With Penn lagging behind its peer institutions in terms of diversity, a new student group is lobbying for drastic improvements -- and already has over 300 signatures to back up its demands.
The Student Movement for Change, formed in October, is working to increase awareness of -- and offer solutions to -- the issues that minorities at Penn are facing.
College junior Jesse Salazar, a member of SMC, said the group is pleased by the changes the University has made in response to its commitment to diversity, but added that these adjustments are far from sufficient.
"What we're saying is that yes, Penn has made lots of improvements compared to itself, but compared to other universities, it hasn't," he said. "We're worried that the University is sort of resting on its laurels."
"There are still policies which we believe are harmful to the minority communities at Penn," Salazar added.
In response to such concerns, the group submitted a written proposal to administrators which outlines four specific demands that the SMC thinks will be beneficial to all minority students on campus.
"I'm really hoping that the administration pays attention when this many people mobilize," said College sophomore Wesley Nakamura, a recent addition to the SMC. "I really think that if this many people come together... they should be respected and at least listened to."
One of the group's primary concerns is for substantial strides to be made in the University's recruitment and retention of minority students, according to Engineering senior Julia Lee, who is one of the movement's founders.
"We want them to reach out to areas they wouldn't normally reach out to," she said, adding that many minority students have had to travel a substantial distance in order to attend Penn's recruitment sessions.
Retention of minority students has also presented a problem, since several studies show a disparity between minority and non-minority retention and graduation rates, according to Lee.
"I think it has a lot to do with a sense of discomfort [some minority students] feel on campus," she said of the low retention rates.
The SMC's second request is for the minority resource centers on campus to receive additional space, more adequate staffing and increased funding.
The centers "are constantly worrying about whether or not they're going to be able to have enough money to operate for the next year," Lee said. "The University has put enough effort into barely sustaining the centers, [but] we want them to commit to the growth of the centers."
Next on the SMC's list of demands is increased publicity and staffing for Penn's ethnic studies departments, which include African-American Studies, Asian-American Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies.
"We'd like to see a general increase in funding to support additional courses being put into each of these programs," Lee said. "We want them to put [these classes] at the same priority level as other departments."
Lastly, the SMC hopes to see a change in the Division of Public Safety, based on past and present issues with racial profiling.
"We want them to structurally revamp the Division of Public Safety," Lee said. "We want them to make more of a formal commitment to investigating racial profiling and stopping it."
"I've heard day-to-day stories from people that can't go out of their room without wearing Penn memorabilia... otherwise they'll get accusatory looks from cops," Salazar said.
However, even if these four demands are met, the SMC will still have work to do, according to Lee.
"We want this to be a jumping-off point," she said. "We'll be using whatever results come out of this to continue our efforts... it's kind of an ongoing process."
Lee added, though, that the group should not be viewed as "just a bunch of angry minorities," who came up with the list of demands at the last minute.
"This has really been building up over time," she said. "Finally, we just decided that we couldn't sit and wait any longer, and we had to make sure that real action was going to be taking place."
Lee added that the SMC's intent is not only to get the administration to listen to their requests, but also to educate other students of the issues some minority students face on a daily basis.
"We're just doing this so that everyone is aware that there are people here who don't feel comfortable, and that a lot of them are minority students," she said.
