Last academic year an anonymous note was slipped under a student’s door which said, “You don’t belong here, n*****.” This sparked a flurry of conversations on campus about race relations that culminated in several students of color threatening not to return this fall. Following an investigation into these events, the college began the “the process of approving and adopting a new diversity statement,” according to Dr. Rob Pool (VP for Student Life). But, as of this reporting, the new diversity statement has yet to be approved. And going into the first day of classes this semester, members of college administration, including Student Government, were anxious about how many students of color would choose not to return.
A separate, but related, matter of diversity involved the firing of an RA by Student Life for her self-reported relationship with another female student. Since this type of relationship is deemed by the administration as “homosexual behavior,” the RA was determined to be in violation of her contract as an RA as well as the Houghton College Community Covenant, and was “relieved” of her position in Spring 2017. This created new fears among the campus’s LGBTQ population as to how welcome in the Houghton community they are. (according to anonymous LGBTQ student interviews). As these events were transpiring, the College has been involved in discussion of edits to the Community Covenant related to the acceptability of “homosexual behavior” on campus.
Clearly, the College’s relationship with its diverse students is strained. To this end, as reported by the STAR in recent editions, Dr. Robert Pool gave a presentation to the Student Government Association which was intended to address some of these issues. The college began considering “programmatically based” changes such as “resource allocation,” and the “shaping [of] our policy,” according to Pool. But in his recent Letter to the Editor, Shaphan Hestick (SGA Officer of Diversity and Inclusion) branded the administration’s response as close to “self-congratulation” without adequately addressing “what happens daily on this campus.” In an interview, Hestick elucidated his position further: “What policy has changed? None. We can’t just throw money at this issue and expect change. We need acknowledgment from the administration that Houghton is negatively biased against diverse students, not only our students of color, but also those who identify as LGBTQ.”
During his presentation for SGA several weeks ago, Dr. Pool shared the updated retention data for students of color this Fall semester. While Houghton’s overall retention rate has consistently been one of the best in the nation (Chronicle for Higher Education), its record with students of color has been less-than-optimal. For this semester, students of color made up 32% of all students who withdrew. Compared with the percent of the student body that is diverse (19%), retention among the college’s diverse students was proportionally worse than for the student body as a whole. When compared to the data for the last 10 years (or 20 semesters), this fall semester was the worst semester in its retention of diverse students. In other words, the college’s retention of diverse students has never been worse.
In response to what he sees as a failure of properly responding to the plight of diverse students, Hestick has recently engaged in a protest by ending his involvement with many of his duties in SGA as well as his positions in several college councils and committees until “we make peace with the struggle of diverse students.”