By Azhley Rodriguez
The Center for Cultural Liberation gives students an environment that welcomes and celebrates all aspects of identity. Following social distancing and COVID-19 restrictions, events are held online and cause fewer students to attend.
Dominican’s Center for Cultural Liberation (CCL) and the Village program try to create a sense of community and safe spaces for marginalized students.
Physical safe spaces have become rare due to COVID-19 and social distancing restrictions. Having virtual safe spaces comes with its limitations such as students suffering from Zoom fatigue.
The CCL, which began last Fall during the heart of the pandemic, has experienced challenges with their students and attendance at their virtual events.
Jaqueline Neri Arias, is the director of the CCL who also oversees the Village Program and El Centro which are programs under the CCL.
The CCL’s goal is to retain, support, and celebrate students from historically marginalized backgrounds. According to theDominican University Profile of Fall 2020 marginalized populations make up 70.2% of the undergraduate population.
Students also helped create and build the CCL.
“Students helped design everything from the mission statement to the logo we use, everything,” Arias said.
The CCL has hosted in-person events too, such as the Walk of Solidarity in October 2020.
This event was hosted by students and created a safe space for Black students to talk about their first-hand experiences with racism. They and their allies marched down Division Street holding signs and chanting, showing their support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
Student and Village coach Tony Sandifer has attended virtual events and the Walk of Solidarity hosted by the CCL and said they “were all really fun and really cool bonding events.” The CCL has sponsored a number of virtual events this year such as:
- A virtual music and food festival that showcased Black-owned small businesses near campus, raffled off gift cards, and hosted a DJ who played old and new school music.
- A first-time Lunar New Year celebration on campus as a virtual event. It included a trivia contest and raffles for gift cards for Asian/Asian American restaurants near campus.
- Scholarship and grant workshops to guide students through the application process.
Events like these are important for senior Lauryn Bergert, a Village coach and student worker in the CCL.
“I feel empowered and uplifted after every meeting or event I engage in with the CCL,” she said. “It is a strong community of individuals constantly fighting to make this world a better place.”
Bergert is also the president of the National Association of Colored Women’s Club (NACWC) that utilizes the CCL as a face-to-face space for its R.E.A.L (Race, Ethnicity, And Liberation) Talk that discusses and promotes racial healing.
Attendance started strong at the fall’s virtual events, but it’s been difficult to get students to attend virtual events this semester.
“I think students are tired and these online events are not giving them the college experience they hoped for,” she said. “It’s just hard right now to get anyone engaged.”
The Village program on campus is part of the CCL as well and has discovered its own challenges changing to virtual meetings with its students.
The Village aims to give Black students guidance and support in their time at Dominican. Jada Coleman, The Village Advisor and a graduate student reaches out to freshmen coming to Dominican to spark their interest in the program.
Beginning at SOAR, which is freshman orientation, Black students are introduced to the program and they then fill out an application. Acceptance leads to them being paired with any student from their sophomore to senior year who will then be their coach and guide them through their time at Dominican. Once the freshman moves to their sophomore year, they qualify to be coaches and coaches get mentors who are faculty and staff on campus.
“These programs give students of color a space to be unapologetically themselves,” Bergert said.
Members of The Village are required to attend five events on campus a semester. This comes with challenges.
“It’s hard for us to expect students to hop on Zoom, outside of their classes, for longer hours and panels,” Coleman said.
Coleman said it’s been hard to get students engaged on a computer screen for events they would usually go to with their friends in person. Social distancing and other COVID-19 restrictions have restricted these events from being in person, making attendance for students more difficult.
“We’re on Zoom all day long, it gets exhausting,” Jacky said. “As restrictions are lessening, we are going to start hosting more events in person.”
Arodriguez2@my.dom.edu
*Photo from Dominican University Flickr
