MAY 2014

Many questions remain about what class means to a large body of students at Vassar.  I seek to understand the Vassar experiences in which relations of socioeconomic class structure make themselves evident, or contrarily why some students might not find themselves interacting on classist means.  Are Vassar students, or any college-aged students, aware of dynamics of class on and off campus, and are such groups responsible for acknowledging class?  In perpetuating these conversations I have come to understand the challenges of sociological analyses of large-scale interpersonal phenomena such as class, and have gained insight to the strategies in understanding intrapersonal sentiments in relationship to societal issues.  This project has a little of both.  Please enjoy.

CSY

In my ethnographic video production for this research project, I studied the Black student community at Vassar and, by extension and focus, the Ebony Theatre Ensemble’s 2014 production of “The Colored Museum”, the first all-Black production at Vassar in over a decade. My purview is to contextualize and visualize the Black Vassar student community. The basic tenet question is that posed by Beverly Daniel Tatum, who asks with her book, “Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?” I further ask what it means to be a Black Vassar student, how one navigates the Vassar campus as a Black student, how the production of the play might change those dynamics, what the play brings/means to the Black Vassar student community, and how being a senior soon to leave this space might complicate or influence that experience.

Social Analysis

This video attempts to put multiple students’ lived experiences and perspectives on race in dialogue with one another to understand the underlying power dynamics behind Vassar’s diversity campaign, which manifests itself through recruitment programs like FOCUS weekend and pre-orientation programs like Transitions.

I acknowledge that my project privileges certain students’ perspectives and is not meant to represent  all students’ perspectives who have taken part in FOCUS or Transitions.

http://lilyngaruiya.tumblr.com/

Centrally located on campus, the Retreat serves as a key space on campus that allows for distinct individuals to be incorporated into a larger community.  This ethnography brings together a series of precise, lived moments and unique perspectives in order to understand the significance of the Retreat at Vassar.