By Marissa Moss, Bicentennial Intern, Class of 2019, History
In recent years, Indiana University has made a conscious effort to improve the study abroad experience for students from underrepresented populations through the Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Multicultural Affairs (OVPDEMA) overseas study programs.
Since the very first trip in 2002, these custom programs have provided subsidized, all-inclusive and culturally immersive overseas experiences to hundreds of students from historically disadvantaged backgrounds. This is a unique program to IU because of its history, intent and development over the years.
These programs are reflective of the university’s deliberate efforts to enhance the overall experience of underrepresented students in a way that no other university has before.
In May 1996, minority student leaders at Indiana University drew up a proposal titled, “Preliminary Proposal to Improve the Office of Afro-American Affairs, Indiana University-Bloomington” that laid out the framework for an office that could more successfully fulfill student needs.
Student dissent revealed that students of color wanted more programming and advocacy on campus.[1] In 1999, Dr. Charlie Nelms was appointed to be the head of the Office of the Vice President of Institutional Development and Student Affairs for all IU campuses (this would later be named DEMA). Dr. Nelms’ responsibilities in this position were to assess diversity efforts, oversee the Hutton Honors College, lead institutional research, head regional chancellor reviews across all campuses and more.
He was the first individual in the country to be named the Vice President at any university with diversity as a specific task in his portfolio. When asked if DEMA was created to fulfill student demands, Dr. Charlie Nelms said, “Absolutely. It never would have been created if it were not for student dissent. It was Frederick Douglass who said, ‘If there is no struggle, there is no progress.’ Power does not give up anything, it has to be seized, and so that is what the students basically did in 1994. It came to a head in 1997, and that resulted in the creation of this Vice President position.”[2]
As of 2007, the Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Multicultural Affairs has been the name of this office to encompass programing for all cultural centers and minority student affairs. While he was the Vice President and leading diversity initiatives, Dr. Nelms and Dr. Frank Motley, former Assistant Dean of Admissions in the Maurer School of Law, spoke to Dr. Kevin Brown of the Maurer School of Law to begin planning a customized study abroad program for IU students.
Dr. Kevin Brown, one of the founders of the overseas programs through DEMA stated, “You have to understand, [African Americans] did not go overseas, we just did not.”[3] While IU created study abroad opportunities in the 1960s, the number of black students on these trips was disproportionate to nonblack students…In 1996-1997, he was on a Fulbright trip in India; during this time, he traveled to South Africa for a short trip.
While there, he traveled to Mozambique and met with missionaries and a rather enthusiastic Bishop who welcomed him into the community. This trip, in particular, made him realize: “This is a great idea, I can bring some of my law students here… My idea was that we would have three or four students, and they would understand what it means to be here, what the community was like, then we would bring another group next year with stuff to work on, like projects in the community. So, we create this long-term pipeline of law students coming, going there and helping.”[4]
During the summers of 1999-2001, Dr. Brown took law students to Soweto and Maputo, South Africa, and also cities in Kenya. The final program in 2001 picked up an HIV/AIDS awareness program in Kenya. At this point, things looked rather promising as the volume of applicants for these trips notably increased, until the fall of 2001. Following the September 11 attacks, the institution had concerns regarding safety in locations regarded as “high-risk,” and the Maurer School of Law would no longer fund the trips.
Dr. Brown thought these trips were halted indefinitely until Dr. Nelms approached him to create an overseas program for African Americans to travel “wherever in the world” he thought they should go for the valuable experience he envisioned.[5]
The mere fact that these programs were to be facilitated through a diversity office instead of the Office of Overseas Study signified that their purpose would be different than a traditional program already offered at the university. The two worked together to draw up a proposal for the first abroad program set to travel to Ghana in 2002.
This proposal laid out a tremendous amount of theory and purpose for the first trip to Ghana. On why he selected Ghana, Dr. Kevin Brown said, “I had to really sit there and think where ought they to go? Then it came down to Ghana because of its historic connection to the transatlantic slave trade. So, my idea was: how do I help African Americans get over the sense of anger and resentment that comes with being an American and being black?”
