Something that we’ve learned in the past year is that the Rochester community—on campus and in the city beyond—is not as tolerant as we had hoped it was. We assumed, perhaps naively, that college campuses would be a haven for intelligent, rational discussion, but a series of events in the past few semesters have indicated otherwise.
This year, we’ve seen the vitriol that anonymous agents can spew in forums like Yik Yak. Just last week, we witnessed Marketplace Taxi—a company that UR had generously supported—deeply offend members of the community. Nationwide, this past year has seen protests and upheaval in the wake of a renewed national discussion on civil rights, especially in response to a series of racially-charged incidents involving police.
This pervasiveness of intolerance is a problem. Students feel “other”-ed on a campus that just celebrated its “Year of Inclusion.” The irony of UR’s situation borders on the absurd. In response to these trends, both sets of candidates for SA President ran on platforms that promoted inclusivity.
Looking forward, next year will be a great opportunity to change the conversation and start a more positive dialogue on campus with the incoming freshman class. These new students should not get to know UR from a few incidents that are certainly not representative of the University community. Instead, they should be introduced to a diverse and accepting community—one that certainly exists on campus.
There is negative momentum that will take work to reverse, but our community has the power to come together—and it’s time to prove it. We need to have a series of discussions that will take place continuously, not just in response to a negative event. These discussions would allow students to air their concerns about inclusion in a forum that wasn’t simply cobbled together after a crisis. With a long-term setup, we can avoid many of the pitfalls that come with reactionary rhetoric and begin to reach solutions to many of the institutional problems that plague UR. There are avenues for discussion on campus, but we would like to see them publicized and widely attended by students, groups and administrations alike.
We recognize that we don’t have all of the solutions. But, we believe that this campus is capable of coming together and finding them. Only then can we truly become “ever better.”
