The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a wrench into just about every routine over the course of the past year and a half, and extracurriculars have been one aspect of the college experience that took a particular toll. In struggling to connect with students riding out the pandemic at home and to maintain regular programming with ever changing campus COVID protocol, student clubs faced challenges throughout the last school year like they never had before. Arguably, Conn’s affinity groups – or student organizations that gather students based on a common identity – have faced some of the most difficulties in maintaining its membership base throughout a year of optional studying-at-home. To aid affinity groups in recovering from a year of loss and isolation, Race and Ethnicity Programs has rolled out a program dedicated to supporting BIPOC student groups: Racial Affinity Club Executives.
Racial Affinity Club Executives, or RACE, is a consortium of affinity group leaders designed to effectively organize the executive boards of student organizations whose programming centers around race and ethnicity. Since the beginning of this academic year, RACE has met monthly with the Presidents and Chairs of its member organizations to strengthen the sense of community amongst BIPOC student leaders and to provide a collaborative space to discuss effective leadership models. In the future, RACE will host leadership training for the executive boards of its member organizations and, if finances for DIEI improve, provide financial support for collaborative projects and events amongst its student groups. RACE is currently co-led by the Director of Race and Ethnicity Programs Maurice Tiner ‘17, and the Leadership Development Ambassador of Race and Ethnicity Programs, a member of student staff. 10 student groups, including but not limited to established organizations like Umoja, the Black Student Union and Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlán (MEChA), as well as to newer student groups like People Of Color Alliance (POCA) and Queer and Trans People Of Color (QTPOC), have joined RACE as its first cohort got to work at the beginning of the year.
To get more insight as to the inspiration for creating this group, I interviewed Tiner to better understand how his experience as a student impacts his work as a professional staffer for the Division of Institutional Equity.
Q:What were some lessons you learned as a student leader at Conn about the importance of building community with other clubs and organizations?
A: “It was important to me to build community with others because I’m a firm believer that you can’t make genuine progress, especially large-scale progress, without being in collaboration with other folks…How can I build with you, grow with you, and push the College forward if I know nothing about you other than what you present? I’m an advocate for community development, getting to know each other, and being vulnerable because in those instances it makes us more comfortable for us to trust each other when we are pushing something forward… Building community helps to halt barriers that would prevent progress, when you’re invested in getting to know people then those barriers won’t be as prevalent.”
Q:How do you think the student body’s extracurricular experience was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic? How will it change the vision of leadership on campus in the future?
A: We had to re-envision the way we work and what it means to come together without being together. I think it has presented challenges because it has forced us into a norm of solitude. On the other hand, it has allowed us to be more creative with how we work – even us, having this conversation virtually but still getting the exact same work done as if we were sitting in Unity House. It’s presented opportunities for people to reimagine innovative ways to work collaboratively. Leaders are probably going to be a lot more strategic about working around burn-out culture and how we can do so much more in creative ways without having to be all over the place. Before the pandemic, this work was all about running from this meeting to the other, hustling and bustling, and for the first time we’ve had to slow down and be self-reflective. People are not exactly looking forward to returning to that old dynamic, and they are going to defend this new norm of being intentional about the time and energy they put out into what we say is work.
Q:Why is RACE a particularly important initiative in supporting the student leadership experience at Conn?
A: Racial Affinity Club Executives is important because the work that these groups do is so tied to the identities they hold, so there’s a level of care and organization that these leaders have to have. A certain type of leadership has to be exemplified for them to truly lead these groups, and I think it’s important for these groups to come together because it is important to have a cohesive collaboration for identity-based leadership on campus. One group shouldn’t be operating in a way that is distinctly different from another with everyone getting different outcomes, but we have to think of how we can do different work together in a way that makes sense for our school and our community. RACE strives to pull a thread through all of its groups, allowing them to do their own thing but be connected in a succinct way. That’s what RACE is, and I think it will be transformative for the students who work within these clubs and organizations.
Q: What do you hope to see students take away from RACE in its first year? How about in the years beyond?
A: I want to see clubs develop structure in a way that will make the job of student leaders in the future a lot easier. All of them can benefit from organizing in a way that will help them do their work better than they are already doing. In years to come, I want these affinity groups to be succinct where they program and fundraise with each other, advocating for themselves and the institution with each other. I really see it being a coalition building space where whatever the group sees as its goal can be achieved.
As the spring semester begins and as the College welcomes Rodmon King, the new Dean of Institutional Equity and Inclusion, the landscape of equity and inclusion work on campus looks much different than it did at the beginning of the pandemic. Through times of uncertainty, professional staff and student leaders in DIEI have adapted to the programming demands of a student body with a need for community greater than ever before. Thanks to initiatives like RACE, the next generation of BIPOC student leadership at Conn will be better prepared to support each other through new challenges and to grow together in spite of them.
