Posted at 10:00 p.m. 3/1/10

As Black History Month comes to a close, a panel of students came together last Thursday to discuss what it’s like to be black in Eau Claire.

Seniors Tamika Marchbanks and Kiri Cooney and junior Dawn Franklin-Erickson led the event, entitled “Students’ Expectations in the Classroom,” sponsored by the Black Student Association. The discussion allowed the three multicultural students to talk about their past experiences with other students and professors and suggest ways for professors to ease any tension in the classroom.

Marchbanks, founder of BSA, said she thought the topic will be beneficial to the audience and feels it’s good to promote events like this.

“People ask us questions about this all the time,” she said. “I feel it’s important to talk about because there are so few of us on campus.”

Some of the issues the students discussed came from the way professors treat multicultural students in class. Cooney said she wants people to know about some of the general things professors do that bother her, and hopefully she can help them to see her point of view.

“A lot of times they single you out in class, and they automatically remember your name,” she said. “There are some topics, phrases, words that cause you to feel isolated.”

Franklin-Erickson said during the discussion that professors in the classroom sometimes put her on the spot.

“We will be talking about something, and sometimes I get asked ‘what’s the perspective of the black community?’ But I don’t know what the whole perspective of my group is,” she said. “I just know how I feel about it.”

Freshman Kayla Hasse attended the discussion for a class assignment and said she was interested to see what the panelists had to say.

“I want to take everything in and hopefully see what brought them here to campus,” she said. “I don’t think people realize we have such a diverse population.”

BSA advisor and history professor Selika Ducksworth-Lawton moderated the event and said this was an especially important event for other professors to attend.

“I think faculty need to hear from students because we sometimes make assumptions about the way things are, and hearing it from the students themselves is very important,” Ducksworth-Lawton said.

She said that in her own classroom she focuses on doing things that not only benefit the minority, but benefit the majority, as well.

“I try to focus on habits that are effective instead of focusing on race,” she said.

English professor and Equity, Diversity, Inclusiveness Fellow David Shih said he learned a lot from the discussion and the students and will share this information with his colleagues.

“Well, as a professor, I think it’s important for us to be concerned that all students are successful,” he said. “. If something we’ve done has made their learning experience more challenging, then we need to learn how to correct it.”