00:00:14.540 - 00:00:31.230

You didn't scare everyone off last week. We have some people filing in. Yay. We're at the end, end of the semester.

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Where people are working really, really hard. It's a little bit of suffering happening. Just a little, just enough suffering to let folks know they're in school,

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but there's just right on the horizon I feel is probably great joy. So, while folks, I'm sorry to... Since you're not talking just about the weekend.

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No, no, I feel like I'm talking about the end of the semester. I think a lot of folks are really excited about summer. Would you include yourself in that group?

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I'm a little excited about summer, but lately I've been in a constant state of excitement. So when the summer excitement happens there's just no telling what I'm gonna look like.

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Are you ready for a break? I'm ready, yeah, I think it's been such a year. And so many people that have been juggling so many things. And I know that everybody could use a little bit of a break.

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We're going to get a smallish break today again from having to carry the Doc Talks. We're getting a big hand from some student researchers that I'm excited now to introduce.

00:02:09.200 - 00:02:25.350

So these are a group of students from history 499, black at Rice. And we'll be hearing today from Soho Rizvi, Malaika Bergner, and Laura Welch Fitch.

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Two of them are students at the university and they'll tell you a little more about themselves when they go. One of them is a student at the university

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who is also a staff which is to say everyone at the university is kind of a student, but Miss Welch Fitch is a staff member at the university and I'm excited in history 499 to have a mix

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of university staff and undergraduates, no graduate students this year. And we do have one graduate student. I feel terrible Sister Bergner,

00:03:03.970 - 00:03:17.690

thank you very much for correcting me. You see, it's been a hard semester, Dr. McDaniel. You've said the number a few times but tell us about what this course is.

00:03:17.690 - 00:03:34.590

So history 499 is black at Rice. It focuses largely on oral history and oral history methodologies. And so here in the last quarter or so,

00:03:35.620 - 00:03:52.340

or third or so of the class, the students have been doing group projects and interviewing African-Americans associated with the university.

00:03:52.340 - 00:04:11.870

Before we get started and I have Ms. Rizvi introduce herself in her project, I'm gonna go ahead and put part of the work, part of their readings, at least two sections of the readings from the course in the chat.

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So if during the summer, some of our folks out in the audience want to follow along, that was, what I've just put into the chat is some of their preparation, and some really good books there,

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well chosen, Dr. McDaniel if I say so myself. So we're gonna begin with, Soha Rizvi and Ms. Rizvi how things go is you'll introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about your group's research project

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and because it's Doc talk, then you'll focus some on your interview and its relationship to your project and we're really excited to hear about how speaking to blacks at Rice has helped you learn more

00:05:07.180 - 00:05:18.770

about the university and beyond. So first step is Soha Rizvi, welcome to Doc Talk. Thank you, Dr. Byrd. Yes, hi, I'm Soha.

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I am a junior at Hanszen College and I'm majoring in chem, but I somehow find my found myself in this history class which I am so glad I did. And I did my project with Tiffany Rechsteiner

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and Tyree Thorton in our class and they're lovely. And we decided to do a project on black athletes at Rice, particularly their experiences with finding community and academic support at Rice.

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And this was particularly interesting to us because Tyra is a black football player at Rice. So he was especially really excited to do this. And it made a lot of sense to do it.

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And because of him, we have been able to like easily reach out to people and the black students in the athletics departments at Rice. And so he helped me get in contact with Michelle Fokam

00:06:08.750 - 00:06:22.550

who is the first person that I have interviewed and the person I'm gonna talk about today. She is a track athlete at Rice who competes in triple jump and long jump, which I did not know what those were before,

00:06:22.550 - 00:06:36.500

I researched her, but they look very difficult and you need a lot of strength in your legs for that. And she matriculated in 2016 and decided to stay for fifth year this year

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after COVID affected the athletic events last year. And she hopes to become a professional track athlete after Rice. We chose her for several reasons.

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One being that some of our interviewees are older and we wanted a perspective on what the Rice environment is now for black athletes as compared to in the past. And she allows us to contrast the perspective

00:07:00.970 - 00:07:12.570

of a current student with an alum, because we suspect that the time after graduating could change the perspective shared an oral history interview a lot. And additionally, we wanted the perspective

00:07:12.570 - 00:07:22.680

of a black female athlete to compare to the experiences of black male athletes. So interviewing Michelle was amazing, she had so much to share.

