Like many, I am devastated to see Advisor to Asian-American Students Nora Yasumura resign ("Yasumura resigns advising post," March 6). A critical mentor in the Dartmouth community, Nora Yasumura was the advisor to the Pan-Asian Community, the Inter-Community Council, the Diversity Peer Program, First Generation Network and many other student groups. What devastates me even more is the troubling trend of advocates for students leaving the College after years of dedicated work that has gone unacknowledged by the institution. Last spring, we witnessed a string of minority women resignations, but what we left out of the debate was their common vision of making this campus a better place by being compassionate allies and mentors to students.
We talk about the need for advising, counseling and other resources for mental health needs in any community. How can we create a healthy community if the people who care the most the student advocates are unable to have autonomy and a voice in this monolithic institution?
Without these advisors, Dartmouth will continue to approach diversity at shallow levels. Simply hiring someone to a nominal position will not solve our problems and neither will forming more committees. It will be an attitude that only reads as appeasement and as an insult to the actual needs of students and communities. Until the College approaches the plurality of students in a meaningful way, this school will remain isolating for many a cold and even threatening place. Until we form meaningful community on campus, students will seek refuge in unhealthy and anti-intellectual practices that are counterproductive to a cohesive community. If hazing brings us a perverse form of community, then why aren't we supporting alternative paths to togetherness?
As an advisor, Nora empowered students with her vision of equity at Dartmouth. Encouraging a gentle but firm insistence on change, she would advise us: "Start with a feather, then knock, then hammer; don't break down the door when they're ready to let you in." When we were inclined to be confrontational, Nora told us to "approach people where they're at."
It's the leadership within the Office of Pluralism and Leadership that proactively helps to make this school a better place. When students felt uneasy, jaded, disaffected or just plain angry, Nora, in her calming voice of softly powerful leadership, would channel students to think larger than ourselves, to become compassionate allies, to understand our interconnected experiences, to see power dynamics in a privileged institution and to lead in a solidarity of difference. Without this leadership, I worry OPAL will be reduced to a source of counseling for the trauma students experience here. Without an understanding of our interwoven problems, our community will segment itself even further to the point where we barely hang together by shallow and superficial threads.
We're told that the world's problems are our problems, but what kinds of leaders are we fostering as an institution? Are we becoming conscious, critical, reflective and multi-faceted leaders? Are we making the world worse? Leaders who make this campus better can make society better, but it's discouraging and draining to see the lack of institutional support for proactive students, faculty and staff. As students, we need mentors who will guide us, encourage us to be leaders and advocate for us at all levels. If the College cares about creating leaders, then it needs to support the people, programs and organizations that shape them.
