In light of graffiti containing hateful remarks on San José State campus, faculty and staff from the SJSU Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion hosted a campus climate forum Tuesday to allow students to voice concerns about the campus atmosphere.
The graffiti was found in multiple buildings on campus containing threats as well as racist, Islamophobia and anti-Semetic remarks, according to an Oct. 25 campus-wide email.
The forum began with a presentation from campus faculty and staff from the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
SJSU’s Chief Diversity Officer Kristin Dukes introduced the forum’s presentation, saying the campus needs to take opportunities to respond to instances like the recent graffiti being found.
“(I) recognize that this conversation might be challenging given the time, given where we are, given the divisiveness of our nation,” Dukes said. “We can encourage one another in the ways in which we speak, in the ways in which we show up, (and) in this space.”
The job of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is to make sure that the campus’s environment is welcoming to all students, according to the office’s web page.
“The work that we do (in) our campus climate is not a destination. It's a journey,” Dukes said. “Think about this as just part of the process, part of the engagement, part of the continual movement to be better.”
After Dukes concluded the presentation, she offered students the opportunity to speak about what problems are being faced with the campus climate.
Students attending the forum described the campus climate as disconnected, uninvolved, unsafe for the LGBTQIA+ community and not transparent.
Katelyn Gambarin, the director of Legislative Affairs for Associated Students (A.S.), said the biggest problem with the climate on campus comes from a lack of connection between students and staff.
“I would describe our current campus climate as disconnected,” Gambarin said. “I think that was the overarching theme that we heard, and I think it's still true. Part of that plays into the fact that a lot of us are coming out of the pandemic, so we're still learning how to reconnect with one another and be social.”
Around 44% of undergraduate students who went to college for an undergraduate degree in 2020 attended exclusively online classes, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Gambarin also highlighted how it’s been difficult for A.S. to maintain student participation despite the group’s attempts at outreach.
“There's definitely a shortfall when it comes to outreach. We as A.S. have done a lot of things to try to outreach to students, to learn more about what things matter to students and that can be a wide range of issues,” Gambarin said. “It becomes a question of if the organization that's supposed to be the student voice can't even get students to say how they're feeling, how can administration do that?”
Gambarin said A.S. was having a town hall meeting later the same day, but the organization had to incentivize students to come because of a low student turnout at its first town hall.
One common method for outreach at SJSU is social media because of its popularity.
Around 84% of adults aged 18 to 29 said they used social media in some way in a 2021 Pew Research Center survey.
Leonardo Plazola, A.S. director of student rights and responsibilities, said using social media can sometimes be ineffective in outreach.
“We have a difficult time hearing from our students ... Our election statement received a little bit under 150 likes on Instagram. I'm not one to really look at likes and care, but we have a population of 36,000 students and 10,000 followers,” Plazola said. “The issue isn't the (number) of students, clearly not. It's what that barrier (is) that's disconnecting from us and students, because we're trying really hard.”
This phenomenon of low interaction rates on Instagram can be seen on the SJSU main Instagram page as well, where the last 10 posts averaged about 411 likes.
Based on that data, SJSU Instagram page statistically has about a 0.6% interaction rate of likes.
John Paul Amaral, an employee at the Native American Indigenous Student Success Center, said the campus lacks the community that other CSU campuses seem to have.
“One of our students committed suicide recently because their parents were deported ... What do you do when you don’t have family?” Amaral said, crying. “When you have someone who doesn't know what to do ... Who are they to turn to? They’re not going to turn to people that they’ve never met before.”
Nearly 30% of Latino(a) people in California are undocumented immigrants or are living with an undocumented immigrant, according to a 2022 fact sheet from Unidos U.S.
Dukes said although the campus cannot prevent another instance of hateful graffiti being found on campus, there are still actions that can be taken to reduce harm.
“When we don't have control of a particular situation, we have to reclaim that control. And I think the way in which we can reclaim that control is by determining how we as a campus community respond to these incidents of hate,” Dukes said. “I see this campus forum (as) an opportunity for us to lead into being that community of mutual care.”