00:07:22.680 - 00:07:35.680

But unfortunately and it made a lot of sense. But what she shared is that she did not have a great Rice experience as the balance of coursework and the exhausting hours of daily training is something

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that like even as a fifth year, she's still navigating. And on top of that, being black made her feel isolated from a sense of community on campus. She wasn't really involved with her residential college

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and she still doesn't feel comfortable in general being on campus, because she feels like she's out there alone when she's on campus. And then on top of that,

00:07:58.530 - 00:08:11.250

being an athlete isolated her further from non-athletes even black non-athletes at Rice. But she is extremely accomplished in her field of track and field, and has won many titles.

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And she shared a lot of valuable advice and perspective on how Rice can better support black student athletes by providing them more access to opportunities, instead of kind of leaving them

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to find everything for themselves. And I chose a small clip from the audio of our interview that I went to play that kind of highlights some of the advice that she gave which I think

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is really valuable for us to have, because there's not that many athletes and there's not that many black athletes, so her perspective is like kind of like

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what we should be acting on. So I will play that audio, I can share my screen. (mumbling) Although I was saying like,

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"mmh, mmh" a lot during the interview you're gonna see in here a bit of me too. Can you hear the audio? Okay, I'll reshare it.

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Does it put the barrier for the reason I can hear a lot of bless you athletes, is because being at rice it's already such a great opportunity. It is like for some people, it is probably like one

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of the biggest things that's happened to them in their lives, for me too, me too, I'm not even leaving myself. It truly is like that one pivotal moment in my life.

00:10:05.270 - 00:10:15.520

And it is that way for so many other people. So we look at it and we come with like big eyes, instead of realizing that this place is our oyster. Yeah.

00:10:15.520 - 00:10:24.790

But that's like people don't tell us that this place they're just like, you're here to be a student athlete, you should be very grateful, you should be grateful that you're here,

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no other way around, they should be grateful that I'm here. And that is the type of mindset that I want all my black students have lectured and to take, but it's hard, it is hard to gain that mindset

00:10:37.780 - 00:10:50.860

because you have to break a lot of things down and reflect on a lot of things to then make that happen to have that thought process. So, one thing I'm gonna take into the next interview

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is that I'm gonna be myself while the other person is talking. A technical change. Exactly, I'm trying to be like supportive

00:11:01.920 - 00:11:15.170

while she talked, but I think, I'll leave that on next to but so yeah, I really appreciated the things she had to say. And in light of the interview, I wanna focus more of what I write

00:11:15.170 - 00:11:29.310

on the isolation I experienced by black athletes because that is what she talked about the most that she really like did not feel a sense of community from like, you know, like she has individual friendships

00:11:29.310 - 00:11:41.180

but she didn't feel a strong sense of community at Rice. And then one topic that I didn't get a chance to explore with her that I would like to in my next interview, explore more is how the environment

00:11:41.290 - 00:11:52.500

of her team and how its racial makeup and the racial identity of her coaches might have impacted her. But yeah, we learned a lot from her interview

00:11:52.500 - 00:12:05.590

and it was really exciting because we were able to now contrast it with one of our other informants. Tammy who is a basketball player who recently graduated from Rice and kind of had similar feelings

00:12:05.590 - 00:12:17.710

of isolation saying that she really didn't get that Rice experience that everyone talks about which is very similar to what Michelle said. So, yeah, that is my research.

00:12:19.470 - 00:12:31.090

Thanks so much, Ms. Rizvi. Thank you for sharing that. I'm curious as somebody who was not in the class, if you could and somebody who works mostly

00:12:31.090 - 00:12:46.820

in the 19th century, so oral history is not usually an option as a method for historians like myself. So I'm curious, what sorts of questions did you bring into the interview or how did you structure the interview

00:12:46.820 - 00:13:08.360

and did you learn some particular sort of best practices for oral history that you applied in this conversation? Yeah, so Dr. Byrd gave us a set of like example questions that we could go off of which we use pretty heavily

00:13:08.360 - 00:13:23.260

and then added some specific questions about athletics. And I tried to go in a chronological order and just to give her more cohesion and how she was going to tell her story so that her thoughts could build off

00:13:23.260 - 00:13:39.910

of what she had said already. But generally I kept it more open-ended in the beginning because I didn't want to push her in any direction of what she thought I wanted her to talk about.

