Students from GW’s Latino community asked the Student Government Association to better advocate for Latino students and cultural organizations with the University at a forum in Monroe Hall on Thursday.
The SGA invited Latino students and student groups to share their experiences on campus and concerns about representation at GW for Latin Heritage Month, which GW celebrates from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. SGA leaders, including Vice President Ethan Lynne and Darianny Bautista, the SGA’s legislative director of diversity, equity and inclusion, said they want to help Latino students find campus community by boosting awareness of Latino organizations and on-campus heritage celebrations with the goal of ultimately improving communication between cultural groups and the SGA.
Javier Orellana — the president of UndocuGW, a student group dedicated to advocating for the rights of undocumented students — said he wants the SGA to push officials to implement a dream center, a dedicated campus space for immigrant and undocumented students to receive specialized support from the University.
He said GW already has the Cisneros Hispanic Leadership Institute — a research center that creates academic programming for Latino students — but a dream center could provide immigrant and undocumented students with extra support for navigating financial aid, legal assistance for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients and emotional counseling support.
“Immigrants and undocumented students can come and feel more supported,” Orellana said at the meeting. “For me, the closest support that I’ve had is the Hispanic Leadership Institute as well, I feel like there’s a little bit of a gap in understanding.”
Adriana Hernandez, the president of the Organization of Latin American Students at GW, said she wants the SGA to help grow “visibility” for Latino students by collaborating and hosting events with more Latino communities on campus and in Foggy Bottom.
She said she wants recognition for her community in more spaces than the Multicultural Student Services Center, which provides resources to cultural student organizations and plans programming during heritage months. She said the MSSC is an “incredible” student resource, but she wants her culture represented outside of that space as well as through more campus-wide events beyond heritage celebrations.
“I also don’t want visibility just to be focused on that floor of USC,” Hernandez said, referring to the MSSC’s office in the University Student Center. “Visibility means seeing the Latino community in all aspects, especially during LHC, not just that floor.”
Hernandez said she was happy to see the SGA leaders “stepping up” this year to represent different identity groups on campus through this month’s forum. She said it was “great” to see SGA senators who share her Latino identity, like SGA Sen. Claire Avalos (CCAS-U), present at the forum.
She said the forum was helpful to connect student groups with SGA leaders to demonstrate how they can advocate for students through future legislation and discussions with officials.
“It’s incredibly important as, this is not the real government, but as those who do represent us, it’s crucial for them to know what the Latin students on campus are seeking, our grievances and our concerns,” Hernandez said.
Bautista said this month’s conversation for Latin Heritage Month kicked off the series of upcoming student forums for other identity groups, like during Black History Month in February, as well as an interfaith forum in November for students celebrating holidays like Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.
She said she wants to hear from students outside of student group leadership to discuss challenges related to their identity on campus in an open format with SGA leaders.
“We want students to come in, tell us what you’re angry about, tell us what you’re feeling, tell us how we can better represent you because through that constructive and proactive dialogue is how we can truly better represent and create those initiatives and move forth with how we want student government to truly be on campus,” Bautista said.
She said SGA senators can forget that the body’s mission is to make students feel “seen and heard” because they’re aspiring to become a “politician,” which creates an “environment of unwelcomeness” in the body.
Bautista said she will host new mandatory DEI training sessions during executive sessions in SGA Senate meetings. She said these trainings will supplement the yearly training that SGA members receive from the MSSC at the annual SGA retreat that members attended earlier this month, which was a two-day event for SGA members to train on student government procedures and bond with others.
Bautista said she spoke with Vanice Antrum, the new director of the MSSC, and Jordan Shelby West, the associate vice provost of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement, who said they felt a sense of “competitiveness” among SGA members about how they propose and debate legislation.
She said senators need to be able to “disconnect” themselves to understand how the legislation they pass in the SGA should not be about their own opinions but instead the students they represent.
“The ability for a student to come and trust the people that are supposed to be representing them, I actually feel like it’s the bare minimum,” Bautista said. “The feedback that we get from these forums is how we’re going to be able to enhance these trainings and see where we want to go moving forward.”
Lynne said the forum is the body’s first step this year in building relationships with students from cultural organizations and showcasing the SGA as a “prominent” resource for students to voice their concerns and see tangible change. He said one of his goals coming into his vice presidency was to make the SGA more transparent to students.
He said he wants to introduce more “logistical bills” in the SGA Senate, like changes to the Code of Student Conduct and finance restructuring like adding a student representative to the University-Wide Programs Fund — a joint fund between the SGA and GW that allocates funding to student organizations for campus-wide events — to “actually make changes” that directly affect students and their organizations.
Lynne added that he would follow up with Orellana about speaking with officials to implement a dream center to fill that “gap” in their community.
“Are we representing students that come from different backgrounds that don’t just come from New Jersey?” Lynne said. “There’s so many different levels to it, I think that that’s where the SGA has completely faltered in the past, and why we now want to kind of do more of these and open it up, to bring in more people to the table.”
Lynne said he created the position of DEI director this year to serve as both an “internal and external” resource for students on the SGA and within the GW community.
“Right now, on campus diversity, equity, inclusion are more important than ever, so having someone that can serve as a director on our side and work with the dozens of staff members and senators that we have is super, super crucial,” Lynne said.
Brooke Forgette contributed reporting.
