United Minorities Council celebrates 30 years of cultural understanding

For four days in 1978, Penn students held a sit-in at College Hall. At first they were protesting University plans to cut sports programs, but hockey and golf soon took the backseat to anger about climbing tuition and residence fees.

As the protest continued, a few participants began to think even bigger, setting their sights on a student organization to unite and empower minority groups on campus.

"This was the perfect opportunity to try to get something really done for minority students," said 1979 alumnus David de Clue, one of the protesters and founder of the United Minorities Council that materialized during those four days.

Over the past three decades, the UMC evolved from a few students with a vision to a visible and influential coalition of 20 minority groups, reflecting and promoting the changing face of Penn. Though its agenda may change with fluctuations in campus climate, its commitment to advocating for students of color and fostering intercultural community is constant.

The UMC has two primary roles: working with administrators and building intercultural community, 2008 chairwoman, Daily Pennsylvanian columnist and College and Wharton senior Lisa Zhu said.

The first role, which many students don't get to see, is advocating to improve resources and quality-of-life for students of color - from better housing and meeting space to recruitment of faculty from underrepresented groups. The second role is uniting people of different backgrounds through forums for reflection on intercultural issues.

Recent work includes pushing for renovations to DuBois College House and the ARCH building and securing funds for intercultural programming, as well as throwing annual Unity Week and Celebration of Cultures events.

The group aims to provide a collective voice for minority groups because advocacy is more effective when organizations work together. "Administrators were not really interested in having a member of each organization come in and say 'Can you do this?'" de Clue said. But with one cohesive front, officials were more willing to hear what students had to say.

Major achievements over the group's 30-year history include the opening of the Greenfield Intercultural Center and the establishment of a permanent seat on the University Council.

The GIC is another realization of student visions from de Clue's time at Penn. Imagined in its first conceptions as the "Third World Center," de Clue said, the GIC opened in 1984 on 37th & Chestnut, where it supports the UMC, its constituents and a number of intercultural programs.

The rocky road to a UC seat, obtained in 1997, provided a stronger and more representative voice for students of color.

Onyx Finney, program coordinator for the Center for Africana Studies and UMC chairwoman from 1995 to 1997, said the request for a seat met a lot of resistance from faculty members and students.

Opponents felt the Undergraduate Assembly - then the only student voice on the body - adequately represented all students. But Finney and others believed students of color needed a more effective vehicle to address issues pertinent to them.

"Even though I only got to sit in on one meeting, it's important that other students who came after we left were able to have a voice," Finney said.

Finney said students are significant drivers of change - the Africana Studies program, for example, wouldn't exist if students in the 1960s and 1970s had not pushed for what was then called Afro-American Studies.

"I don't think anyone would wake up and say, 'Students need this. Let's go out and find $10 million for these cultural centers,'" Finney said.

That's why the UC seat is so important, she said - students must hold administrators accountable to their needs.

"They need to make their experience the best it can be, and when those resources are lacking, they need to help the University figure out ways to make it better for students that come after them," she said.

When de Clue - now a criminal defense attorney in St. Louis - and a few classmates worked to solidify the UMC, they found solid allies in the administration.

"It saw the need for some sort of student input and was willing to go along with some of, if not all of, what we were suggesting as a step to something more positive and more permanent," he said.

In his first capacities as chair, de Clue sat on advisory committees for the Vice Provost and Office of Admissions. During that time, a major agenda item for the minority community - which was "very minuscule" and included fewer than 10 student groups - was making Penn more accessible and accommodating for students of color.

Today, Zhu said, relations with the administration are strong.

"We've hit a point where it's almost second nature to have regular meetings and open dialogue," she said.

She added that regular communication fosters trust and understanding - a far cry from a few decades ago, when students had to sit outside College Hall to be able to see the president.

"We've all come to understand that diversity is important, that it builds the character of our University," Zhu said.

As Penn's minority community grew more robust and diverse, the UMC's composition evolved as well. The body doubled from 10 to 20 constituent groups in the past decade and represents many different cultures, from Queer People of Color to Club Singapore, GIC director Valerie De Cruz said.

She added that uniting people across communities is challenging but rewarding in a "fiercely individualistic" country.

"There's often this feeling of competition," she said. "Do I promote my own interest or the interest of the collective?"

But the struggles of coalition-building teach people to be real leaders. And from Women's Suffrage to the Civil Rights Movement, "nothing that's been done in this country has ever been done without a coalition."