00:13:39.910 - 00:13:51.250

So I asked her like, some of the questions what were your motivations for coming to Rice? Can you describe your transition to life at Rice and things like that?

00:13:51.250 - 00:14:03.220

And then going through time, what were some of your best experiences at Rice? What were there any moments where you felt unwelcome? Did you feel like you had a support system?

00:14:03.220 - 00:14:17.610

Those were the kind of like more general questions that I asked, and then depending on what she said I would probe a little further into kind of the, because I found, and also my other people in my group found

00:14:17.610 - 00:14:25.210

that in their interviews, if they didn't ask more specific questions about Rice, it wasn't actually coming up a lot, as much as like we are interested in for our essay.

00:14:25.210 - 00:14:37.550

And so I kind of had to find a balance of asking more about that, but also not wanting her to feel like that's the only thing I cared about and she wasn't, you know,

00:14:37.550 - 00:14:55.810

not everything else she's talking about, so. Miss, I'm gonna ask a question that may not have an answer and so don't worry about it if you're not quite ready to answer, but you elude, right?

00:14:56.100 - 00:15:13.150

When we came back from your clip you allude to your participation in the interview in a way. you alluded to it in a humorous way, right? "I'm going to mute myself moving forward."

00:15:13.470 - 00:15:28.690

But then later in your remarks to Dr. McDaniel, I think you also implicitly point to a question of the intertwined, I don't know what this means what I'm about to say, the intertwined subjectivities

00:15:28.690 - 00:15:52.050

of the interviewer and the interviewee. And so I found it interesting that your research group, which is racially diverse, found that in a project on black athletes at Rice, that getting them to talk

00:15:52.090 - 00:16:09.060

about race, didn't just tumble out. And I'm curious about about how you explain that if you want to, you don't have to explain just how you think about it, and I'm particularly interested

00:16:09.060 - 00:16:27.000

in the ways you think that your position as an interviewer, do you feel like it had an effect on what was shared and exchanged? Yeah, I think so, we talked about it in class

00:16:27.000 - 00:16:38.630

but I didn't realize how much it would have an effect that when I was interviewing, I felt like I realized like every subtle thing that I said or how I phrased the question really gave her clues as to what,

00:16:39.680 - 00:16:49.060

basically what I wanted her to talk about. And I felt like she was trying to say what I was interested in because she knew it was for a paper.

00:16:49.060 - 00:17:00.910

And I tried to, I assumed it would be... So Tiffany did the first interview before me and she was the one who also note that race wasn't coming up as much.

00:17:00.910 - 00:17:09.890

And so knowing that going into this interview I was very clear as like black at Rice, black student athlete interview, I wanna find out more about your experience as a black student athlete

00:17:09.890 - 00:17:21.730

is to kind of signal that. Well, first of all, that that's what we want to talk about and that it's okay to talk about that and I thought maybe because me and Tiffany are not black

00:17:21.730 - 00:17:38.630

like our interviewees or our informants might've felt inclined to not, like to avoid that subject. And because they wouldn't know our reactions to it, even though like, despite us introducing ourselves

00:17:38.940 - 00:17:51.170

as being members of this class. So that's what I suspect. I'll stop talking after this I promise, so that we can go on, right?

00:17:51.170 - 00:18:12.650

I also, at the beginning of the course, we did an exercise with some folks from the Federal Writers Project who were interviewed as ex-slave narratives in the 1930s, and so at the same time that you articulate

00:18:12.650 - 00:18:30.350

that reticence, that your group felt came through with some of your informants, and that exercise from the 1930s we saw just really two very different stories when a white interviewer came to an ex slaves house

00:18:30.350 - 00:18:43.960

and when the one instance where we have one person interviewed by a black interviewer and a white interviewer. And so the other thing that I also saw

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is even though overall you see this reticence, the story that's eventually shared in that year that you're drawn to seems pretty straight forward and raw and honest, I'm analyzing on the fly, right?

