North Carolina State University wants to create segregated housing for black women on its campus, the The North Carolina State News reports.
This latest initiative is the brainchild of the university’s new director of multicultural student affairs, Nashia Whittenburg. The new “living and learning village” will be for women of color only, while Whittenburg also envisions celebrating cultural differences at the academic institution.
“There’s so much opportunity,” Whittenburg told the News. She envisions her responsibility as one of making students feel more separate and comfortable.
The university is already celebrating multiculturalism by separating its students from one another. There are no fewer than 16 “villages” on campus where students can fellowship with other students who are just like they are. There’s the Black Male Initiative village and the Women of Welch village that are designed to appeal to “special interests and particular demographics.”
Whittenburg is wasting no plans to create a village for black women, and has already presented her ideas to the university’s housing director. She hopes to have something in place by 2018 and to further enhance the university’s commitment to keeping students of different cultural backgrounds apart.
“The point and purpose is if you are a Latina and you are an engineering major, with a very specific specialization, you may not ever see anybody who looks like you,” Whittenburg says. “But when you come home, here is your opportunity to get some support and to deal with some of the microaggressions you might have had to deal with throughout your entire day when you’ve been at class.”
Whittenburg has a busy month ahead of her. Just next week she will open the Symposium for Multicultural Scholars that will bring together a plethora of diversity proponents to discuss race, ethnicity, gender identity and sexuality.
Whittenberg sees no end to villages or programs on campus, and she intends to maintain the existing ones, including Latino Heritage Month and Native American Heritage Month.
She says all academic institutions should be supporting multiculturalism and there are so many ways to do it, such as hiring on the basis of “diversity.”
As she segregates and enforces cultural differences, Whittenberg enthusiastically encourages everyone on campus to “get in, roll up your sleeves, [and] get ready to do the work.”