This past Tuesday, February 23, Bryn Mawr College held its second Community Day of Learning. The first was held on March 18, 2015 and was focused on issues involving race and racism, both on and off-campus. This year’s theme was 'class'.
Throughout the day, students, faculty and staff attended one or two of multiple sessions including panels, discussions and workshops centered on one aspect related to the theme. The day is book-ended by the opening and closing sessions, in which the entire campus community is brought together to discuss and reflect upon questions raised during the day.
Many praise the Community Day of Learning for bringing together faculty, staff and students, allowing the community to gather and interact as equals. But the real value of the Community Day of Learning is to provide a space, both temporal and physical, to allow people to discuss important issues, particularly those underlying inequality in our society.
Bryn Mawr College makes a powerful statement by holding this day-long campus-wide discussion. All classes held on campus during the time the event was taking place were cancelled. It sends the message that there are things more important than classes, coursework or even careers. We’re all a part of something larger than us, and it infiltrates everything we do, yet we choose not to openly talk about or recognize it. There are deep, huge problems in society, and we aren't addressing them enough.
These are large, integral issues, and we can’t come anywhere close to solving or dealing with them by just spending a day discussing and deconstructing them, but it’s a step. And it’s far better than choosing to ignore them.
It also allows us to learn, which is a huge step. When we’re not openly discussing these topics, many of us remain largely ignorant. Sometimes we don’t know what we’re doing wrong or we don’t know the experiences of those less privileged than us, so we don’t know the extent of the issues. You can’t solve a problem if you can’t assess its scope.
Racism and classism are two factors accounting for a large amount of discrimination in our society. They construct hierarchies and inequalities which create barriers at every level, and it is going to take a lot of time and effort to change that.
College provides you with an education, but sometimes that education falls short. Sometimes, in the middle of focusing on schoolwork, we forget what’s important. Often, we ignore or put off focusing on the real problems. We forget what the real, essential issues are. We aren’t all taught how to address or reduce racism, or any other form of discrimination, inside a classroom.
Which is why it's important that we get a day to step outside of the classroom and discuss, address, think, reflect, recognize, identify and grapple with these ideas.
According to Bryn Mawr’s website, during the closing ceremony of last year’s Community Day of Learning, the keynote speaker, Reverend Charles Howard, University Chaplain at the University of Pennsylvania, said, “The privilege of the majority is to not care, to ignore the pain and cries of those at the margins. But you all have chosen differently. You have decided to pause and engage the difficult questions. Not with the intent of answering or solving them, rather with the hope of taking steps towards each other.”
It’s difficult and uncomfortable to talk about these concepts, especially when you’re in the privileged position, but it’s the right thing to do. In fact, it’s necessary.
