University Times

As adolescents develop into adults, “we all bring with us some junk from our environment,” said Kathy Humphrey, referring to individual cultural, racial and ethnic influences on human development, many of them based on stereotyping and misinformation. This is an issue that colleges in particular confront as each new class of freshmen enters their charge, she said.

Humphrey, who is vice provost and dean of students, discussed how Pitt manages students’ cultural differences in a lecture this week titled “Race, Ethnicity and College Student Development: From Theory to Practice,” which was sponsored by Pitt’s Center on Race and Social Problems.

She spoke not only on under-represented student populations, but also on the developmental problems confronting the majority of college students who are white.

Racial & cultural development among white students

“You have to also look at theories of how white students racially develop,” Humphrey said. “A lot of times white students are left out of the equation. That’s part of the problem when we talk about educating our staff and faculty about how students develop if we let out our biggest racial group.”

She cited educational researcher Janet Helms’s 1993 theory called “white racial consciousness,” which outlines five stages of development.

Stage 1, dubbed the homogeneous environment, posits that white youth initially regard their race as unimportant because most of them have lived among only white people.

Humphrey said, “They think, ‘I’m white, what’s the big deal?’ They’re very unaware of being a racial being themselves. They don’t really see the differences other than what they see on TV or in their activities that are external to their environment.”

That state of mind prompts white youths to view other cultures one of two ways, Helms’s theory holds. “They either withdraw completely from the idea that someone is saying they are different, or they approach it and try to figure out what that difference actually is,” Humphrey explained.

Helms refers to stage 2 as the “disintegration stage,” where white youths become aware of racism, which leads to negative feelings of guilt and a concern about what it means to be white.

“They then see themselves as a part of the white culture for the first time in this stage,” Humphrey said. “Helms says they respond to that in one of three ways: Either they over-identify, that is, they take on the characteristics of other races such as dress, hair styles and language rhythms — what they think the other culture might be. Or, they become paternalistic: ‘If these racist things are wrong, I’m going to fix them, I’m going to nurture other cultures. I feel bad all the time about these issues: It’s just a terrible thing not to be me’ is their attitude.”

The other possibility is that the youths retreat into the white culture, Helms has theorized.

“They say, ‘I’m not going to have anything to do with this. I’m going to stand over here, you and your group stand over there and we’ll all ignore each other and live peacefully,’” Humphrey said.

In stage 3, the re-integration stage, white youths turn hostile toward other races. “This is where white supremacists are born,” Humphrey said. “They become hostile because they don’t want to be seen as the cause of slavery, because they think it’s unfair that you just assume they’re prejudiced or just assume that they’re rich or just assume all of the other negative stereotypes about white people.”

The hostility is reinforced by the perception that minorities are taking jobs that “belong” to whites and are receiving preferential treatment over whites, she said.

“All of that becomes bundled up as anger in this stage, and they favor their own race at any cost. They perceive other cultures’ traits as negative; anything that doesn’t look like them is negative,” Humphrey said.

Stage 4 in Helms’s theory is called the “pseudo-independent” stage of development. “Intellectually whites increasingly accept the fact that they are who they are, they accept their race and they’re willing to accept the fact that there is value in other races. They become interested in other groups’ characteristics and look for similarities with their own group, instead of emphasizing the differences,” Humphrey said. “So their quest at that point is to help others understand how we’re all alike. That’s the banner. They might say, ‘We’re all talking about diversity, but I’d rather talk about how we’re alike.’”

Whites in this stage do have some cross-racial interactions, she said, but those interactions are with people who are most like themselves.

“‘I’m going to be friends with you because you’re more like me — more white — than others in your racial or cultural group. You’re not like most fill-in-the-blank. I’ll speak to you in certain environments, but I won’t bring you home to my environment because I’m concerned with what my white friends will say if I speak to you,’” Humphrey said.

Stage 5 of development is called the “autonomy” stage, when whites are willing to accept and respect racial differences. “They have an appreciation of the differences and they like being around the differences, but they don’t need to adopt the differences to show that respect and they don’t perceive the differences as a deficit. They actively seek opportunities to have cross-cultural interaction.” This is the stage toward which Pitt hopes to guide students, Humphrey said.