00:19:10.780 - 00:19:27.240

And so that's not a question, right? It's just an observation. So I'd be really interested in what that moment looks like that you shared when contextualized by the entire interview

00:19:27.830 - 00:19:51.380

and how you came to that moment. I'm using silence for pedagogical value. One more question, this is it, there's a really strong point of view given at the end of the interview

00:19:51.380 - 00:20:08.040

and one informed by growth, right? There seems to be a certain historical tack that Fokam has taken with you, and part of that is because I guess you've designed the interview in that way,

00:20:09.490 - 00:20:24.700

in discussions with your members of your team, have y'all talked any about transitions about the way transformations in the ways that black athletes think about Rice over time,

00:20:24.700 - 00:20:39.190

your informant gives us really good details on a transformation over these five years. This is the mindset, she's very clear on what the mindset should be when black athletes,

00:20:39.190 - 00:20:51.820

student athletes into the university, has your team shared any similar stories about growth and transformation and thinking about Rice with some of your older informants.

00:20:54.060 - 00:21:05.540

Actually, so I have my interview with one of the older informants today, this evening, and another one coming up on this weekend since we reached out to a lot of people

00:21:05.540 - 00:21:17.320

because we weren't sure who would get back to us. So we haven't been able to get their perspectives yet but that is something we're looking forward to because I imagine if there is, as Michelle described

00:21:17.530 - 00:21:27.620

like such limited support now it must have been that much more difficult back then but also potentially could have been quite similar because there's not that much.

00:21:27.620 - 00:21:37.960

It doesn't seem like there has been that much improvement or like that there is that much existing right now anyway, yeah. Thanks, Miss Rizvi.

00:21:39.000 - 00:21:51.170

All right, we're going on to our second group, which consists of Ms. Welch Fitch and Ms. Bergner, I don't know who's gonna get us going but I'm excited to hear about your project

00:21:51.170 - 00:22:13.650

and some of your initial findings. Hi, well, so I wanted to tell you a little bit about one of our wonderful informants Emani Brown. Miss Welch Fitch, you've got to tell us a little bit

00:22:13.650 - 00:22:28.080

about yourself first. Oh, I forgot that part, I'm just so excited about Emani. I'm Laura Welch Fitch, I'm a Rice staff member and a Baker College resident associate.

00:22:28.930 - 00:22:43.830

And I decided to audit this class because I find Rice history fascinating. And I thought this was a interesting way to look at a specific part of Rice history.

00:22:45.280 - 00:22:56.900

And I just wanted to learn more and I've been completely delighted to be in the class and I feel like I've learned a lot so far, and I'm especially excited about the work we're doing

00:22:56.900 - 00:23:08.600

with the oral histories, Emani brown. Can I go to Emani now? It's occurred to me that sister Bergner should probably introduce herself...

00:23:08.600 - 00:23:26.520

And then we can go off. Okay, hello I'm Malaika and I am a rising junior from my college and I'm majoring in social policy analysis and I'm taking up the new minor in African-American studies.

00:23:27.690 - 00:23:42.450

I'm very excited about that. And I also decided to take this class cause I enjoy writing about history and I enjoy taking classes with Dr. Byrd. And I was very excited to interview people again

00:23:42.450 - 00:24:01.310

because I find interviewing very fun and oral history is you know, different kind of interview than I'm used to. So I was excited to try out this, you know, kind of historical interviewing, so yeah.

00:24:06.100 - 00:24:23.610

So now we know who we're talking to and now we'll get into the work. Do you want us to introduce our topic first or the, yeah. Okay, so our group project is specifically looking

00:24:23.930 - 00:24:43.740

at black women leaders in the Black Student Union and the Black Student Association. One of our interviewees that we'd like to highlight today is Emani Brown, who is a very recent women leader

00:24:46.070 - 00:24:55.900

in the Black Student Association. I would say she was a student leader and one of the most difficult periods for all of our student leaders and recent Rice history,

00:24:55.900 - 00:25:07.630

I'll say that the college presidents have also had a lot of challenges. So she had a lot of interesting things to say. She's a leader in various other organizations

00:25:07.630 - 00:25:24.700

across campus as well, so she brings a breadth and depth of experience, which we found helpful. She's worked as a Rice health advisor, she's been involved in us there, the Hispanic Association

00:25:24.700 - 00:25:42.950

for Cultural Enrichment at Rice, and she's a psychology major in pre-law. We chose her because of her recent leadership and we wanted to also compare her experience with some very early leaders

00:25:45.240 - 00:25:58.620

in the black student union which we're currently working on collecting and sorting through right now. She was a very intriguing subject because she's so involved in campus across so many different things.

