Acting on last year's independent review of the Third World Transition Program, the Third World Center has formed a faculty advisory committee and is working to better explain TWTP's mission to the Brown community.
The review, conducted by Brad Rose Consulting of Wellesley, Mass., was submitted to Associate Provost and Director of Institutional Diversity Brenda Allen on Jan. 10.
"I think everyone has their own view of what prompted (the review)," said Associate Dean of the College Karen McLaurin '74, director of the TWC. "I think there was a consensus among senior staff that dictated that it was time to look at this program and assess why students are so passionate about this program."
"It wasn't any particular issue," said David Greene, vice president for campus life and student services. "It was more a sense that there was a lot of discussion about the Third World Transition Program, and we knew we would benefit from a more systematic look at the program."
The review, which incorporated focus groups of current students and alums, interviews and an Internet-based survey of alums of color, found that "support for the program is very strong among interviewees and survey respondents." Seventy percent of alums surveyed said "TWTP played a significant role in helping them to complete their education at Brown," and 97 percent said they would recommend that all incoming students of color participate in the program. The sample included 167 former TWTP participants and 22 non-participants.
But the Rose report also noted that "TWTP's mission and purposes may not be as transparent and accessible as they could be to non-participants and the broader Brown University community," and administrators agree.
"I think there has been for a long time and probably continues to be a lack of clarity, at least in the minds of some, about the mission of TWTP and its place at Brown," Greene said.
"It's something worth constantly clarifying," he added.
McLaurin noted that "people who do not choose to go have one set of beliefs, and then the ones who can and do attend have different beliefs," which can lead to misunderstanding about the program.
But while the report recommends the University "proactively communicate TWTP's mission and benefits to the University community," the student leaders of the program questioned whether the burden of explanation should be on the program.
"I don't really know if this is something that people are really interested in," said TWTP co-coordinator Noel Reyes '06 who noted that he has received very few inquiries about TWTP from students.
Chloe Dugger '06, the other TWTP co-coordinator, said that "instead of putting the burden of interest on" the people asking the questions, "it kind of puts it on us to defend our position on campus."
Still, efforts are being made by TWC to better articulate TWTP's purposes. This year at TWTP, Professor Barrymore Bogues, chair of the Africana Studies Department, spoke to minority peer counselors and MPC friends about the origins of the term "Third World," which McLaurin said Brown students of color adopted in the mid-1970s as a term of empowerment.
Bogues's speech was taped, and the video will soon be posted on the TWC Web site, Dugger said. The speech, which is about 55 minutes long, covers the history of colonialism from 1492 to the present.
"You can't think about modernity and the formation of the modern world without thinking about the question of how colonialism operated and what colonialism did," Bogues says in the video. He traces the term "Third World" to the writings of Frantz Fanon, who saw the Third World as a better cultural and political alternative to the two world blocs dominated by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Fanon visualized "a different kind of independence," Bogues says, "not one that was just a flag independence, but an independence that spoke to cultural and political and social and economic transformations of the countries that were colonized."
The video "would be great material for a class," McLaurin said, and Dugger said several departments are interested in using it.
Following through on another of the report's recommendations, the University formed a faculty advisory board for the TWC last semester, which meets once a month.
The board will not just act as "the eyes and ears" of the TWC, McLaurin said. "They are also advisers to our programmers, a resource for the students to consult" when planning events such as Black History Month and Semana Chicana, as well as working to further integrate the center into the "academic and intellectual conversation" on campus.
She noted the collaboration between the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and the TWC on a lecture series this semester as one of the first fruits of this labor. McLaurin also said one of the board's first actions upon reviewing the Rose report was to "advocate for the center to receive additional resources so we can do our work better."
The board is chaired by McLaurin and consists of Bogues; Professor of Medical Science Sally Zierler; Associate Professor of English Daniel Kim; Senior Lecturer in Theatre, Speech and Dance Barbara Tannenbaum; Associate Professor of American Civilization Matthew Garcia; Associate Professor of Classics Joseph Pucci; Professor of History Evelyn Hu-Dehart; and Professor of Political Science Marion Orr.
But administrators were not so receptive to another element of the Rose report - one alum's suggestion that the University establish "a parallel program (to TWTP) for white students to talk about and explore issues of race/ethnicity, class, etc."
"I think that we're pretty clear that programs that are segregated strictly by race are problematic," Greene said. The University opened TWTP to incoming white students in 2004.
"I think (a separate program) really promotes separateness," McLaurin said. "I don't think it's the best thing to do."
Greene noted that programs such as Building Understanding Across Differences already form a space for cross-cultural discussions.
McLaurin suggested expanding the "Rapping and Dining" orientation activity, which for at least 25 years has invited TWTP participants and their roommates to a lunch to discuss issues brought up at TWTP.
"Maybe we should wipe out that invitation-only" status, she said, and open the program to all interested students.
She also said "an interesting question" for the TWC advisory board would be how the University could make issues of race and ethnicity part of the curriculum, "so that everyone who comes to Brown has an opportunity to engage in that intellectual growth" found at TWTP and "have experience talking about these issues."
