On Wednesday, the Smith Students for Social Justice and Institutional Change (SSJIC) held its first open meeting for the fall of 2019. The purpose of the meeting was to follow up on student demands and discuss the aftermath of the spring protests.
As chairs were filled, students began sitting on the floor.
The meeting began with an overview of the history of student activism at Smith. Facilitators of the meeting acknowledged the work of the Black Students Alliance (BSA) as far back as 1968, the year the group was chartered and began writing demands to the administration. Activism continued throughout the 80s and 90s, leading up to a series of demands being presented periodically throughout the last twenty years. In 2012, previous demands were updated with a greater emphasis on the needs of the Smith transgender community and again were brought to the administration.
SSJIC facilitators also said that two years ago, undocumented students at Smith held a conference and established a working group with the administrators to address the issues that they faced on campus. These working group meetings were unproductive, and student frustration grew until the July 31, 2018 incident. SSJIC members said that this succession of events reflected a larger intersectional issue on campus.
The student facilitators then summarized the spring protests and voiced their continued frustration with the administration’s lack of transparency.
During the summer, SSJIC met on two separate occasions with Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Floyd Cheung and Dean Susan Etheredge to follow up on the demands presented in April. SSJIC said they found these meetings unproductive. Since then, the college has sent several emails to the Smith community regarding forthcoming diversity initiatives. Cheung has hosted several open forums in which students have asked for clarification surrounding these initiatives. Several SSJIC members expressed appreciation for Cheung but also frustration as they felt he was unable to answer questions directly.
One SSJIC member said that the college was utilizing funds to bring more low-income students to Smith, and that these incoming students would need greater support and resources than what the college currently offers.
Again, SSJIC members stressed the importance of transparency. Student facilitators said that the administration has a spreadsheet that denotes which administration members are responsible for handling which demands. This spreadsheet is allegedly confidential.
At the end of their debriefing, SSJIC facilitators told members that the Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI) was in the process of hiring for two new positions: Program and Outreach Coordinator and a facilitator/trainer. In an October 3 email to the student body, the Student Government Association (SGA) said that the Program and Outreach Coordinator “will serve as one of the point people for one or more marginalized groups (e.g. immigrant, trans, gender non-conforming, low-income, first generation) depending on their expertise and intersectional affinities.” The facilitator/trainer will be another point person “in a way that complements whomever they hire as a program and outreach coordinator.” Although OEI has declined to show SSJIC the official job descriptions for these positions, SGA and SSJIC members were present at interviews for the three candidates being considered. Students at these interviews were asked to submit paragraphs about their feelings for each candidate to OEI as the hiring process continues.
After summarizing these events, SSJIC facilitators began to discuss the future of their organization. They are developing three working groups that will follow up on unmet demands, address the needs of undocumented students and promote divestment from the industrial prison complex throughout Northampton and the surrounding western Massachusetts area.
There will also be a general action group that encompasses all of SSJIC. This action group will provide the resources that SSJIC needs to carry out future demonstrations. Finally, there will be a group of liaisons who will communicate on behalf of SSJIC with the following groups: Smith College’s Community for Low-Income and First-Generation Students, Smith College faculty and staff, the Latin American Studies Department, Resource Generation, Title IX/Assault and Harassment, Transcending Gender, UNITY organizations and the UMass Center for Women and Community.
At the end of the meeting, SSJIC members broke into their working groups to discuss plans for the future. Moving forward, SSJIC plans to present itself more collectively rather than advocating solely from the perspective of individual communities. The group emphasized the importance of both intersectionality and collective strength.
To receive updates on future meeting times and to become involved with SSJIC’s working or action groups, email ssjic@smith.edu.