00:26:00.000 - 00:26:15.210

And anyway, like I said, we're hoping to interview more people from the BSA and BSU across time so that we can see how things have changed, but also look for themes that have been consistent, you know

00:26:15.290 - 00:26:35.230

across the black student experience since integration. Yeah, so like Ms. Welch Fitch mentioned, Emani knows quite a lot about, you know just canvas in general, but specifically

00:26:35.230 - 00:26:54.270

in her leadership position at the BSA this year. She helped us kind of understand, as we were talking to her the importance of advocacy as a student leader as a black student leader on campus, just pushing, you know

00:26:54.270 - 00:27:07.560

higher ups or the administration for the things that you want. And in her case, that was events that she wanted to see, specifically the black excellence gala which she advocated

00:27:07.560 - 00:27:22.300

for and organized and it was the first one of its kind, the very first black excellent scallop. And I'm gonna share a quote from her interview that, informs us more about what this was like for her.

00:27:22.300 - 00:27:35.110

So she says, I think that one of my favorite memories would be the black excellence gala that happened last year. Just being able to see so many of us together in one space and a space that was for us, you know,

00:27:35.110 - 00:27:52.560

it wasn't something that was like, it was made by us and it was made for us and just seeing how happy people. So that was the quote that would inform us more about, you know, this idea of black space and advocating

00:27:52.560 - 00:28:08.840

for these black spaces and black centered events on campus. So this idea of space is something that we as a group want to explore more in our research and as we write our final paper.

00:28:08.840 - 00:28:25.890

We think that it's very interesting how Emani brought up that idea of space being made for us by us. It's been a persistent theme since Rice became integrated as we found out through our research.

00:28:26.820 - 00:28:44.450

In 1972, actually this proposal for a black student union center came about by one of the chairman of the BSU at the time. And it specifically asked for a black space essentially.

00:28:46.090 - 00:29:04.170

And I find that interesting because it's eerily similar to the demand that was made more recently in 2020 on the black students demand list, having a black house that has all of the facilities of a residential college,

00:29:04.170 - 00:29:22.460

but one that is non-residential. So just seeing just, yeah, juxtaposing 1972 to 2020 was really interesting for us in our research. Seeing that space, particularly black space is a theme that

00:29:22.690 - 00:29:38.440

you know, has persisted across time for all of these black student leaders is something that we definitely want to keep researching. Yeah, and I guess I'll share something else.

00:29:38.440 - 00:29:55.950

I found something on the current BSA's website that was actually a really beautiful photographic for the incoming class of 2020 for prospective students. You know, since this year was pretty crazy

00:29:55.950 - 00:30:15.580

with the pandemic and all, and every other, you know, event that happened before, you know, this year new students that, you know, were thinking of applying or not applying to Rice, but choosing Rice versus other schools needed

00:30:15.580 - 00:30:31.200

to know what Rice was about especially for black students in the black experience. So I say all that to introduce a statement that the all black clubs kind of coalition put out

00:30:31.200 - 00:30:42.720

and it talks about black space. So they say everyone's experience is different, and whether you are into partying or not, we create spaces for us to enjoy

00:30:42.720 - 00:30:56.770

if one already does not exist. Examples, movie nights, black crawl, game nights, et cetera. It is also worth noting that the black community is always here for you, whether you have never been involved

00:30:56.770 - 00:31:08.680

or you are the most involved member. At a PWI, which is a predominantly white institution there are unavoidable issues that reflect the issues we see black people go through in the real world.

00:31:08.680 - 00:31:22.690

However, the Rice black community is a family and navigates through issues that concerned black students in unity, not singularity. So that is all I have and we're open to questions now.

00:31:33.580 - 00:31:45.150

Thank you for that. Ms. Welch Fitch and sister Bergner, that was fantastic. Sister Bergner don't... If you're doing three things at once is hard,

00:31:45.150 - 00:31:59.960

I know it's impossible for me to do it, but if you can, while I drone on with my question, if you could also put the link to that statement from the BSA page in the chat, I know that our attendees

00:32:01.020 - 00:32:17.080

will benefit from it and they may have some questions about it. The first question that comes to mind to me, for Ms. Brown's focus on space, Emani's focus on space,

00:32:18.720 - 00:32:42.380

and your mention of this year, does she treat the particular problematics of this pandemic year and the opportunities but also, I guess, the obstacles of, of virtual space.

