The Michigan Daily-New Student Edition-Perspective-Thursday, September 9, 1993- Page 5
Learning happens in
the strangest locales
by Jon Altshul
Daily Staff Reporter
Somehow my freshman-year roommate and I never got into that room
decoration thing. No fancy loft, no wall-to-wall carpeting, no cozy sofa.
Nothing at all to remind us of the comforts of home.
In fact, the only needless embellishment that draped our musty walls was
a four year-old Jimmy Page poster with a large chunk torn out of the side.
Nor did we help our plight much with our malodorous, unhygienic
personal habits. Our desks doubled as hampers, while our crooked floorserved
as our never-emptied trash can.
Once while roaming our hall, a passerby stopped to somewhat curtly
reprimand us for the bitter stench that so rudely emanated from our self-
proclaimed "Lair of Licentiousness."
"Jesus," he exclaimed as lopened the door, "Did you guys forget where the
bathroom was?" I'd never seen this guy before, yet I was impressed by his
frankness. I ushered him in, offering him a half-smoked Camel and a Dewars
on the rocks. With his right hand clenched firmly over his nostrils, he obliged
and, taking one sweeping, panoramic glimpse of our abode, continued, "My
friend, this is the ultimate freshman dorm room."
Indeed, much of my first semester was spentcaged in 2120Markley-Frost.
Long before we'd discovered such digressions as extra-curriculars and school
work, my roommate and I were the inextricable staples of our room. And what
a palace it was - sheets caked in month-old tobacco spit, cool school jazz
trickling out of semi-broken speakers, half-empty beer cans posing as ant
farms and scratched, uncased CDs acting as impromptu mirrors.
Essentially, the dilapidated dorm room is the last great metaphor for the
college experience. More to the point, the beauty of college lies etched not
within inebriated fraternity reveries or buried within some 50-pound biology
textbook, butrather, deep within the unpretentious confines of yourown room.
In a school surrounded by endless mobs of people, the most comforting arena
you have is your own space.
My roommate and I never got too much sleep thatyear. Every night at about
12:30, when the common man was brushing his teeth in preparation for
another mundane eight hours of rest, our doors would open up. Five or so of
us would huddle around the cob pipe, smoking a few rounds of Captain Black,
usually stripped down to ourboxers.Typicalgushy malebondingstuffmostly.
And talk was always cheap: Kerouac, Descartes, Joyce, Malcolm X, maybe
even a sex joke or two.
These were freedoms never allowed to us in high school. To say what was
on our minds, to expound political theory just for fun, to stay up until dawn
even if it meant sleeping through our morning classes.
At Michigan, learning occurs in the strangest places. Sometimes it's in a
classroom, but mostly it occurs outside lecture halls and libraries. This is a
school where "diversity" isn'tjust about statistics and numbers, it's about new
ideas and original venues for exploration.
I guess my moral, then, goes something like this: leam for the sake of
leaming, not merely for the sake ofa degree. Challenge convention, obey your
parents only when they're about to give you money and most of all, do
something new.
WATER SKI CLUB
Competitive & Recreational Skiing
Anderson Rooms in the Michigan Union
Monday, September 13 at 7 pm
For info call 763-4560
Women march down State Street during Martin Luther King Jr. Day last January.
. BMC promotes muliticulturalism
Center fights against racism, sexism, classism and homophobia
by the Baker-Mandela
Center Board
In the winter of 1987, the campus
exploded when black students, supported
by other progressive students, organized
to fight against blatant racist attacks and
institutional racism at the University. Stu-
dents formed theUnitedCoalitionAgainst
Racism (UCAR), which presented the
University with a list of 12 demands to
make the school more hospitable and
equitable for people of color.
The Baker-Mandela Center (BMC)
is a multi-racial, student-run facility
initiated by UCAR. The center's pri-
mary goal is to encourage research and
activism regarding issues of race, class,
gender and sexuality and to challenge
Euro-centric, racist, sexist and
homophobic paradigms.
Progressive people ofcolor, women,
lesbians and gay men must present al-
ternative portrayals of our communities
in order to counter right-wing mytholo-
gies about us. BMC is an alternative
teaching facility that uses the expertise
of all segments of our communities:
students, community members, cam-
pus workers and faculty members.
Since BMC was created through
political struggle, the underlying phi-
losophy of the center is to think in order
to act. We try to create theoretical work
that can be of practical use. That means
engaging in educational projects that
have direct connections to struggles
being waged on and off campus. Since
most people of color are excluded from
Universities, channels must be created
through which "scholarly" work is made
accessible and relevant. We must con-
sciously make our resources and our
skills available outside the University.
To that, BMC collects materials that
focus on race, sexuality, class, gender
andprogressivepolitical struggle. Books
on the histories of people of color, peri-
odicals such as The City Sun, Out/Look,
and Palestine Focus, pamphlets on the
Puerto Rican independence and free
South Africa movements, videotapes
such as "TheFraming Of The Panthers"
and "DiAna's Hair Ego: AIDS Educa-
tion Up Front," cassette tapes of
Malcolm X and Angela Davis, student-
created photo displays and magazine
and news clippings from the 1960s are
just a few of BMC's resources available
for student and community use.
BMC alsoproduces its own publica-
tions, including a pamphlet called Rac-
ism In Education and a bulletin on hate
violence. We are expanding our publi-
cations to include an activist-oriented
journal, By What Means?.
BMC also provides technical and
material support to campus and com-
munity activists. Additionally, BMC
maintains a speakers' bureau and can
provide workshops and consulting ser-
vices to other organizations.
Many of the resources at BMC are
not found in other areas of the Univer-
sity. The University's curriculum tends
to ignore the historical and cultural re-
alities of people of color. And if you
look beyond the public relations rheto-
ric to the actual policies and practices of
top University administrators, it is clear
that their commitment to combating
racism, sexism, homophobia and elit-
ism is limited at best.
As intolerance pervades campuses
across the country, masquerading as
complaints against political correctness
and First-Amendment infringements,
and as hate crimes and state-sponsored
violence escalate in our communities, it
is critical that we get together and ad-
dress these problems with serious re-
search, debate and action.
There are a variety of ways to get
involved with BMC and make use of its
resources. All students are welcome to
stop by and visit us in Room 3 on the
first floorof theEast Engineering Build-
ing on Central Campus. The Center is
open Monday through Friday from 10
a.m. to 3 p.m.
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