Several changes have been made at Purchase College this academic year in response to student demonstrations last year that coincided with the national Black Lives Matter movement.
Last fall, the college reintroduced its previously defunct Global Black Studies minor, and on Jan. 22, Purchase officially opened the new Multicultural Center located on the ground floor of the Fort Awesome dormitory.
The center will serve as a place for student organizations and other members of the college to host events such as film screenings, lectures and forums relating to racial diversity and culture.
One of the attendees who spoke at the opening of the center was Joel Aure, the college’s chief diversity officer.
“The Multicultural Center is great step for Purchase College,” Aure said. “I think it will be a very inclusive environment, but it will also be a place for students to have difficult but necessary conversations about diversity and inclusion.”
The primary force behind the opening of the center is Geovanna Borden, the college’s new coordinator of diversity programming and initiatives and an alumna who graduated from the school last May. Borden, one of the leading voices during the demonstrations and forums last year, had the position created specifically for her by the college after she graduated.
During those forums and discussions last year, students of color were given the opportunity to speak about the racial climate on the campus, and cited dozens of individual disturbing incidences, ranging from slurs to discrimination in the classroom. The most notable examples were two separate instances of graffiti in the underclassmen dorms on the campus, one of a swastika and the other of nooses, which caused uproar among the student body and attracted some media attention. Raymond Turchioe, a former Purchase student, was arrested in connection to the swastika last March, but no arrest was ever made in connection with the noose drawings.
Purchase alumna Toni Marriott, who was one of the student activists that called upon the school to make changes last year, described the administration’s response as “liberating.”
“I’m happy and I feel very privileged and blessed to have been a part of that revolution at Purchase that started it all,” Marriot said. “It makes me feel empowered to know that kids at Purchase could now get what I longed for while I was there. It makes me feel better to know that Purchase is actually starting to take racism on campus seriously and trying to better the community there.”
In addition to the opening of the center, Marriott also emphasized the importance of the reinstatement of the Global Black Studies minor to Purchase’s academic community.
“It’s only right that at these higher institutions, that we’re paying mounds of money for, that I can be educated in the history and stories of my people [as opposed to Eurocentric history],” Marriott said.
According to the college’s provost, Barry Pearson, the Multicultural Center and reintroduction of the Global Black Studies program are “two prongs of the same effort,” and that the ultimate goal that was set forth by Purchase’s administration for this year was to create permanent, institutional changes in response to concerns about racism and diversity on campus.
“This is about remaining vigilant,” Pearson said. “We never want to slide back into complacency on these issues.
A representative for state Sen. George Latimer, a Rye Democrat, presented a Senate certificate of merit at the opening of the center in recognition of the school’s efforts to create the space.
Borden could not be reached for comment as of press time.
