Living Treasures Celebration - May 20, 2005

An evening of healing, friendship, family, and celebration.

We started our Living Treasures Celebration last year because we knew that the college needed a time every year for healing and renewal. We planned to hold our second LT Celebration towards the end of this academic year to honor Jack Surendranath and Rossie Norris, two Living Treasures who are retiring from the college. Jack was always an advocate for pluralism on President's staff and an excellent strategist. His caring and excellence as an instructor and administrator meant that any time he spoke in support of us we had an amazing amount of credibility. And Rossie--I remember a meeting with Jean Floten where Rossie (against all rules of chain of command) spoke the truth about the college being a long way from antiracist and demand in a voice that shook with fury that we need to do more. I realized that Rossie was in many ways a complement to Jean. As Jean challenged us to do more to grow and to be efficient and effective. Rossie challenged us to be more antiracist. Even though we are ahead of Harvard, we are a long way from getting it. There are more faculty of color being hired but the enrollment of students of color is flat. This is all the more lamentable when students of color are the largest growth population for our college. What will we do when Rossie leaves? Who will stand up and demand and continue to demand with the same heart?

Sharon Felton is a genius for thinking of Evan Flory-Barnes as our entertainment for the night. We wanted something very special for Jack and Rossie. Before Sharon got into the act, none of us could think of anything that would express the deep feelings of appreciation, of sadness, and, at the same time, happiness for them. Evan was a perfect choice because he's incredibly talented, he's handsome, and he is, of course, Linda Flory-Barnes' son. He embodies our aspirations for the future and why we all work so hard--it's for our children and their children. There is an incredible amount of world-class potential that is there to unleash. Only by fighting racism can we give them a chance to shine. Evan's band "The Threat of Beauty" performs exciting and innovative acoustic jazz. Only twenty-six, Evan has been acclaimed as a true rising star and has performed with some of the best of the new jazz world, including piano phenomenon Aaron Parks, with whom he recorded two CDs.  He's a graduate of the University of Washington. Evan's band played great background music as we ate and then they performed two of his compositions to express the place on the verge of a new world. His description and the incredible songs were just right to express the complex mix of feelings we have for Jack and Rossie.

It was appropriate to have a Living Treasure induct the new Living Treasures and they all did an excellent job because they spoke from the heart. Akemi Matsumoto spoke of how ironic it was that she was Phil Lucas' faculty mentor (all new faculty of color have faculty mentors) when he knew so much more than she did about even the Japanese Internment. Phil expressed how appreciative he was of the honor (Living Treasure as opposed to otherwise) and I can tell you that even with his Emmy and  Sundance awards, he was thrilled with being named a Living Treasure. Sharon Felton listed all the firsts that Helen Taylor had accomplished on behalf of pluralism including being the first Chair of the Pluralism Committee way back in 1991. Helen has done some major work with pluralism in curriculum development including the always fully-subscribed IDS course "Skin Deep." Helen talked about how her son remarked that she was reading Brown (by Richard Rodriguez) this year, and Yellow (by Frank Wu) last, and when was she going to be finished. She replied that she would never be finished, that this was a life's work. Alan Yabui spoke of Tom Nielsen's work behind the scenes to make pluralism happen. Tom brings such grace to everything he does including his acceptance speech. Those of us steeped in the tactics of civil disobedience really appreciate that Tom has the steely resolve to deliver the same message with such style. There were standing ovations for all our new Living Treasures. It was great to see them acknowledged.

The finale for the evening was the tribute to our retiring Living Treasures Jack and Rossie. The gorgeous Diane Harrison (also a Living Treasure) gave a hilarious tribute to Jack. She talked about how funny she thought Jack was the first night she met him and how he had a joke a minute. She learned after 23 years that it was the same eight jokes told many times. She talked about her family's skepticism about their interracial relationship and of how she had gone to places all over the world that she would never have gone to had it not been for Jack. And, she noted that in many of these places, they had met former students of Jack who had become doctors or other professionals. They all remembered Jack. It was great to get her loving and humorous perspective on Jack. Jack received his gift of a French oven from the Diversity Caucus and quipped that he'll cook something in it for the next LT Celebration. (Believe me, we would love to Jack's gourmet cooking at the next LT Celebration.) Jack reminisced about how he had arrived in the US for two years of graduate study and stayed a bit longer. He graciously thanked many people and introduced us to his two (very handsome) sons.

Last but not least, was Rossie's tribute. Students from the Black Student Union did it in fine form with balloons and flowers. One of the students talked about Rossie as his second mother and immediately you get an idea of Rossie's importance to their lives. He said that as long as he had Rossie's telephone number, she would be going to Africa with them every year. Then it was time for Rossie to speak and speak she did in her own inimitable style. She talked about growing up in the segregated "Jim Crow" south and moving to Seattle, originally thinking that she would work at Seattle Central. But as fate would have it, her neighbor, Sharon Felton, told her about an opening at Bellevue Community College. Rossie applied as was interviewed by Linda Flory-Barnes, who asked if she could live with "ambiguity." Rossie talked about how she came to know that it was her destiny to work at BCC that she had a mission here to fulfill. And she counseled us that when we face similar forks in the road, where one seems easy and the other hard, taking the hard road may lead to greater rewards. She thanked the groundskeepers, the maintenance people, people in campus operations like Mitchell Bland, Benayah Israel for supporting the BSU, and she spoke in strong support of the counselors whose ranks are been depleted with budget cuts. She introduced her (another handsome) son and goddaughter.

Courageous Conversations and Beyond Diversity

Racism is like the weather: you can’t get away from it. If this is not evident to you, Courageous Conversations is a good place to start exploring why.

An additional 40 people attended two days of training on having Courageous Conversations about racism with nationally recognized consultant Glenn Singleton, bringing the total number of people who have undergone this transformative training to over 140. Thanks to the strong recruiting efforts of the Diversity Caucus, we have over 90 people registered for the upcoming session in November 10 and 11,  2005 which will bring the total to well over 200. The goal of the conversations is to bring the college community to an understanding of the pervasiveness and debilitating effects of white privilege and institutional racism.

We share from the heart, we experience discomfort even pain, we cry, we realize betrayal, we try to deny, we get angry, and then we come to an understanding about the world as we’ve never seen it before. This understanding, this breaking down of the barriers, this new sense of community has been the reason for the renewal on campus. Courageous Conversations continue with five meeting times and an online session with Scott Bessho.

T

Employee Pluralism

Staff empowerment and leadership

The successful third annual Taste of BCC featuring the multicultural culinary artistry of our community in making soups was organized by Elizabeth Perrera.  Under the capable leadership of Juan Ulloa, the Employee Pluralism Committee has taken over the planning of the Beyond Diversity workshop and is recruiting for the next session planned for November 10 and 11, 2005. Efforts by the committee will be focused on hiring and recruiting in the next year. Although there has been much work on pluralism in our community, there has been little movement in getting the proportion of employees and faculty of color to meet or exceed the proportion of students of color.