Keeping this in mind, Dr. Brown called upon the work of the late Dr. John Ogbu, an educational anthropologist from the University of California, Berkeley. In the 1990s, Dr. Ogbu wrote a piece explaining the educational differences between voluntary immigrants from West Indian nations and African Americans, who he refers to as involuntary immigrants.
Due to the fact that voluntary immigrants come to America with the understanding that they originated somewhere else, they are better able to adjust to living and learning in America, especially when compared to African Americans who lack knowledge of their true origins. It is this lack of identity that attributes to native African Americans under performing in school and voluntary immigrants outperforming them when in America.
This is one of the ways in which the transatlantic slave trade continues to impact the lives of African American students in the present. Keeping this theory in mind, Dr. Brown wanted to create a trip that could rectify the troubling past of slavery and help African American students understand their position in America.
The idea of a “dissatisfaction gap” also inspired Dr. Brown to select Ghana as a location for this first trip. He stated, “The difference between the immigrant experience and our experience is that we never had a choice. So, we do not compare our reality to the reality of people in Africa, so we compare our reality to white people in America. And that means, almost by definition, that we will always have what I like to call the ‘dissatisfaction gap.’”
Ghana appeared to be a location that could improve this sense of dissatisfaction. Dr. Brown’s goal was to give students an experience where they would understand the conditions in Ghana, and where they could have a different comparative framework experience because they would not compare African Americans and whites, they would compare African Americans and Ghanaians.
From this, it was established that these custom travel programs through DEMA would provide students with a culturally enriching trip overseas as well as empower them as individuals.
OVPDEMA study abroad programs were designed to help students from underrepresented populations gain the overseas experience they may be unable to attain. Once the first trip to Ghana was planned, students were strategically selected for the trip.
Given that this program was developed underneath a diversity initiative, the process of selecting students mirrored such. The program hoped to serve students who belonged to a historically disadvantaged group, displayed financial need, were a first-generation college attendee, and had never traveled abroad before.
Unlike most study abroad programs here at Indiana University that have stringent GPA requirements, DEMA does allow for students with GPAs lower than a 2.7 to be considered. In fact, these students tend to be the best applicants for this trip considering the trip often motivates students overseas so when they return to IU, they have a better understanding of why it is important for them to succeed and continue studying.
On GPA requirements, Dr. Kevin Brown said, “If the purpose of a trip like this was to have a life-altering effect, you pick people who you don’t think are going to go if they do not go now…if you take these grade requirements too seriously, what you’re doing is cutting out the poor folks and [favoring] the middle-class ones because there is a tremendous socioeconomic correlation with grades.”[6] While this program was certainly academic related, its purpose was to provide students with a tailored, personal experience unlike other abroad programs.
Over the years, this initial vision to serve underrepresented populations developed further as a staple piece of the DEMA overseas initiative. In 2002, the first Ghana trip had eleven African American students, nine were women and two were men.
Read the second part of this blog post here: https://blogs.iu.edu/bicentennialblogs/2018/05/17/a-history-of-the-ovpdema-overseas-study-programs-part-2/
Notes
[1] Archives #C176, Box 3
[2] Dr. Charlie Nelms (Former Vice President of Diversity), interviewed by Marissa Moss, Bloomington, IN, April 9, 2018.
[3] Dr. Kevin Brown (Founder of OVPDEMA Overseas Programs), interviewed by Marissa Moss, Bloomington, IN, February 26, 2018.
[4] Dr. Kevin Brown (Founder of OVPDEMA Overseas Programs), interviewed by Marissa Moss, Bloomington, IN. February 14, 2018
[5] Dr. Kevin Brown (Founder of OVPDEMA Overseas Programs), interviewed by Marissa Moss, Bloomington, IN, February 26, 2018.
[6] Dr. Kevin Brown (Founder of OVPDEMA Overseas Programs), interviewed by Marissa Moss, Bloomington, IN, February 26, 2018.