00:32:42.410 - 00:33:02.110

And do you see in what she has to share about this year, any connections to previous struggles among black students on campus? Ms. Welch Fitch started by focusing

00:33:02.110 - 00:33:16.410

on the particular problems of this year, but what that also raises for me and might raise for a alumni in the audience as well, is other really trying times, right?

00:33:16.410 - 00:33:36.140

So this has been a really hard year but I imagine '68, right, was another tough year, right? That we can imagine other watersheds in African American history.

00:33:36.140 - 00:33:55.600

And, so now I've asked two questions, but I'll let it go from there. She did address the challenges of space in this. And in some ways there were some positive outcomes

00:33:55.600 - 00:34:09.180

because there was more support for creative spaces. And we don't just mean physical spaces the space that we're in now is a space that we're coming together and having

00:34:09.180 - 00:34:27.060

a rent around a certain topic and discussion. So Zoom of course, has been a way to engage folks but there have also been creative adaptive spaces added to campus, and while not exclusively for the BSA

00:34:27.060 - 00:34:43.740

for all of our students and staff and faculty, there's been a lot of tents added, some are open tents, some were semi-closed and this is actually expanded the amount of space that students have to host events

00:34:43.740 - 00:34:57.300

and in a semi sheltered area, I'm sure a lot of the audience is from Houston or lived in Houston. So they're familiar with the, you know, it can rain on the drop, you know, really quickly and frequently.

00:34:57.300 - 00:35:07.800

So planning events outdoors had previously been a lot more challenging, I think. And sister Bergner, you might wanna talk a little bit about the picnic, maybe.

00:35:11.550 - 00:35:28.520

Yes, so Emani was able to elaborate on some of the events that were planned by the BSA and by her this year, one of those being picnics which actually took place outside in those tents

00:35:28.520 - 00:35:45.350

that Rice put up for, you know, temporary events and things like that for this year. So that was pretty much the only physical space that black students in the BSA were able to meet

00:35:45.350 - 00:35:59.310

with one another in official BSA gatherings. But besides that, like Ms. Welch Fitch mentioned it was mostly remote on Zoom. So that was a very different landscape

00:35:59.310 - 00:36:21.040

that the BSA leadership had to navigate for their students for their members and trying to cultivate community in that setting. My next question is about Emani's take

00:36:21.040 - 00:36:43.670

on making space, right? We sister Bergner in your note about previous BS use and BSA's requesting space that focuses on one avenue, right?

00:36:43.670 - 00:36:59.770

Of a black space making at the university but you also allude to what I'm gonna call and which isn't maybe not the best word but kind of taking space or colonizing space on campus

00:37:00.940 - 00:37:20.660

or making space maybe not meant for black students. And re-purposing it in your interviews with Emani or your work elsewhere, can you talk some about what that looks like or has looked like

00:37:20.660 - 00:37:40.870

in the recent pass at the university? I think that I can speak a little bit outside of, you know the scope of our informant. She didn't mention this, but from what I've been able

00:37:40.870 - 00:37:59.160

to observe on campus, I would say that the new multicultural center, which has been moved from the RMC, the Rice Memorial Student Center basement to now the old housing and dining house,

00:37:59.920 - 00:38:18.300

so that's where the new MCC is. Well, that location has, you know of course then redone and revamped to better fit like multicultural needs and serve as a center for students to host things and study

00:38:18.300 - 00:38:29.410

and things like that. But from what I've seen, the BSA as well as the Rice African Student Association which is another black student organization

00:38:29.410 - 00:38:47.840

they have really been able to, you know, kind of use that space to host things officially and unofficially and have it as a gathering space for black students, and I think that I would attribute maybe

00:38:47.840 - 00:39:09.820

that to the fact that CJ runs the MCC. He is part of the multicultural just center. And I think that having someone on the inside who also is black has really just allowed these black students

00:39:09.820 - 00:39:26.630

to feel safe in that space and be able to have things, have meetings in that space. So, that is definitely a place that students have been able to not take over but claim since a specific space

00:39:28.130 - 00:39:45.250

for black students hasn't been given to them, they've been able to use that. I'm curious not to go back a little bit to Dr. Byrd's question about this year

00:39:45.250 - 00:40:00.300

and several of you mentioned the uniqueness of this past year, both as a pandemic year and as a year where there has been bring just renewed movements and struggle and conversations around racial injustice

00:40:00.300 - 00:40:13.830

on campus and beyond it. And Dr. Byrd also mentioned there been earlier years in Rice history where we can imagine there would be other you know, contingencies about that moment

00:40:13.830 - 00:40:26.460

that might shape the experiences of students at the time. So I'm curious how that affects the work you do as oral historians, because we've talked about the subjectivity and interviewers,

00:40:27.320 - 00:40:37.830

we've talked about change over time, but also continuity over time, and in the kinds of things that come up between generations. But I wonder if you could say a little bit more

00:40:37.830 - 00:40:55.700

about how the time in which the interview is actually conducted might shape what comes out in the conversation with a particular informant. Have you reflected on about that at all in doing this work?

