the poster reads, “Did you acknowledge your privilege today?”
If you come into O’Shaughnessy-Frey library this week and head up the stairwell, you’ll see some new posters posing questions and potential answers around institutional and structural racism. Those posters came out of the 2019 Annual World Café, a faculty-led event at which St. Thomas students from multiple disciplines came together for discussion in October.
The World Café model has been used at St. Thomas since 2012 to facilitate conversations around critical issues. Each year, this interdisciplinary event involves large groups of students participating in faculty-facilitated dialogue as a way of gaining perspective from people with different viewpoints. This year’s event covered issues related to structural, cultural, and institutional racism. Students emerged from the discussion with questions and/or action steps regarding racial justice in our community.
The questions and action steps are posted in the main staircase of the library. They are provocative and thought-provoking and intended to spark conversations. If you wish, please continue this conversation by sharing your thoughts on the rotunda whiteboard.
You can read more about the World Café dialogue model and last year’s program at St. Thomas in the article “The World Café: Promoting Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Global Health Issues” published in the Spring/Summer 2019 issue of Diversity & Democracy by Dr. Roxanne Prichard, Dr. Starr Sage, and Dr. Amy Finnegan.
Below is a selection of photos of the posters as well as a photos of the responses left on the whiteboard. We will add more photos of responses as the conversation continues.
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“For a university like St. Thomas that is largely funded by rich, white donors, how can the university encourage students to stand by their values rather than being influenced easily by monetary value?”
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“Why do WE KEEP sweeping things under the rug??”
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“The University of St. Thomas MUST ACKNOWLEDGE that we are on Sacred, Stolen, Indigenous Land”
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“After racist incidents…Why doesn’t St. Thomas hold people accountable? #daddy’smoney”
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“How can we change our Literature to have more representation?”
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“Integrate conversation and curriculums about racism and its historical and present impacts across all disciplines.”
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Whiteboard response, “The questions feel accusatory and some (#daddy’smoney) are not productive when they answer their own question. Start conversations, but do so in a way that allows for feaningful discussions, Not defensive discussion.”
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Whiteboard response 1: “Its important to think about why the people asking those questions feel defensive instead of just calling them unproductive. There are lots of dialogues on campus. Have we showed up?” Response 2: “This”
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Whiteboard response 1: “I think library is not a place for such questions. I don’t like it.” Response 2: “I think that the library is exactly the place to encounter different ideas and engage in these kinds of conversations.”
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Whiteboard response: “I don’t think these posters are helping. They don’t sound constructive. There are too many posters and its kind of in[timi]dating”
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Whiteboard response: “Imagine how intimidating it is to be a marginalized student on this campus EVERYDAY”
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Whiteboard response: “If the library, which is a place for knowledge is ‘not a place for such questions,’ then what do you think it’s for?”
