The Oberlin Review
<< Front page News March 11, 2005

Off the Cuff: James Millette

James Millette has been a professor of African American studies at Oberlin since 1991. Prior to coming here he worked at Denison University and the University of the West Indies. Last week he proposed and got passed an amendment to the strategic planning motion concerning the status of African Americans at Oberlin.

At what point in the strategic planning process did you feel that something was missing?
I had always felt that something was missing. I went to one of the breakout sessions right at the start and some of the views I expressed recently I also expressed then. It seemed to me that that the strategic planners were somewhere else and were not particularly sensitive to the sort of views that were ultimately articulated by myself and other colleagues.

How effective do you think Oberlin is currently at addressing the concerns of students of color?
Not as effective as it could be and not as well as it did in the not too distant past.  We’ve been a little bit too accepting of the declining numbers of African-American students. One could almost feel the commitment to the established traditions slip away.  The strategic planning process only helped to reaffirm that slippage. It’s not an exaggeration to say that if we had not raised these issues in the process they would never have come up.

To what do you attribute this slippage?
I think it’s the chemistry of the institution.  You really need to have a number of things to maintain the traditions. You need a significant number of African-American students, significant sensitivity to African-American concerns, a significant number of African-American faculty and we don’t have any of these things. On a day-by-day basis we are not influenced by concerns for African-American students and other minorities and only address them when a particular constituency raises its voice. I didn’t imagine the students would refuse this if we articulated it but I don’t think we should have had to articulate it. 

What specific actions do you think the administration could take to address these concerns?
I will speak about one particular thing. There isn’t another department in the College that consistently represents the views of African-American people besides African American studies. They may do it from time to time but when it comes to making serious decisions I don’t think that our voice is given the respect and the hearing that it needs to receive. We have tried several times to have an African-American historian appointed. It is very likely that we won’t have this position any time in the near future. As far as administrators are concerned you need to have a college that is continuously sensitive to the interests of African-American people and we could bring that sensitivity to the fore.

Are you concerned about how the College’s stated desire to increase tuition revenue will affect minority students?
We are very concerned. That was one of the things that alerted us to the fact that the concerns of African students needed to be addressed. Net tuition revenue was the goal that was driving the financial planning. This means reductions in students and faculty and also finessing of the types of students we are after. I think this means we are going after more full-pay students. We are buying into the class configuration of higher education that is going on in this country. The student population is changing. Fewer and fewer people can afford a college education on their own unless they can get outside support.  That is a reality that is facing us in the strategic planning exercise.

How optimistic are you that these concerns will eventually be addressed?
I’m optimistic and pessimistic. I’m pessimistic because I think that the community as a whole is not sensitized to the issues we have raised. I’m optimistic because I think that the administration is probably now unlikely to overlook these concerns. They nearly missed the boat in this planning process. I think that it’s going to take at least five years. This is a very long time. We’re talking about four or five generations of students who will be gone before the real fruits of this exercise are perceived.
 
 

   


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