Log 4

• This week, I connected with Pamela Zabala ’17 over the phone and interviewed her about her research. It was really helpful to finally talk to her about her own opinions on narratives. I transcribed the majority of the interview. The audio recording is actually very clear, so our conversation could be included in a podcast, perhaps as a conclusion to the other interviews.
• On the intention of her research:
  • Pamela originally wrote a paper for Classical Sociological Theory that focused on the protests at Mizzou through the lens of DuBois and Anderson. She later pursued an honors project about white spaces at Bowdoin and how social / historical factors impact who belongs or can speak up in those spaces.
  • The most difficult aspect of the research was the fear of being publicly smeared on sites like TurtleBoy (as happened to Michelle Kruk ’17). –> Though the backlash was more extreme two years ago, the dissipation of the panel shows that the fear of smear still exists among students on both sides.
• On her interpretation of the events in 16-17: 
  • “I think for me at least, because I was reading so much about it and as a student of color, I was thinking “Why don’t you understand this? Why? It’s this, this, and this.” And I think realizing that people genuinely didn’t understand or could not fathom what could possibly be wrong about these events and what students of color could possibly be feeling even though they are around them every day for an academic year. That was really frustrating. It just felt like the school split into people cared about one thing, people cared about another, people didn’t care about either, and a small group of people trying to reconcile all three. [laughs] And it just felt like there was so much miscommunication on all sides, and I just couldn’t wrap my mind around what other people couldn’t wrap their minds around.” (6:20)
  • On the standard administrative response:
  •  “There’s the emails, there’s the you know, “We’re handling this but we’re not really saying how we’re handling this at the moment, it’s being investigated.” You kind of hear rumors, like you know “oh, the dean called the students in” but you don’t really know what was said or what happened. You know, another vague-ish a couple days later that kind of offers a solution but doesn’t really. And that was just with those two incidents, but you can pretty much trace that pattern throughout probably the College’s history, in addition to you know, creating a committee, having discussion panels with students, faculty and administrators. Clayton’s town hall meeting, not the first time that’s happened. There was the big Fall consortium, the intersectional consortium during one of the falls, I don’t remember which one it was but that’s happened before in Bowdoin’s history, we’ve had a couple of those. So no idea is truly original in terms of response, is probably a simpler way to put it. It’s been done. If it’s been effective is another thing, but most of it’s been done.” (8:44)
  • On the statistic “Bowdoin has had on average an incident of racial bias every 3.5 years since 1964” (2017:44): 
    • “So that statistic, people ask me a lot about. And it’s just an average, so I think the longest period since 1964 that we went without a bias incident was actually about 7 years, and the shortest time was three months. So it is just an average, but it’s a very telling average.” (11:41)

Reflections on data: 

• Our interview pointed to the importance of administrative transparency, as the decision-making process following incidents is more complex and enigmatic than most students realize. (7:46)
•  It felt validating to hear her talk about the repetitive cycle of interventions at the level of the institution. As I have mentioned before, I am genuinely concerned that the current research will be disregarded by the administration, or the only solutions will be another committee or panel.

General updates:

1. Two of the three interviews have been recorded as of this week. Our next steps are editing and adding intros/conclusions to the recordings. My primary responsibility will likely be writing those introductions.
2. I need to figure out how much research to incorporate into these segments. Pamela’s interview will likely be edited to be included in the segment rather than a standalone conversation. These are both logistical and thematic considerations/questions.

For next time:

1. Synthesis of research for introductions, conclusions, and presentation