What are the odds “white” is listed as one of the items classified as a privilege?
Via NY Times:
…Colleges may not realize it, but signals they send can project upper-middle-class values. The $15 for a class outing can require an hour and a half of work; free tickets to student events are supposed to be handled discreetly but get announced at the door.
Dr. Khurana, the Harvard College dean, said his icebreaker for students — share what your parents do for work — made a first-generation student uncomfortable last year; he now asks instead for a funny story about their middle name.
Ms. Barros was embarrassed during a history discussion about inequality in which the teaching fellow gave students a list of 20 items, from trust funds to college savings plans, and told them to award themselves a point for each. The instructor asked students to raise their hands as he called out totals — 10 privilege points, 11, 12 — so he could mark them on the board. “The numbers didn’t tally up” to the number of students in the class, said Ms. Barros, who with only a single point kept her hand down.
Nicole M. Stephens, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, said such cultural signals enable affluent students to see college as “a continuation of their experience.” A first-generation student may wonder “if someone like me can do well here.”
Students who don’t think they fit in are less likely to reach out for help and more likely to suffer emotionally and have lower grades, said Dr. Stephens.
What would it take to change that?
Dr. Stephens and colleagues published a study last year in Psychological Science in which freshmen were assigned to attend one of two hourlong orientation sessions. In one, panelists gave advice about the transition to college and challenges like choosing classes. In the other, the same panelists wove their backgrounds into advice.
A panelist (three of the eight were first generation) might share that “because my parents didn’t go to college, this is one of the obstacles I faced.” Privileged students shared, too, in one case describing how it was hard to be in large classes because she was used to one-on-one instruction at prep school.