I came to Occidental, thousands of miles away from my home in Virginia, completely unfamiliar with my surroundings but eager to learn. Participating in a specialized summer program designed for incoming first years gave me a unique and valuable introduction to college. I had the chance to familiarize myself with the campus through the company of my peers, getting to know the best routes and study spots weeks before I would build my class schedule. Most importantly, I learned a lot about myself.
For 39 years, Occidental has hosted the Multicultural Summer Institute (MSI), a month-long academic program with the aim of interweaving academic coursework and social change. In addition to being an enriching educational experience, MSI is also an enticing head start for students and builds a tight-knit community of friends before orientation week even begins, making the transition into college feel a bit more seamless by the time fall rolls around.
Unfortunately, college initiatives similar to MSI that promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) have faced intense national scrutiny in the past few years. The Trump administration has gone to great lengths to paint these kinds of initiatives as promoting radical ideologies that âpoison the minds of Americans.â Following these proposals, the hundreds of millions in grant funding allocated to support minority-serving institutions has been proposed to be completely eliminated in the coming fiscal year. Many universities across the country, including nearby USC, have begun making changes to their policies to comply with the administration’s demands.
This kind of backlash is not the driving force behind the swift compliance of many universities; they have been quick to act because of the looming threat of a loss of funding, which gives the administration a source of power to influence the decisions at schools across the country. However, it has had a clear impact on the way programs like MSI are viewed by society at large. By framing these programs as threatening, it paints them in a negative light, with the potential spreading national distrust despite there being no tangible basis for this kind of rhetoric. The ultimate effect is universities stripping away their core values in order to satisfy external forces.
With this in mind, the value of MSI is more clear than ever. As Oxy’s only dedicated multi-week summer program for incoming first years, MSI offers a unique opportunity to get involved academically while also establishing a social community. Programs such as orientation week that begin after move-in day also do a great job of building community, but MSI’s ability to combine social and academic engagement make it stand out as an important pillar of Occidental’s offerings. By being taken on trips across LA, studying history at museums downtown and learning about the untold history of the underground railroad at the Pasadena Playhouse, we were able to explore the surrounding city as a group while also connecting to our coursework.
Attending MSI was incredibly helpful in introducing me to classes at Oxy. The impending full course load of college classes was made less daunting through our daily 3-hour course for the program, which was called â(Im)migration, (Im)migrants, and the United Statesâ this year. This coursework was often challenging, but I came out of it feeling much better-equipped for drafting research papers and being part of discussion groups. I also appreciated being exposed to different kinds of course material, as the course was led by professors who incorporated theories from sociology and statistics to our studies.
MSI fostered a sense of community; people who were in the program with me have remained some of my closest friends. Iâve learned a lot about experiences different from my own by way of our weekly discussions (termed âEngaged Reflections in Social Justiceâ). Since MSI room assignments carried over to the start of the semester, we remained in our dorms at Pauley Hall rather than receiving new housing assignments. Although the program has ended, it feels as if the sense of community that was built in MSI is ever-present.
My positive experience attending MSI is just one of many; itâs a transformative experience for many students who participate in it. MSI instills students with valuable qualities that allow them to make positive changes in the world around them. Take MSI alum Angel Cervantes ’94 for instance, who now directs the non-profit Cervantes Fund for Social Justice. Its educational and community-building aspects make it a valuable asset to Oxy, and it is important that people recognize both the real impact MSI has on students and the necessity that it continues to be held every summer. It would be a great detriment to the college if MSI were to be removed, and it would certainly be at odds with Oxy’s mission to “provide a gifted and diverse group of students with a total educational experience of the highest quality.”
Contact Jess Ramirez at jramirez5@oxy.edu
