project.
I graduated from Middlebury College in the spring of 2008. At college I often found myself leading the march for change in issues pertaining to women of color. Working in positions ranging from three-term president of Women of Color, to being selected as a student member of the colleges Task Force on the Status of Women, my time was often divided between planning events, writing papers at 2 a.m. and making sure that I was available to many of the women of color who surrounded me.
While I was passionate about my work for women's issues, I was saddened by the stories of depression and anxiety faced by women of color at elite liberal-arts colleges because of a lack of support. I was further angered by the lack of action taken on the part of the administration.
By my senior year I fully understood the statement I had heard repeated by my classmates: The college knows how to recruit us (minorities) into their prestigious institutions but they have no idea what to do with us once we get here. Although women of color make up an increasing percent of the academic world, our academic institutions are slow to acknowledge the needs of this growing female population. It's as if they have invited us to their venue, even invited us to speak, but neglected to provide a microphone so we can be heard.
As a graduate, I believe I have a different type of power in the push to change the system; as an alumna, I can apply pressure on schools to change their policies and procedures.
When I first started research for this project I naturally went to the Middlebury website to find the report on the Status of Women that I worked on in 2008. I was outraged to find that the report was only available to current students. Once again I asked myself, Where have the voices of our women gone? Why shouldn't prospective students, alumni, and the public be able to see what women are saying about their lives in the elite academic institutions?
And so, this is my mission: I want to know what it is like to be a woman of color in today's top liberal-arts institutions. I want to give the microphone to the women of color who are in college now.
I plan to compile these stories and generate areas of action to better assist women of color succeed at elite liberal-arts colleges. I plan on distributing this work to college administrators as well making it available to the general public so that we might use these stories to better assist our institutions in adjusting to the needs of their students. I invite you to share your stories, and I will promise to make your voices heard.
CONTACT
refusethesilence_gmail.com
