Author: Ryan Strong
Occidental’s administration touts the College’s diversity. However, it is the staff and student leaders at the Intercultural Community Center (ICC) who directly work to foster the diverse community that has earned the College its high rankings on the subject.
The ICC is largely run by student program assistants charged with planning events that promote diversity. Its role is to put on its own events while also helping to tie together, coordinate and cosponsor other events on campus that serve to appreciate culture and community.
The ongoing ICC Book Club, Valuing Diversity Week and the Taste of Oxy are some of the center’s marquee events. Other programs that Intercultural Affairs encompass include The Center for Gender Equity, Project Safe and the Multicultural Summer Institute, among others.
“We create globally engaged citizens who are culturally active,” Assistant Director of Intercultural Affairs Dominic Alletto said.
Yet, the Center, considered a critical part of Occidental’s mission, has had to endure some turnover lately. Both the Associate Director of Intercultural Affairs and the Assistant Dean of Students for Community Life and Director of the ICC have departed recently.
Naddia Palacios, who served as the Associate Director, decided to leave the college to become an Assistant Dean of Students at Claremont College towards the end of the summer. There, she will focus on Latino/Chicano Student Affairs.
“It was absolutely the hardest choice. We selected an amazing group of students and I couldn’t really notify everyone because it was over the summer,” Palacios said. She cited “a great opportunity and upward mobility” as reasons why she left the ICC to take her new job.
The Director of the ICC, Brandi Jones, made her decision later. She accepted an Associate Dean of Graduate Affairs position at the Princeton school of Engineering and began her new role on Sept. 27.
Jones said she would “rather not” discuss her decision, explaining that she “didn’t know other administrators to do that.”
Dean Barbara Avery reiterated her appreciation for Jones’ work at the ICC and invited the community to a farewell party for her in the Oxy Student Digest. It is unclear if the College would have promoted Palacios and thus retained her if Jones departed just a month earlier.
The changes do not seem to be bothering the program assistants at the ICC, however.
“I just keep doing my job,” Program Assistant Fátima Avellán (sophomore) said. “We’re off to a great year.” Avellán also mentioned that she will miss both Jones and Palacios a lot.The Center already has already appointed new leadership. While Alletto is about a month into his time at Occidental as the Assistant Director, Paula Crisostomo, the school’s Senior Director of Community and Government Relations, has taken the role of Interim Director of the ICC.
“My goal is to continue to have the ICC serve as the college’s primary co-curricular resource for diversity education and social justice training in an environment that supports all students,” Crisostomo said.
While Jones also declined to comment on the ICC and its future, Palacios has no doubt that the Center will remain an integral and contributing part of the community.
“What drives the ICC is its students and the core values of the center,” Palcios said. “There’s going to be turnaround, but I’m confident.”
Her successor, Alletto, sings a very similar tune regarding his responsibilities and the students’ central part in the Center’s success.
“My role is to be part advocate, part advisor, part conductor of the music that they play,” he said.
While the ICC feels that their work is valued by the community and administration – and linked to the identity of Occidental College – they note that they can only do so much with the funding they receive and have resorted to co-sponsoring a lot of events to help offset the budget.
Acts of Intolerance and the ICC
The ICC’s role may have always been valued, but recent incidents first described generally by College leadership, and now more specifically by Dean Avery, have underscored the importance of spreading tolerance on campus.
“Diversity of all kinds is the cornerstone of the College and its mission. Yet some recent incidents threaten to tarnish the atmosphere of civility and mutual respect for difference that we all hold so dear,” a letter from President Jonathan Veitch, Deans Gonzalez and Avery, Faculty Council President Raul Villa and ASOC President Aliza Goldsmith read.
ICC program assistants and leadership were concerned by the incidents but responded to the letter by considering it a call for attention to an important issue.
“It gives credence to the work we do here,” Alletto said. “I’m not afraid of what’s been said; if anything it’s a motivator.”
The Center’s staff reiterated that although the College may use pie charts, rankings and location to tout its diversity, the critical elements of a diverse community are far more intricate than that.
“It’s not just about statistics,” Program Assistant Andrea Magaña (sophomore) said. “You’re obviously not embracing diversity if things like this are happening.”
President Veitch and the other leaders seem to agree, “While we have many programs dedicated to bringing us closer to this goal, we haven’t been vocal enough – or decisive enough – about our commitment to nurture the community confidence necessary to achieve it. Let’s correct that – immediately. Diversity is both a fact of life and a largely unrealized promise, and it is time to come together to thoughtfully explore its difficulties and its rewards.”
A Deeper Discussion on Diversity
Sitting amongst program assistants who work 12 hours a week thinking about diversity, I found myself not just reporting on but immersed in the type of deep and meaningful discourse on diversity that President Veitch seems to be calling for.
“Personally, diversity is important because we wouldn’t be able to function as a whole without it,” Program Assistant Frances Nova (junior) said.
But, the Program Assistants also addressed some of the misconceptions on diversity that oversimplify the concept of diversity and therefore compromise its potential. Especially significant is the idea that by looking at someone, one can judge the diversity of that person or group of people.
“Just because someone isn’t a person of color doesn’t mean they’re not a person of culture and just because someone is a person of color doesn’t mean that they are a person of culture,” Avellán said.
Meanwhile, Avellán delved deeper into the ICC’s purpose, saying that “our mission is to go across borders.”
“‘Globalization’ is here, so I believe that our students need to not only be exposed to, but to also have the opportunity to explore and experience lifestyles and cultures different than their own,” Crisostomo said.
Alletto referred to a famous quote by Martin Luther King Junior to illustrate the need to cross these borders, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
With these core principles and an enthusiastic group of Program Assistants determined to foster a community of diversity and culture, the ICC is acting on its mission statement and looking forward to a promising year.
“My hope is that ICC’s efforts will result in students who demonstrate respect for others’ lifestyles, beliefs and behaviors and that our students will be willing to stand up for marginalized populations,” Crisostomo said.
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