MEETING START TIME: 5:30

ATTENDANCE:

Committee: Chairman Garcia, Vice-Chair Temple, Senator Russo, Senator Morabito, Senator Tate

Absent: Senator Devine

Non-Committee: Chairwoman Kraft, Senator Mcweeny, Senator Cummiskey, Senator Watka, Senator Bachilas, Lynee Derbyshire, Melvin weed, Naomi Thompson, fernando

 

COMMITTEE DISCUSSION:

• Possible change to academic calendar
  • We have the power / responsibility to bring concerns of the students to the administration
  • What can we do that is easy to accomplish to bring cultural understanding and culutural unity?
    • Columbus day
    • We need institutional memory in order to make an educated impact
    • 2 years ago we had a vote on having Columbus day off
    • we had previously sent out a survey regarding election days and Columbus day including their opinions on if we should take the days off
    • we want to change Columbus day to Indigenous Peoples Day
    • The way the academic calendar works is that every other year we have Columbus day off and the next year we have veteran’s day off -VG
    • The idea is that the change is symbolic and will start a conversation about celebrating indigenous traditions instead of just the day off -VG
    • Months ago a debate was had at faculty senate about whether we should celebrate Columbus day or not
    • Faculty senate proposed having election day off instead of Columbus day. It was sent back to committee and it will probably show up on the floor again. Possibly it will go into affect by 2020 -LD
    • First time hearing the request -NT
    • First time hearing it at URI but not at other Universities. They have changed it to indigenous peoples’ day. It is not an isolated objective and it goes back all the way to the 1960s when the ethnic studies arose. Denver is one of the places where this initiative has popped up. -MW
    • F: Been here a few years and have asked the question a few times, given the dialogues, how do we make the change to represent the history of the indigenous people in order to honor the people who lived here before colonization
    • VG: should we change the name to represent specifically the RI natives that were here in Narragansett?
    • F: Because there was more than jut the Narragansett people. Multiple tribes
    • NT: flipping Columbus day on its head is not just impacting the RI history but history of the nation in its entirety
    • MW: in Hawaii, they call it Polynesian, calling it discoverers day
    • VG: If we ask the change it will affect academic calendar possibly curriculum. Should we make it more of a university tradition? What can we do additionally to recognize this as a bigger deal than a name change?
    • NT: there are many ways that the reflection could represent itself through curriculum, or cultural programming. Senate can take the lead but the unity and equity council will definitely support the initiatives. They want to honor our process and ideas. It is a stronger proposal if we have a more thoughtful, robust request beyond the bare minimum
    • LD: Thoughts of bringing the indigenous peoples museum to URI as a way to educate students on the history
    • NT: the native American advisory group were invited to meet with us today but they did not get back to us. The tribe is going through some transitions right now. They are an important partner to consult this in order to move this issue forward. Having faculty senate, student senate and that group work together would reflect positively. URI is built on Narragansett land. This is significant. He invited the tribe to come back to this are to bring their home back. There is very much respect for Lauren and the Tamaqua tribe museum. I think its on the minds of the senior administration because they have been invited to a Columbus day parade. There are many Columbus day parades in New England and they want to honor and admire their hero who came here. The university said no, we will not have our students represent us at that event because we are not going to support this type of activity. It has been discussed in faculty senate, I think that student senate is in a good position
    • MW: somebody on this committee should have a conversation with Lauren. You do not want her to oppose this initiative. She is indispensable as the leader of the Narragansett people. Christian Gonzalez, Walt Besio, Bill Oley are all Native American faculty and shown interest in Native American representation on this campus. Before I came there was a native American committee on this campus. Frank Folio in talent development was here on campus at this time and would have additional information on the matter. We should consider creating a position paper on this idea. If there is any pushback from someone who is not assured on this topic, when we talk about changing the campus from a monocultural to multicultural campus. Columbus day is a manifestation of the monocultural-the idea that one culture is superior and all other cultures are subordinate to it. Its this sense where history began when the European came to the united states, when that is not true. That the defeat of these indigenous people is what’s important. We should have someone on this committee who is solid on their ideals to meet with Lauren and the faculty and argue the case.
    • LD: Kalyana Champlain Spears Brought many people from the local indigenous people to campus including the medicine man and soon a council member. We should also meet with her
    • VG: we cannot take for granted that every student is behind the change because in a recent survey a sufficient amount of students opposed the idea of the name chnge
    • F: It can be a tough idea to sell regardless of how you package it. Many rhode Islanders are Italian-Americans who have traditionally celebrated this
    • VG: How can we move forward? As a committee we understand but as students how can we move forward? Cultural committee?
    • Mcweeny: How big is our population of students who identify as native American
    • NT: Less than 50 students both undergrad and grad
    • VG: It was easier to push the idea at schools with larger Native American populations. We were taking this initiative when nobody specifically asked us to do this. 33% were against it
    • NT: that means the majority of people are for the change. You are always going to see some opposition with any idea. Another strategy may be to begin with the most dierectly impacted groups. Connecting with the native American Advisory group because they are such a small community and may be pulled in many directions. Thinking about other multicultural groups that would be natural allies for this group. See if they are willing to support a similar initiative
    • F: Another strategy may be…All of America (Canada, Mexico) all used to be part of mexico and are therefore indigenous peoples so it is also a celebration of those people as well.
    • MW: If you get into those aspects of history you start entering hidden areas of history which will describe the importance of indigenous peoples and we would be doing university research a favor as we would be bringing light to unknown history
    • Russo: Regardless of the number of people who identify as it, it is important to celebrate this
    • MW: Sometimes when we talk about transforming culture, it will not happen overnight, so think about the steps that need to be taken and try to choreograph those steps. If you are going to try to gather the groups of people need to make the movement, delegate the collection. It shouldn’t be identified as an attack on just Columbus. What hasn’t been done enough is what we should be doing which is an opening of indigenous peoples culture and history
    • NT: Transformational goals: if you use the words of the administration and quote the academic plan
    • McWeeny: if changed will it be permanent?
    • VG: It will be voted on by 2023
    • LD: it could be bumped forward if the faculty were to push for it. Had a conversation about we should not have school election days and have a “bogus holiday” off so they discussed taking elections off or changing the name and it was sent back to committee for deliberation. If student senate voted on it and sent it to equity council who could push it to administration, I could see it happening very quickly
    • LD: Champlain is a double alumn of the university so she is a good person to speak with KALCHAMPLAIN@gmail.com – tell her that lynne derbyshire gave us the email
    • BK: This something that has been happening at brown so I would like to see someone lead the education of the student body.
    • VG: I would like to get this finished by the end of my term. In two weeks we can have a conjoined meeting again. Maybe draft a bill together.
    • BK: I want to see cultural committee planning some educational programming.
    • VG: If we can get an opinion bill done then we can share with opinions. Darien and Kelly will help draft the bill and collect data on the matter.
    • RT: some potential ways to get the ball rolling is to have an event in a short term that can educate students on the matter. We can use the testimonies from the event as moral backing foir the change. Saying that we have student support.
    • VG: We could also have a referendum during the election

MEETING ADJOURNMENT TIME:  6:24