Racial & cultural development among minority students

While there are many theories on how minority or under-represented, marginalized students develop racial and cultural attitudes, Humphrey emphasized the ethnic identity development model of researcher Jean Phinney, which includes three stages.

“The first stage is called ‘diffusion and foreclosure,’ that is, spread out or shut down,” Humphrey said. “It means you’re not comfortable in your own skin. You’re not comfortable with who you are. You’re not even interested in examining who you are.”

Minorities in this stage adopt the negative stereotypes perpetrated by the white majority, for example, that lighter skin color is more becoming than darker skin color.

“A lot of the negative attitudes are adopted as their own reality. You see this a lot in very young minority children. Most people in under-represented groups learn at a very young age that they’re a part of a different group, and that affects their development,” she said.

As minorities develop into a second stage of “identity searching,” they discover that the negative things they thought about themselves are not true and they become angry. “They just shut down [and declare] a moratorium. A lot of people stay in moratorium and never move out of it: They maintain their anger throughout their lives,” Humphrey said. “This is a dangerous place to be. We’re never going to get together if one of us is in moratorium.”

The effect of this second stage is that individuals put their emphasis completely on their own race. “The reality is that they’re happy to be part of their race now, they want everybody to know they’re a part of their race, their dress is a part of their race,” Humphrey said. “But, there’s a lot of anger and a lot of guilt. The guilt comes from ‘I didn’t know about myself. I didn’t know about my history. I believed some things that were lies.’ And they’re embarrassed by their lack of knowledge.”

In the third, breakthrough stage — “identity achievement” — the person in effect becomes bi-cultural. “They’re able to live in both worlds. They’re able to have intimate relationships with all kinds of people, because they have become comfortable in their own skin. They know that me being me does not take away from you being you. And it does not equate to selling out: ‘Because I get along with you does not make me a sell-out of my culture,’” Humphrey said, adding, “It takes a lot of work to reach that point.”

Common issues affecting developing students

With these two theories in mind, Humphrey noted that most students enter college not fully developed.

“What often times appears on college campuses is anger, isolation and loneliness, fear and confusion,” she said. “Everybody’s scared of everybody else, and you can see why based on which stage of development they’re in. In general, students all across the country come to college angry.”

• Why all the anger?

Minority students often face comments and prejudice that make them feel ashamed of who they are, Humphrey said. “Those feelings come to the surface and they’re very real to those students. Think of all of the questions that make them feel less than human: ‘Can I touch your hair?’ would be an example. ‘Can you touch my hair? What is this, a petting zoo? No, you can’t touch my hair.’”

That is the kind of question asked by underdeveloped white students who themselves are trying to get comfortable with other cultures, she said.

Students need to learn that if they establish relationships first, the rules change and some previously inappropriate questions become okay to ask. But that is not intuitive. “It’s our responsibility as faculty and adults to help them with that,” Humphrey said.

Minority students also are angry about being criticized for socializing with students from their own race or culture.

“For both groups, minority as well as the white group, when they first get here and they’re developing, it’s very hard to cross cultural lines. Often times we chock that up to racism, but the bottom line is where they are developmentally,” Humphrey said.

“Minority students also continually have to prove that the negative stereotypes about their group are not true. And in their experiences are all the times they had to deal with an unequal playing field, which also makes them angry,” Humphrey said.

Isolation and loneliness are other problems confronting minority students more so than whites, she said. “If you’re the only minority student in a class, it’s very clear. Or, in projects, the professor may put one person of color in every group as opposed to letting them be together.”

In addition, minority students often are required to give the “cultural opinion” in class, furthering their isolation. “‘Tell us how Hispanics feel about that.’ ‘Tell us how Asian people — the whole continent — feel about that, because you’re one of them,’” she said.

Moreover, under-represented students typically have to leave more cultural ties behind them than do white students, she said. International students, for example, often have to adjust to dietary changes. When colleges offer “special food days” to serve a particular culture’s customary offerings, ironically it can accentuate the isolation students feel, Humphrey noted.

• Why all the fear?