00:41:03.200 - 00:41:18.180

Well, I'm speculating here, but, you know Zoom while wonderful has particular constraints especially on body language and, you know, they've done a lot of studies showing how people have

00:41:18.180 - 00:41:34.250

to concentrate more in a different way, and it can cause some weird, it can impact the conversation in a way that I don't think it's to the oral history process.

00:41:34.250 - 00:41:50.990

So that was a minor challenge. I think that the the folks we've interviewed so far were very adaptable to that. So and we got lucky in that the women

00:41:53.670 - 00:42:11.450

that we're working with are comfortable with the medium. I do have a sense that if we had been able to meet in person and maybe have a small group, like, or have our group there it might've had a different dynamic

00:42:11.450 - 00:42:28.790

that might've facilitated more natural conversation. I think the conversations would have been longer. You know, those are just a few thoughts on the particular but of course the plus side is that we were able

00:42:28.790 - 00:42:43.070

to have a very convenient interview with folks who are across the country, right. We didn't have to travel to meet in person, so that was an advantage.

00:42:51.750 - 00:43:05.950

Before we move on to questions from the audience, some that Miss. Rizvi has been furiously answering in the Q&A already. So we may not, well, maybe not furiously for show,

00:43:07.970 - 00:43:21.630

she's fast. See, while you were Miss Welch Fitch talking about the facility that all of us have gained on Zoom, Rizvi was demonstrating it while listening.

00:43:23.480 - 00:43:45.580

My question is for both groups in as much as what you had to say often touched on questions of isolation and addressing isolation and issues particular to campus. It makes me curious about what the role

00:43:45.580 - 00:44:05.760

of beyond the university is in terms of building and maintaining black community. And so I'm interested in what you might be able to share with us if you learned anything about

00:44:05.760 - 00:44:20.980

what it means or has meant to live off campus, what might off-campus communities look like and do your informants talk any about any special or remarkable spaces off campus

00:44:20.980 - 00:44:42.820

that they consider their own? So my informant didn't specifically talk about the spaces that she found off campus, but she did know a few times that something that contributed to the isolation was that

00:44:42.820 - 00:44:51.980

when she came in the black students, the other black students from her residential college were all living off campus, so she didn't feel like she had those people to welcome her and or those people to just talk

00:44:51.980 - 00:45:01.050

to in commons that a lot of other people found. And then she talked about how then she ended up moving off campus and how it's unfortunate that it's a cycle

00:45:01.050 - 00:45:21.490

but it also makes sense that it's really hard to break. I could be wrong, but on that point there have been surveys sent out by William Admin. I'm sure there's been other people but surveys

00:45:21.490 - 00:45:33.350

that ask the black students here at Rice questions about their experience. And I would like to find it, I'm sure it's somewhere accessible to people

00:45:33.350 - 00:45:49.830

but I think that students have been able to talk about their experience in wanting to leave campus. And if you compare that black students wanting to leave campus to other students who actually want

00:45:49.830 - 00:46:02.720

to come back for let's say their senior year, it's very different. And I think that speaks to just comfortability on campus for black students, and again,

00:46:02.720 - 00:46:17.780

like wanting a space for their own and perhaps they're not able to find that in their residential college. Thank you, so we've got a few questions from the audience.

