Students toured the future Center for Diversity & Inclusion during an open house last Thursday afternoon on the Edinburg and Brownsville campuses.
The Center for Diversity & Inclusion is located in Student Union 1.20 in Brownsville and in University Center 306A on the Edinburg campus. Both are expected to open in early October.
In an interview with The Rider, Rebecca Gadson, associate vice president for Student Life and dean of students, said the center will house the DREAM Resource Center.
“The DREAM Resource Center is one programmatic unit that will be housed within the Center for Diversity & Inclusion,” Gadson said. “We will continue to scale up our educational efforts to further develop our campus with deepening cultural understanding and support of students from a variety of backgrounds.”
She said the Center for Diversity & Inclusion will help the university “continue to grow all of our efforts and in the future, we’ll probably have more and more programmatic units like the DREAM Resource Center.”
The funding for the center is coming from $72,990.32 in student fee revenue, which was recommended for approval by the Student Fee Advisory Committee, as reported in an article published by The Rider on April 6.
However, support has also been provided by the “Office of the Dean of Students and Student Success to buy the furniture, the computers, to buy the phones, to get us up and running,” Gadson said about the funding for the center.
The Student Success Open House, which takes place every fall semester, was organized to allow students to know more about the services UTRGV offers, according to Gadson.
Despite the Center for Diversity & Inclusion not yet being ready for full operations, she said the preview was organized in order to get students familiarized with the facility.
“We are not quite ready for full operations, but we wanted to make sure we’d take advantage of the fact that the open house was happening and that people could come in and take a look and get familiar with the location and to have any questions answered that they may have about the center.”
In November 2017, more than 200 students marched on the Edinburg campus, demanding a DREAM center at the university.
On Sept. 4 of this year, the multimedia platform, Neta, posted a video in which it stated that students were calling for UTRGV President Guy Bailey’s resignation during a protest organized during the Picnic with the President event on the Edinburg campus.
One of the reasons students organized the protest was because Bailey rejected the requests for a DREAM Resource Center, according to the video.
On Sept. 7, however, Neta published an apology, stating that “the video did not include information about the current status of the creation of a support center for undocumented students. … This was a mistake, and we apologize to our readers,” according to a post on the organization’s website and social media.
Asked about her opinion regarding the issue, Gadson replied, “What I see is there is an opportunity to make sure that we really are doing all that we possibly can to communicate with our students regarding things that are up and coming. I know that last year we talked with The Rider newspaper. I know UTRGV-TV did a story about that it was coming. I know that local newspapers in our community did as well, but I know that multiple modalities is really important for us in making sure we are keeping students informed about what’s going on.”
The Student Government Association passed a resolution on April 6 requesting a DREAM center at UTRGV that would provide resources and services tailored to the needs of students.
Gadson said the number of undocumented students enrolled at UTRGV ranges from 600 to 800 students.
During the Brownsville preview, Douglas Stoves, senior associate dean for Students Rights and Responsibilities, told The Rider that the Center for Diversity & Inclusion is available for all students.
“We want to make sure everyone feels welcomed and included here at UTRGV,” Stoves said. “This room is one more way of dedicating space to that goal.”
He said it is important to have places where students can be themselves and ask questions like DACA renewals or identity issues.
“I really hope that students take full advantage of the space,” Stoves said. “Right now, this is the model. We are expecting furniture to be coming. We have a position that we are looking to fill that will coordinate the efforts. A big part of it is, how do we become more culturally aware? You know, how do we understand each other better? This a way of embracing that.”
Gadson said one full-time employee, a graduate staff member and some student employees will be hired for the center.
Furthermore, she told The Rider about the Dream Zone Advocate program.
This program consists of three one-hour sessions aiming to provide information to the campus community to allow them “to create a safe, supportive, and inclusive community for our undocumented and DACAmented students,” according to utrgv.edu/srr/dreamzonetraining.
At the end of the training, participants will be able to become a Dream Zone Advocate if they choose to. A placard will be given to those who become advocates, according to Gadson.
“At that point in time then, you’ll also get like a placard that you can put out and be visible for people to know that you are an advocate, which basically says you are a safe person to go to and ask some questions,” she said.
The first training session will take place from 2 to 4 p.m. Tuesday in ELABS 255 on the Edinburg campus, and from 10 a.m. to noon Thursday in Cortez Hall 118 on the Brownsville campus.
All campus community members can sign up for the training at utrgv.edu/srr/dreamzonetraining.
Kip Austin Hinton, a UTRGV associate professor in the Bilingual and Literacy Studies department, was among the campus community members who visited the Center for Diversity & Inclusion on the Brownsville campus.
“I have been working with Becky Gadson, the dean of students, about opening the DREAM [Resource] Center,” Hinton said. “So, I wanted to come and see for myself the place that is going to be in Brownsville … and I think it is a good space and I think it will work.”
Asked if these locations will be enough to aid students, he replied, “One of the issues that we have here on the Brownsville campus is that we sometimes have Border Patrol agents walking on campus or driving through campus on these streets. That is the kind of situation that can make some undocumented students anxious or worried.”
Hinton also said the fact that the center is located inside the Student Union is beneficial for the space.
“I think one of the positives here is that it’s going to be part of an office that’s located inside of this larger building,” he said. “The Student Union has many things going on and many kinds of events. The fact that it is a busy place, I think, really could make it a better and safer place. We want undocumented students to feel that they are not making themselves a target if they visit the center.”
Like Hinton, biology junior Troy Davis also attended the preview event. In an interview with The Rider, he said diversity in any university is crucial.
“I think anyone who wants to come to college or attend a higher level of education should not only be able to do that but feel comfortable in their surroundings,” Davis said.
He encourages students to visit the Center for Diversity & Inclusion on either campus.
The Center for Diversity & Inclusion will impact UTRGV positively, according to Davis.
“Definitely, it will bring more people in,” he said. “[It will] help certain students that may fall under a certain category of not having citizenship or having the required things to come to school. We live … in an area that has a lot of people like that. To help them attain a higher level of education is very beneficial towards their lives. So, it is only a beneficial thing for our community and the Rio Grande Valley.”