Its vision for intercultural community makes the UMC unique on a campus marked by many cultural groups, from honor societies to dance troupes.

During University Chaplain Rev. Charles Howard's time at Penn, he served as UMC chairman from 1997 to 1999, about the same time students formed three additional minority coalitions, each focusing on specific minority communities: the Latino Coalition, the Asian Pacific Student Coalition and UMOJA, the umbrella group for black student organizations.

Howard said it was a challenge to balance collective unity with each group's internal needs.

"There are very broad communities within smaller communities of color, which is a beautiful thing but also a challenge that students had never faced before," he said. "If we're going to be a united voice, we all need to be on the same page."

With the addition of the Lambda Alliance - the umbrella group for LGBT groups that formed in 2005 - the coalitions are today collectively known as the "Five Boards," or "5B."

The groups taking collective action, such as meeting with administrators together, is an "evolving process" that is becoming increasingly more institutionalized, Zhu said. But while the 5B provides political unity, the UMC is still the main vehicle for cross-cultural understanding, UMC 2008 vice chairman and College senior Derek Mazique said.

"We believe there is something all minority groups tend to share," he said. "Regardless of cultural differences, the fates of minorities at Penn are intertwined."

De Clue said his original vision for the UMC was an inclusive coalition for student organizations to gain recognition and resources. He originally called his organization the "United Minority Council," but after a few local newspapers mistakenly used "Minorities," he realized the latter title was much better aligned with his mission.

2008 UMC Political chairman and College senior Lorenzo Williams said the UMC is a home for student groups not encompassed by other coalitions. A revamped liaison system assigns a UMC board member to a few constituent groups, linking students with otherwise little in common.

"That's the whole idea of interculturalism," Williams said. "We don't want to be blocked off as just a minority. At the end of the day, we share many of the same struggles and successes, which validates the importance of all other coalitions. We need a forum to understand differences and appreciate unique qualities."

De Cruz said a popular misconception is that the UMC is an umbrella for all minority groups. Rather, it's for "groups that choose to be a part of an intercultural alliance. Not just for those who want to further their own agendas, but those who want to build bridges."

As new developments arise, the UMC will work to accommodate them, De Cruz said. After 9/11, for example, it worked closely with the Penn Arab Student Society to ensure its students' needs were met.

"The more we know about each other, the less likely we are to resort to stereotypes," she said.

The UMC's agenda and political involvements follow the ebb and flow of campus culture for minorities - which Zhu describes as "long periods of stability followed by short periods of turbulence."

When Finney was the chairwoman, Penn had a "very hostile climate" for students of color. The early 1990s marked a number of controversies at Penn, like perceived racial profiling of black students and bomb threats to DuBois. Most notable was 1993's "Water Buffalo" incident, in which a white student was accused of shouting racial epithets at a group of black sorority sisters making noise outside of a highrise.

Howard's time at the UMC saw the University continue to recover "image-wise and culturally" from that incident. Another challenge was adjusting to new efforts to curb crime and violence, which brought some tension to relations with West Philadelphia community.

Penn has been lucky to avoid a polarizing "lightning rod issue" this year, Mazique said. Still, it's important for the group to be proactive - especially with an economic state that makes funding projects like the ARCH renovations more difficult. Students must keep their needs at the front of administrators' minds, he said.

Zhu said the group is working on building relationships so that "if something happens, the fallout isn't as severe."

Over the past year, the UMC has worked to improve relations with the Department of Public Safety and strengthen connections to student organizations, like the Greek community and Penn Consortium of Undergraduate Women.

Zhu added that she hopes in the future, racial equality will exist and the UMC won't be needed. However, she thinks that human nature means an organization like the UMC that works to shatter "constructions of fear and hatred around certain groups" will always be necessary.

College and Wharton junior Ezegozie Eze, who transferred from Princeton this semester and was elected the next UMC chair last week, said he ran for the position because it was the best path to "bringing change to Penn and really trying to unite the minority community."

He added that at this 30-year mark, he wants his board to reflect on why the UMC was founded in the first place.

"Right now we're just trying to pave the way for the next 30 years," he said.

De Clue had not had much contact with Penn until he received an invitation to the UMC's 30th anniversary gala, which took place last Saturday night. He was unable to make it, but sent the group a four-page letter about its roots.

He ended with another wish for the organization that grew from his vision: "I honestly hope the United Minorities Council remains a vital part of Penn forever and that its founding, legacy and potential will never be forgotten or forsaken."

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