“Minority students have seen the statistics: They know their chances are not as good for graduation from college,” Humphrey said. “They’ve seen so many in their community come back from college without a degree. They feel that pressure of being successful, especially if they’re a first-generation college student. They fear they’re losing their cultural identity. That is a huge deal. The message they hear at home is, ‘Go to college and become white.’”

• Why the confusion?

“They’re confused because they don’t know who can be trusted,” Humphrey said. “They don’t know if they can trust that adviser, that faculty member, that roommate. They’re encountering the realities of their own stereotyping of other cultures.”

Students also have to learn that “your skin is not necessarily your kin. Just because somebody looks like you does not automatically mean you can be comfortable [with that person],” she said.

“That happens on both sides. White students as well as our students of color deal with that issue. That’s one of the reasons why there’s a division: They don’t understand that the skin is not really what creates a real relationship.”

She said other confusing questions confronting college students include: What are the false stereotypes? What are the unspoken rules of engagement?

For example, in some cultures, being late is commonplace, Humphrey noted. “Students have to adjust to those unspoken rules.”

Moreover, students are confused about how to fit in among other cultures. “What is the school’s commitment to diversity? Students are looking for it in the curriculum, in the artwork, in theatre productions and in personnel. They’re looking for it as signs they belong here,” Humphrey said.

Moving from theory to practice at Pitt

First, Humphrey said, Pitt trains its Student Affairs staff in diversity issues and teaches them that diversity has value.

“Our counseling staff is extremely diverse, and we’re pleased with that, so that students can go to someone they feel comfortable with to talk about some of these issues,” she said.

“At Pitt, we encourage all students to take risks and include people who don’t look like them in their activities and to seek opportunities to learn about other cultures,” Humphrey said.

As an example, Pitt is developing a program of alternative spring breaks, where students become immersed in another culture for a week, “as opposed to popping into a workshop or a lecture for an hour and popping out again,” she said.

Pitt also encourages forming cross-cultural relationships. “Why are all students in one group sitting together in a cafeteria? It’s because they’re not comfortable enough to cross those lines. In our orientation courses we talk about that. How do you enter into conversations with people who are very different from you?” Humphrey said.

“Then after we talk about how to do it, we send them out and they come back and talk about how it went. Sometimes, a student will come back and say, ‘I just couldn’t do it. I was just too afraid.’

“Why were you too afraid? This gives us a great opportunity to talk about that,” she said.

“We also talk with students about the issues I mentioned earlier: anger, isolation, loneliness, fear and confusion. We know if we don’t deal with these issues on the college campus, the students will take them to the workplace,” Humphrey said.

“We inform every student about our institutional values in the very first session of orientation. We have every student say the Pitt Promise,” a code of honor oath that commits the student to principles of civility, mutual respect, self-restraint, concern for others and academic integrity, she said.

“One of the goals for our students is that before they graduate they become globally and culturally competent and aware. We ask them to attend the learning opportunities in this area all through their college experience, especially through the outside the classroom curriculum [program]. Cultural awareness is a very important piece of that puzzle. We try to encourage students to relate cross-culturally and the message is: There are rewards for doing that,” Humphrey said.

Two years ago, Pitt opened the Office of Cross-Cultural and Leadership Development, with offices for more than 20 student groups of all kinds. “What we wanted to do is create a center where students would have to communicate cross-culturally, with everybody. So every race, every group we put in that suite,” she said. “We created it that way as opposed to being a haven for under-represented students.”

Pitt also offers virtual communities for entering freshmen to get to know their roommates prior to arriving on campus, Humphrey said.

“At the request of some students, last year we created a multi-cultural living-learning community. We’re constantly asking students: How can we make your cultural group more comfortable on campus?” she added.

“There is something here for everybody. We have over 1,000 programs where students can interact and we encourage students to do that. We try to get different culturally based organizations to program together,” Humphrey said.

“We talk about respecting cultural norms. For example, we provide a prayer space for our Muslim students. We have awareness weeks all year long. We have created all these mechanisms to help them connect and to find their community. We try to create a warm, nurturing environment for under-represented students so that they know they belong to the community.”

—Peter Hart