{"id":1608,"date":"2019-06-13T04:00:25","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T08:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/?p=1608"},"modified":"2019-06-03T11:18:09","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T15:18:09","slug":"there-is-nothing-new-under-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/2019\/06\/13\/there-is-nothing-new-under-the-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"There Is Nothing New Under the Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Shira Greer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shira Greer is a rising sophomore from Fairfax, Virginia majoring in Political Science and minoring in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. This is her first summer working with the Race & Racism Project. On campus she is also a Richmond Scholar, an Oliver Hill Scholar, a Peer Advisor and Mentor, and a member of the Executive Council for a Multicultural Space at the University.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Before coming to the University of Richmond, I knew virtually nothing about its history. When applying to different schools, their histories were the furthest thing from my mind: I was only concerned with current academic and extracurricular offerings and of course, financing my education. Upon my arrival to campus, I was still clueless about UR\u2019s history, but I soon came to learn more about it. I began hearing about the Race & Racism Project during my first semester and took a cursory look through the website and the student exhibits presented there.<\/p>\n

However, it was not until I joined the project that I began to take a deeper look into the project, and therefore the school\u2019s history. In examining the project website, I started with the subject lists. The \u201cBlack Power\u201d subject heading was the first to catch my eye, as after attending UR for a year I couldn\u2019t imagine the Black Power movement having much effect on UR\u2019s campus. While my suspicion proved correct, I was surprised to find that Dick Gregory<\/a> gave a lecture on campus in 1970, then again in 1973, despite alumni backlash after his first appearance. Learning about his unexpected appearances on campus reminded me how much I still don\u2019t know about this university, yet a quote from Gregory\u2019s lecture reminded me how little our social circumstances have changed. During his lecture, he told the students in attendance \u201cYou are going to be the group that is going to solve this country\u2019s problems, or this country is going to fall,\u201d a sentiment that is still repeated to my generation today. This similarity reminded me of the adage \u201cthere is nothing new under the sun,\u201d which I found rang true throughout my dive into the Race & Racism website.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After finishing the article on Dick Gregory, I decided to follow the path I was already on and click into the \u201cAnti-racism\u201d subject heading, which led me to look at the history of the Student Organization for Black Awareness (SOBA). The first article<\/a> I read detailed SOBA\u2019s goals for the 1977-1978 school year. The final goal listed was to increase black and minority faculty. I found this goal particularly striking because the Multicultural Student Solidarity Network (MSSN), a current UR student organization, also called for an increase in minority faculty in their 2018 proposal<\/a> for a multicultural space on campus. Nearly forty years later, students are still making the same<\/em> demands on administration because the changes so many have called for have not occurred.<\/p>\n

Continuing my investigation, I found further parallels to current situations at the University of Richmond. In the Black Student Experience<\/em><\/a> exhibit, a 1971 Collegian<\/em> article<\/a> mentioned students travelling to neighboring universities for parties and other gatherings due to the dominance of white Greek life in UR\u2019s social scene, which black students were locked out of due to the exclusive nature as well as the racism<\/a> it perpetuated. In addition, black social life was inhibited due to the relatively small number of black students on UR\u2019s campus compared to neighboring universities like Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia Union University. Little has changed, as current students still travel to neighboring universities today since UR\u2019s social scene continues to be dominated by Greek life and the university still lacks any sort of central student hub. While SOBA helped create more opportunities for black students to socialize on campus after it was founded in 1973, it was more difficult for the organization to reach its goal<\/a> of reaching out to the broader university community. Stanley Davis, who served as chairman of SOBA, credited<\/a> this to a \u201clack of interest in everything at the U of R,\u201d which in my opinion is still a prevailing attitude on campus today. I found it funny that I would share the same sentiments as a student from forty-five years ago, but not surprising. Similarly, in the podcast<\/a> \u201cOn Campus but Not Welcomed,\u201d Dr. Jesse Moore shared sentiments like the ones current students share today. He spoke about how invisible he felt in the business school and how there was a \u201cculture shock\u201d he experienced upon being accepted to the business school, something I\u2019ve heard current business school students echo today.<\/p>\n

Overall, I found several parallels between past and present student sentiments and experiences. Though much has changed about the university between the 1970s and today, much has remained the same. While students may think that their experiences are unique, the wealth of information stored in the archives prove otherwise and demonstrate that there is nothing new under the sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Shira Greer Shira Greer is a rising sophomore from Fairfax, Virginia majoring in Political Science and minoring in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. This is her first summer working with the Race & Racism Project. On campus she is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2990,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[64820,64826],"class_list":["post-1608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-as-summer-fellows-2019","tag-shira-greer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2990"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/memory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}