Culture Divide is Not Bad

A dozen Indiana State University staff members gathered around the table in the Hulman Memorial Student Union in March, papers rustling under the discussion and whispers from one side of the room to the other. This is just one of the countless meetings that Dr. Elonda Ervin must attend today.
The discussion unfolded easily until the topic of Wolf Field arose. The room grew quiet and the faculty faces stared, expressionless. ISU had asked African American fraternities and sororities, and white Greek organizations to co-host an event.

The request by Student Health Promotions for a combined event to address stress management was not going well. The organizations were not responding to the office’s invitation to host the event.
“Maybe they do not feel welcomed in the same space as one another,” said one staff member from the Student Counseling Center.
Another staff member from the Student Health Promotion office responds.
“If they don’t want to come we cannot make them… It’s not our problem,” she said.
The awkwardness of the discussion faded to silence and the division between Greek life and African American fraternities and sororities stumped the gathered staff members.
“[Black Greek members] don’t come to the events,” said another staff member.
“Maybe they do not feel welcomed in the same space as one another,” Ervin replied.

Ervin is aware of the complicated history of campus Greek life, as it relates to African American students. For hundreds of years, black students were not welcomed into Greek organizations founded by white students. Beginning in the early 1900s, African American college students began founding their own fraternal organizations to network, promote community on largely segregated campuses, and to support black graduates in their professional lives.

The Zeta Phi Beta sorority first started on campus in 1975 and was active until 2011, when it was suspended from campus. Some of the members had some behavioral issues, which cost their chapter to be suspended from Indiana State. Even though the behavioral issues were not from each member in the sorority the chapter was suspended until the spring of 2016.
The four NPHC fraternities currently on campus are Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi, Omega Psi Phi and Phi Beta Sigma. The other six fraternities and sororities that are no longer active on campus were suspended because of some member’s behavioral problems.

Zeta Phi Beta is a National Pan-Hellenic sorority, or a “Divine nine.” The “Divine Nine” consists of nine historically black Greek letter sororities and fraternities. All nine organizations used to be active on our campus. The university is working to increase the number of fraternities and sororities in the National Pan-Hellenic Council on campus.

We have four active fraternities and then Zeta Phi Beta is now the first sorority on campus since 2011. The University has high hopes to have seven of the nine here by the end of spring 2017.

“I feel like bringing back the different African American sorority chapters should impact the campus because the purpose of historically black sororities and fraternities is that there was a need to feel accepted in a community when we were not. In order to feel welcomed we had to create our own community because we didn’t have one, and from this creation the Black Greek Organizations were formed I feel like by them coming back, it will benefit the black campus community.”

On campus today we have the choice as African American women to join Greek Life organizations, but the question lingers can we really feel comfortable in these sororities, would they welcome us in as their own?
“For the African American population on campus you do have a choice between black fraternities, which never left and the white sororities and fraternities on campus. But these two choices are not enough. This means you are giving minorities only two options and as for the Asian, Latina, Black, and Saudi populations they have no set organization of their own so we identify them as other.”

“I refuse to let minorities be labeled as other.”

Dr. Elonda Ervin has spent the past 9 years at Indiana State University. During this time, she has advised numerous minority, Greek, and student organizations to increase commitment to diverse membership among those groups. Additionally, she previously served as the Director and Associate Director of the Career Center and Interim Director of the African-American Cultural Center. Ervin has also worked in the Office of Student Activities and Organizations and as an instructor in ISU’s Upward Bound program.

Director of Multi- Cultural Services and programs, Dr. Ervin is an essential figure that plays a vital role on the campus of Indiana State University. Dr. Ervin is the bridge between cultural divide and the barriers that we as students put up as shields against others. Dr. Ervin hopes to create a community were all students can embrace their cultural background while feeling comfortable in new communities.

In the everyday life of Dr. Ervin, we will see her working with students in three different resource centers La Casita, LGBTQ and Saudi Arabian communities. These three resources centers are three of the main populations on campus that feel a cultural divide; a barrier just as these African American fraternities and sororities feel with Greek life.
Given these “power tasks” as Dr. Ervin calls them; her goal is not only to create diversity on campus but to bring students together as one campus community.

Even though these goals seem far out of reach we are now starting to see progress in the resource centers under Dr. Ervin’s supervision. These programs are all meant to engage, inform, and educate our students on their history and encourage them to feel beautiful in the skin that they are in.
Family, friends and sexuality gender, all offer you different powers so u find community in different ways; someone cannot tell u, “no its wrong for you to gather your power in different ways that’s blinded.”

Different organizations often stick to what they want and in return the divide thickens and deepens into something much bigger. The need for division and individuality is important but the need for togetherness is just as important in our society and most important our campus community.
The overall goal Dr. Ervin wants to accomplish is to inform educate and bring together.
As, Dr. Ervin suggested earlier how can anyone judge another because they feel comfortable in the space that they are in? They shouldn’t but when our campus society starts to become more separate then together where do we draw the line as a campus community.

The problem is not Dr. Ervin’s; it is our own.
As the students of Indiana State University we have to take action, we have to make ourselves a little uncomfortable in order to become comfortable.

Cultural divide is good separation and segregation are not.

By : Shalynn McNeal