AN OPEN STATEMENT
TO GRADUATE STUDIES AND POLICY ADMINISTRATORS
AS REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNIVERSITY

I am a single mother, with two children. I am also an urban woman of color from a lower-class background. This is not to be confused with working class: my mother has never been legally married; was a welfare recipient for most of my early childhood; and later worked as a "domestic." My father was an addict, who abdicated all responsibility for his children when I was two. My mother later became involved with a destructively violent man, who perpetrated physical and sexual abuse on our entire family. As a result, I was placed in foster care, receiving homes, and half-way houses, by the age of 14. I did not attend high school; was raising my first child alone by the time I was 20; and subsisted as a welfare mother until 1988.

I am willing to reveal what may seem irrelevant, inappropriate personal information to you today, because I believe there is a pattern to this, a pattern to which I have tried to be accountable, and to which I believe a system which purports to be "educational" should also be accountable.

I know institutions. I understand that there is fiscal responsibility, a system of checks and balances. I also know, from having been delivered into the hands of the social service system as an early adolescent, that the ultimate responsibility of any system is rarely to the constituency which it is designed to serve. But it should be. And I want to work toward shaping an institution that will be more fully committed to that.

An elite university, such as the one where I am studying toward my doctorate, can offer me a degree which would confer the educational and professional "legitimacy" I deserve to earn. I can't even begin to estimate the numbers of people, especially women of color, who have been denied access to this institution by the postures I've had to confront here.

It angers me to report that the responses from every office, at every level, have been deeply punitive. The attitude is that I should have understood, before I came, what I was getting myself into; that every graduate student is offered equal (but not equitable) funding; that if I had a spouse or a partner, I could rely on a two-worker income; that "this is not a state institution" and I "shouldn't expect a hand-out"; that I came here "to be a graduate student, not an employee"; that I am a bad risk for loans because my current debt are already astronomically high; and that I will have to "prove" myself here, before I can expect anything but the most incidental of responses.

I am here today to tell you with the most earnest conviction that I did not transfer to this school to be treated as a charity case. While it is true that I don't have a rich relation who can script blank checks to cover my deficiencies, it is equally true that I worked diligently to prepare myself to have something of value to offer this university, before I applied. I made very clear, during the initial review period, that I did not wish to come in to this university as a fulfillment to your "minority" quotas. I wanted to be certain that my credentials fulfilled your criteria, so the situation could never deteriorate into a battle over my credibility. I'm what you said you wanted, and I ostensibly came into my department as first choice.

I am here because I have a responsibility to change the way women like me are perceived. I have minimally tolerated the same attitudes I've gotten here, from case workers, when I was a welfare mother, who believed I had no business pursuing an education, when I should be working a minimum wage job to feed my children. The same attitude persists at other institutions, among administrators who believed the funding they had granted me from their recruitment and retention purses should be enough to keep me grateful and quiet. And I've gotten that attitude here, from people who seem to think I shouldn't have any children at all, if I'm not coupled, or that I should feel guilty because I'm asking for more than the University normally allows.

And I do: in that much, you've all been successful. I feel depleted and demoralized. But I'm also angry. What is the real worth of all your theorizing and academic programs, if the solutions you pretend to develop only talk about people like me, rather than with me? Yes, you are recruiting and retaining more women and people of color. But you are also limiting us in terms of the level of degree we can earn, our financial status, and our family constellations. Which means you still control the access we have to education.

I am willing to accept more loans. But I shouldn't have to. Getting myself over $40,000 in debt just to earn a BA and a Masters was a calculated risk: I believed that, if I were really outstanding, I would have something to offer a fine institution, and I have accomplished that goal. I am asking you to recognize here exactly what it represents for me to be here, and what the ramifications will be, if I am forced out.

One of the administrators at this meeting today stated in recent issue of the campus newspaper that the University needs to "break the cycle of elitism," acknowledging that, "everyone of color is at the bottom, women in the middle, and non-minority males are leading," within this community. I have found this to be true, and there is yet more to be discussed: dialogue needs be established on the polemics within our own communities, based on class, education, and access to language and literacy. There is a growing middle-class in most "minority" groups. You are educating those people, and sending them forward through the academy. But your "pipeline" is still excluding those of us who are lower-class and educationally disadvantaged. I came in with a plan to help change that, a plan which has proven successful elsewhere. I have been told that my focus should be graduate studies, and the pursuit of my degree. That's fine. But where is the funding to do that?

I agree that, in the best possible scenario, I would benefit greatly from being permitted a full year to "get to know the campus," before I attempt to work within administration. But I have also demonstrated that my skills in developing and administering curricula and pedagogy are the only merits I have worth the kind of money I need to stay here. Now, if you are willing to give me some kind of funding because you are committed to having input to your institution from lower-class single parents or women of color, I'll be delighted to accept that. Alternately, if you want to employ the skills I've developed out of those experiences, I will be happy to work.

My situation is anomalous only because embarrassingly few women like me ever get this far, or talk about their backgrounds, when they do. I want to change that. I'm willing to do what it takes. I came here today to ask you: just what does it take?