December 9, 2016 - 23:57
I want to start by saying that I'm so glad I had the chance to do this project with Kate, as well as the chance to hear everyone else talk about their projects. Through these, I feel like I've learned so much, and had to do a lot of critical thinking about the formation and impacts of contact zones and comfort zones. While no one reached a neat conclusion, I think everyone walked away from the presentations with ideas of what could be done, as well as the comfort of knowing that others recognize the issues that impact your life. Even though there is still clearly a lot of work to be done to support marginalized students on campus and to expand our contact zones, just seeing these issues addressed in such a thoughtful manner gives me hope for the future.
For Kate and I's project specifically, I think we got some fairly concrete ideas about who should be approached to continue working on these issues. At Bryn Mawr, it seems like most of the official policies in palce are pretty progressive, but there's still work to be done in creating a culture on campus that isn't built around the assumption that all Bryn Mawr students identify as women. I think it would be helpful to show our project to the faculty members who run communications, as we've gotten several comments from our interviewees about the non-inclusive language used on the webiste and on Bryn Mawr's social media accounts. One of our interviewees talked about how, "There was thing I used to do, which was like a fucked up hobby, was going on Bryn Mawr’s Twitter account and just looking at every single time that they say the term Bryn Mawr women or alumnae, and I just tweet at them with the correction of just ‘students’ or ‘alumni’, like basically just spell checking them. They’ve never tweeted me back." We hope by taking the voices of these students directly to communications, that they may put more thought in the future into the language they use in Bryn Mawr's media. We'd also like to speak to the administration about more training for professors on how to correctly use pronouns and respect all student's gender identities. Additionally, as several other students discusseed in their presentations, there should be more conversations going on about the health center and counseling staff adresses the diverse needs and identities of students in providing mental and physical healthcare.
Overall, I hope that no one considers their projects over now. Everyone addressed such important and relevant issues, and noted what work there is still to be done, so I hope that everyone is walking away from this step of the project feeling inspired to continue to make change. I'm grateful for all of the people who spoke to Kate and I about their perspectives and experiences, as well as everyone else who helped our project come to fruition. They taught us how much work there still needs to be done, but they also gave us the hope and inspiration necessary to do that work to create a better future.