Natalie Gross from Sarah Lawrence College

One of the biggest problems faced by diversity professionals is that of isolation. There are few pre-existing spaces for them to gather and meet each other, especially across different industries. To help combat this, every month I will profile a different diversity professional. In the course of the interview, you’ll not only get to hear about the kind of work this person is doing, you’ll also be able to benefit from the resources, strategies, and tips they share with you.

By Carmen Van Kerckhove

Name:
Natalie Gross

Title:
Director of Diversity and Campus Engagement

Organization:
Sarah Lawrence College

1. Can you give us a broad overview of your organization and what it does?

Sarah Lawrence College is a small Liberal Arts college in Westchester County, New York, predominantly female. Rather than having majors, students have concentrations. A student may take dance, photography and math one year and writing and an effects studies course the next. Basically, they take whatever their hearts desire; we’re all about individualized education, in essence. There are no prerequisites. We’re also a writing-intensive school. In most cases, students prepare research papers pertaining to whatever they’re studying, so they basically create their own education curriculum based on what they want to study and within whatever guidelines they create.

It’s also a school that promotes the idea that students should challenge and question everything they hear, read and learn. They’re expected to participate fully in every class and not just regurgitate the texts they’ve read or the information they’ve been told. They’re expected to bring something to the table, to contribute. We have small classrooms with a 6:1 student-to-teacher ratio so that each student is fully engaged in what’s out there and is becoming an independent thinker and activist within their communities to bring about change and to require it.

2. What’s your role at your organization and in what ways does it involve diversity?

My role is relatively new within the institution. We had an associate Dean for multicultural affairs who worked with faculty and international students, but my role now is to provide inter-group dialogues and create safe spaces where students and others can talk about diversity issues and discuss how we can eliminate some of the barriers and -isms (racism, sexism, etc.) that we have within the community. I’ve also provided a lecture series about race and class, gender and oppression, as well as programs that help to support what students need to do to take society to the next level. My aim is always to provide various spaces where students can come and talk about race, class, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and so on.

I’m also part of the Office of Student Affairs and have on-call responsibilities such as going to the hospital or meetings with students if they’re having a tough time dealing with issues psychologically, emotionally, or whatever. I also advise all of our underrepresented? groups – racial, gender, sexual orientation, religious identity groups -  and supervise the two managers for Common Ground, our student of color space. And I advise the managers of the radio station.

In my role, I try to define what we need to do at Lawrence to tackle racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism issues that are happening on campus and making students feel uncomfortable or marginalized.  What can we do to open up our community and tackle these issues and then eliminate them from our campus? How can we be honest about the issues and make sure that our anti-oppression trainings don’t just go in one ear and out the other? We need to hold ourselves more accountable for results and not just be cheerleaders.

3. What do you think is the single biggest diversity challenge to tackle this year?

It’s the same every year: to get people to a place where they feel comfortable, open and honest about talking about these issues. Since we’re encouraged to talk about everything else under the sun at Sarah Lawrence, and to question everything, we should be able to talk about race and the other cultural biases. So that is the challenge: figuring out what program will finally get people to that place – not just white folks, but people of color as well, so we can experience open and honest discussions about why we have intolerant incidents happening on campus. How do you acknowledge, confront and change this aspect of community life?

I think some students of color get to the point where they’re tired of talking about it because they commiserate about it with their peers, about what happens or what doesn’t happen in a class.  When they want to talk about race or class among themselves, they kind of get talked out, or they come out into the community to talk and nobody else is there to meet them, so they seem always to be talking to the usual suspects and get frustrated and stop. For some of our white students, I have seen two extremes. On the one hand, some of them come out because they are well educated and well versed in race and race politics and know how to talk about it. Others come because they have yet to have those kinds of discussions and want to, but just don’t know how to get it going.

4. Which professional development resources would you recommend to other professionals who are involved in diversity work?

• Diverse Issues on Higher Education
• NCORE conferences, the National Conference on Race in Higher Education
• Colorlines website, sends out an email on a regular basis
• African Americans in Higher Education, a LISTSERV (afamhed@listserv.muohio.edu)
• CHAS, the Consortium on High Achievement and Success.  Sarah Lawrence College is member of this organization, hosted by Trinity College in Connecticut. They focus on black and Latino male issues on campus
• New Demographic

5. What advice do you wish someone had given you before you entered this field?

I wish somebody had told me how to be stronger than I am and to be more vocal than I am, the kind of person who can stand confidently on a soapbox or on a chair, being nice about it but being serious at the same time. You have to be in people’s faces and start demanding more money and investments of time and talent to do what we need to do for students. I’m definitely a quieter version than that. I pick up the phone, e-mail somebody. I am not as much an in-your-face person as I think a lot of people are within this field.

So I wish somebody had told me, well, this is what you need to know:  You are not going to have a big budget, so it’s going to be mostly you doing it all; know that as soon as you get on campus, the powers that be are going to think their diversity problems are solved because they now have an office of diversity and a diversity expert on campus. And know that the people are not going to show up and do what’s needed because, in a weird sort of way, that’s what you’re there to do and no one else thinks they need to get involved.  I wish somebody had told me, know what you’re getting into it.  This is what it’s really like to be multicultural diversity person on campus.

So, go in and be a fighter, a renegade, bust it wide open, or else don’t do it at all if you’re expected to become someone’s Band-Aid instead of their Surgeon General.

6. What’s the most rewarding aspect of your job?

The students, far and away, are the most rewarding aspect of the job. When students come in and want my advice because I’m the diversity expert on campus and have been through an experience before, or they feel I’m somebody who can give them a different perspective than their peers, their parents, or other students. Even the students who come in and tell me, “You know, Natalie, what you did the other day wasn’t cool” or “These programs you are doing can be better.  This is what we need…”

I appreciate that students feel so comfortable with me that they can call me out and challenge me to be a better diversity person, one on her soapbox, tackling and fixing the isms that we have on campus.  For me, the good and the bad that comes in with the different students, the critiquing and the need for support is what makes me want to stay here and continue. It certainly isn’t the paycheck that keeps me here (laughs)! So, the students are it for me, hands down.

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