00:46:19.720 - 00:46:43.980

I'm gonna begin with one that asks for reflections on contrast between the 1970s and now, so Brenda James asks, as a student from the early 1970s, we had relatively few African-American students

00:46:43.980 - 00:47:04.290

but we were very close, it seems that the closeness has been lost because there are more black students but they are more isolated from each other. So James is asking, I think for us to reflect on what looks

00:47:04.290 - 00:47:25.790

to be an irony, but in the black experience at the university, there's no time that you can research the black discourse on campus where you won't find something that says more black students,

00:47:28.430 - 00:47:45.660

can we get more students on campus? And bring the James is raising the point that in the 1970s, of course, there were relatively few, I imagine somewhere in the order of three or two or 4% and we're at an area now

00:47:47.440 - 00:48:09.140

where we have significantly increased the number of black students. But I saw a type of isolation seems to define the experience which she contrasts with the experience that is at the top

00:48:09.140 - 00:48:31.760

of her mind right now for the 1970s. Any reflections on that? I may have droned on too long, I can do it in 30 seconds. This is, right, I'll ask it more provocatively.

00:48:35.430 - 00:48:51.650

Should we reduce the number of black students on campus in order to increase closeness? That's as provocative as I can ask it. The answer to that is no, right?

00:48:51.650 - 00:49:13.590

And so I'm just trying to get some response. Is there any reflection on what numbers means for experience? Oh, I wonder, I don't know the breakdown of block students

00:49:13.590 - 00:49:32.830

who are athletes versus not athletes, but as far as the point part, that I responded to in the Q&A I think I'm wondering if maybe the reason that the person I interviewed felt so much isolation

00:49:32.830 - 00:49:44.240

even from black non-athletes is because there are now much more like black non-athletes than there were before, like maybe the ratio has changed. And so they're able to find like their own sense

00:49:44.240 - 00:49:57.130

of community that is not, like that depends on things that now that athletes can't relate to sometimes. I see that

00:50:02.760 - 00:50:19.550

I think there's a consistent theme that the colleges could do more. Like there wasn't a negative experience for the early students we talked to

00:50:19.550 - 00:50:33.230

but it wasn't a positive necessarily either. And since that's something we really think of as being tied to Rice student experience, you know, and this is part of this as being influenced

00:50:33.230 - 00:50:47.070

by my role as a resident associate and what my students have asked me for. I do think there are ways the college can create colleges could creatively try to create more space

00:50:47.070 - 00:51:04.220

within the college, so that even if students are choosing to live off campus they feel welcome to come to the college like they're still part of the college, that takes time and thought and effort and discussion.

00:51:06.060 - 00:51:21.220

So, and we were starting to experiment with some of that a little bit, a bigger college with great support from our Magister and the Dean of undergraduates and several other offices helping us with that.

00:51:21.220 - 00:51:33.310

And then the pandemic hit because everything was event focused, right? Like creating spaces together for events and events have been quite hampered the past year.

00:51:33.310 - 00:51:43.160

And students are on so many Zooms all day, and I'm on Zooms all day. And, you know, at the end of the day, people don't always want to join another Zoom.

00:51:43.160 - 00:51:56.220

So I'm hopeful that we can reignite some of that excitement in the coming year when things loosen up a little bit, because I do think that could be one area that could be interesting to explore.

00:51:57.310 - 00:52:08.440

And then that has perhaps been under underutilized or inconsistent depending on the core team supporting the college and the students in the college what they're advocating for.

00:52:12.630 - 00:52:36.760

I think y'all are building a real resource, right? That documents, black thinking about campus and on campus over time that can be useful to folks thinking about the organization of space on campus

00:52:36.760 - 00:52:54.700

in a large sense, but also more specifically in the colleges and how, and whether they can be reorganized in ways that speak to the the interests that come through the conversations with people

00:52:55.160 - 00:53:13.880

that you're talking with. I was about to make up an event in my head that had to do with you all and your work with these informants and bringing people around

00:53:13.880 - 00:53:31.610

to grapple with some of the issues that are raised with these informants over time. And not just grapple for fun, but to grapple toward an end of trying things out that may lead

00:53:31.610 - 00:53:48.470

to necessary improvements on campus. Thanks so much for coming to hang out with us in yet another Zoom, and before your next Zoom, if your Fridays are full of Zooms,

00:53:48.470 - 00:54:02.910

thanks so much, Ms. Welch Fitch, sister Bergner, Ms. Rizvi it is a pleasure and an honor to have you with us here on this Friday, and I hope that you'll come back in the fall.

00:54:04.020 - 00:54:15.380

Thanks very much for being with us and sharing your important work. And thanks for having us. And thanks to everyone in the audience

00:54:15.380 - 00:54:32.630

for your questions as always, and your attendance and keep an eye on our website at taskforce.edu or announcements about the documents schedule going forward for now, have a great weekend, and everyone be well.