I was born in Liverpool England then
moved to Nigeria and returned to England
as a teenager I was always aware of and
excited by the opportunity that I had to
live and study and two continents but I
often felt something was missing I
wanted to experience the American
education system ever since the first
so you can imagine my excitement when I
applied and got accepted to pursue my
PhD at the Institute of higher education
right here at UGA finally I thought I’d
meet my Danny Zuko and then I got onto
campus and as I began to settle in I
started experiencing things I’d never
felt before
I felt other dand diminished but I
couldn’t work out why could it be me was
I having difficulty settling into a new
country I didn’t think so
I’d spent more of my time in foreign
countries than at home so I decided as a
PhD student maybe it was time I did
research to better understand how I was
feeling in my literature search I looked
at the experiences of students on campus
and came across an acronym P W I meaning
predominantly white institution PWI I
was flabbergasted there’s such a thing
apparently and HBCU meaning historically
black colleges and universities so I’m a
female minority student of color at a
predominantly white institution and then
it dawned on me the reason why I was
feeling uneasy it was the effect that
the labels that are used to categorize
and separate us was having on me in
England I was black and female in
Nigeria I belonged to one tribe out of
over 365 but it wasn’t being brought up
every day but here the labels such as
minority
african-american Hispanic American Asian
American all suggests that there’s one
main American and the rest outliers to
be endued so these labels were having an
effect of making me feel boxed in now if
the goal is inclusivity then how do we
achieve inclusion by using excluding
labels now all labels back of course not
I happen to work at a program right here
on campus with an awesome label the
Honors Program the honors program is
designed for incoming first and second
year students these are students with
high SAT scores fantastic grades a lot
of them already know what they want to
study and publish these are students
some people might classify as nerds but
they could have come to campus afraid of
being treated differently due to their
other nests and in response we could
have set up a nerd Student Support Group
but we didn’t we rebranded and
recategorize them and we called them
honors making it aspirational so
aspirational that I want to go all the
way back to being a first year student
so that I could apply to be part of the
Honors Program that’s a label done right
and then I looked at the diversity
program and there’s a scholarship for
minority students called the diversity
scholarship that didn’t feel quite as
aspirational and I thought I wouldn’t
want to apply for this but even if I did
and got awarded I wouldn’t announce it
on my resume or on the signature line of
my email because
my opinion what it tells people who’ve
never even met me is that I’m black and
I’m poor and this is not the way that I
see myself it’s certainly not how I want
others to see me but this is not an
isolated issue Harvard University
conducted a study about their diversity
program they offered students from
low-income backgrounds an arts and
culture package which included free
theater tickets but the students weren’t
making use of these tickets making it
easy for the administrators to think
that students from low-income
backgrounds had no interest in the
theater but then they conducted a study
and found that because students to use
the tickets had to stand in line that
said free tickets as opposed to
MasterCard or Visa students were
reluctant to stand under that label
because by doing so they would
immediately identify themselves to their
colleagues and the rest of the campus
community as poor so Harvard revised the
ticketing system they took away the
label and emailed students their free
tickets immediately they found an
upsurge in the number of students who
were able to take part in the culture
package a little change made a big
difference to the students and
solidified Harvard’s commitment to
diversity so what does that mean for us
here today the power of labels cannot be
underestimated
a diversity scholarship called diversity
scholarship only tells people one thing
about me that I’m less than instead why
don’t we call it the success lab and why
don’t we call the scholars the Titans
something that
both recognizes what it’s taken for
these students to get to that level and
something that other students would
aspire towards I’d much rather be a
Titan than a minority diversity
scholarship recipient the labels we use
matter please handle with care’ thank
you [Applause]
moved to Nigeria and returned to England
as a teenager I was always aware of and
excited by the opportunity that I had to
live and study and two continents but I
often felt something was missing I
wanted to experience the American
education system ever since the first
so you can imagine my excitement when I
applied and got accepted to pursue my
PhD at the Institute of higher education
right here at UGA finally I thought I’d
meet my Danny Zuko and then I got onto
campus and as I began to settle in I
started experiencing things I’d never
felt before
I felt other dand diminished but I
couldn’t work out why could it be me was
I having difficulty settling into a new
country I didn’t think so
I’d spent more of my time in foreign
countries than at home so I decided as a
PhD student maybe it was time I did
research to better understand how I was
feeling in my literature search I looked
at the experiences of students on campus
and came across an acronym P W I meaning
predominantly white institution PWI I
was flabbergasted there’s such a thing
apparently and HBCU meaning historically
black colleges and universities so I’m a
female minority student of color at a
predominantly white institution and then
it dawned on me the reason why I was
feeling uneasy it was the effect that
the labels that are used to categorize
and separate us was having on me in
England I was black and female in
Nigeria I belonged to one tribe out of
over 365 but it wasn’t being brought up
every day but here the labels such as
minority
african-american Hispanic American Asian
American all suggests that there’s one
main American and the rest outliers to
be endued so these labels were having an
effect of making me feel boxed in now if
the goal is inclusivity then how do we
achieve inclusion by using excluding
labels now all labels back of course not
I happen to work at a program right here
on campus with an awesome label the
Honors Program the honors program is
designed for incoming first and second
year students these are students with
high SAT scores fantastic grades a lot
of them already know what they want to
study and publish these are students
some people might classify as nerds but
they could have come to campus afraid of
being treated differently due to their
other nests and in response we could
have set up a nerd Student Support Group
but we didn’t we rebranded and
recategorize them and we called them
honors making it aspirational so
aspirational that I want to go all the
way back to being a first year student
so that I could apply to be part of the
Honors Program that’s a label done right
and then I looked at the diversity
program and there’s a scholarship for
minority students called the diversity
scholarship that didn’t feel quite as
aspirational and I thought I wouldn’t
want to apply for this but even if I did
and got awarded I wouldn’t announce it
on my resume or on the signature line of
my email because
my opinion what it tells people who’ve
never even met me is that I’m black and
I’m poor and this is not the way that I
see myself it’s certainly not how I want
others to see me but this is not an
isolated issue Harvard University
conducted a study about their diversity
program they offered students from
low-income backgrounds an arts and
culture package which included free
theater tickets but the students weren’t
making use of these tickets making it
easy for the administrators to think
that students from low-income
backgrounds had no interest in the
theater but then they conducted a study
and found that because students to use
the tickets had to stand in line that
said free tickets as opposed to
MasterCard or Visa students were
reluctant to stand under that label
because by doing so they would
immediately identify themselves to their
colleagues and the rest of the campus
community as poor so Harvard revised the
ticketing system they took away the
label and emailed students their free
tickets immediately they found an
upsurge in the number of students who
were able to take part in the culture
package a little change made a big
difference to the students and
solidified Harvard’s commitment to
diversity so what does that mean for us
here today the power of labels cannot be
underestimated
a diversity scholarship called diversity
scholarship only tells people one thing
about me that I’m less than instead why
don’t we call it the success lab and why
don’t we call the scholars the Titans
something that
both recognizes what it’s taken for
these students to get to that level and
something that other students would
aspire towards I’d much rather be a
Titan than a minority diversity
scholarship recipient the labels we use
matter please handle with care’ thank
you [Applause]
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