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- 3. Discrimination and its roots S Discrimination, in its simplest form, is the practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from other people or groups of people S Discrimination comes from humans primal instinct of not trusting things that are unfamiliar to us. S Even if this instinct came in handy in the earlier age of human society, discrimination has no place in a modern society
- 4. Severity of Discrimination S We are all familiar with the effects of something like Discrimination S Ex: Holocaust, Armenian Genocide, Trail of Tears/Indian Removal Act S These huge disasters all stem from “minuscule” instances of Discrimination, and snowball into something like a Genocide
- 6. Discrimination at UB S What’s discouraging is the fact that discrimination stems from superficial reasons such as skin color, religion or accent S Discrimination of Professors and TA’s with accents from different countries is very prevalent at UB S Professors and TA’s are very qualified to be teaching courses, but are discredited by their students due to their inability to understand and communicate with their Professors and TA’s
- 7. Student responses to foreign Professors S When observing a Calculus 2 class with a Chinese Professor, instances of Discrimination were very common S Students complained of the difficulty of understanding the material due to the professors accent S Students asking why UB would ever hire an individual who’s English was very poor
- 8. Faculty response to Discrimination on campus S When interviewing a Career Services counselor as to why individuals with poor English were being hired to teach, she was quoted as saying “Because the University at Buffalo is a research institution, each and every professor, international or not, is scrutinized based on their research in their respective field” S Teachers are hired based on their qualifications and additions to their respective subject as a whole, as opposed to an individual who is absolutely inept, but can speak English well S It is quite unfair to scrutinize someone’s ability to do their job based on something as superficial as their accent
- 9. Diagnosing the issue S No specific party, students nor Professor, can be blamed for this outbreak of Discrimination S The remedy for this issue must be collective among all members involved S Action by all parties must be taken in order to stop this travesty
- 10. Proposed solution S Two-part solution S Both students and teachers must be educated on the issue, it’s origin, and how to go about trying to eradicate the issue S A mandatory class for incoming freshmen on how to communicate with their professors as well deal with issues such as language barriers S Teachers wishing to work at UB must take a mandatory seminar on communicating with their students, especially if their English is not the best. English will be taught, awareness of the issue of discrimination will be spread and methods on how to remedy the issue will be given
- 12. Broad perspective of Discrimination at UB S Although the proposed plan may not be ideal, something along those lines must be conducted to remedy the issue at hand S If the issue of discrimination is to be erased from society, we must start with individuals who wish to receive a higher education and wish to further themselves as individuals in society S A change must be made in order to eliminate this outdated idea of discrimination S In a society as advanced as ours, something as prehistoric as discrimination should not be allowed to thrive and we must all work together towards this common goal
Editor's Notes
- 1What is Discrimination? In its simplest form, discrimination is the practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from other people or groups of people” Finding examples of discrimination in our society today is quite easy. It’s almost too easy, which is hard to believe. However, discrimination is much more than the definition leads us to believe. Discrimination is something that is so deeply ingrained into humans and their nature, that it is becoming more and more prevalent in our modern day society. It is a mystery as to how we can make something so trivial and meaningless as discrimination can even exist when we have come so far form where we once were.
- 2From a strictly biological standpoint, every human on this planet is related and interconnected in a broader aspect than what is truly acknowledged. Yes, we all differ in skin tones, looks, behaviors, religions, sizes, shapes and in an infinitely large way, but one thing unites us; our humanity. Discrimination and its different variants have evolved from a pure lack of knowledge. Discrimination has arisen from the tendency of humans to not trust that which we are not familiar with. As primitive beings, we struggled with being able to comprehend and trust things that were unfamiliar to us. This very fact is what discourages me the most. It is understandable for us to be very skeptical in trusting someone or something that didn’t appear familiar to us. But even as our minds developed and our level of understanding and consciousness grew exponentially, we held onto the remedial distrust of things we differ from. One would think that with the expansion of our mental horizons, our mindsets would change to encompass these newfound thoughts and ideas. Unfortunately, this is not so
- 3Instances of this are rampant throughout history in more societies than one. From ethnic cleansings in Darfur and Armenia, to the mass extermination of an entire race of people in Germany, discrimination has been the root of some of the biggest tragedies in human history. Although people make examples of massive instances of discrimination in history in order to prevent future occurrences, we cannot ignore the smaller situations that occur on a daily basis. These small occurrences are the stepping-stones for larger tragedies. These, what one might call, “minuscule” events happen in every society, every country, with every type of people.
- 4This leads me to the issue at hand; the issue being addressed in this paper. I have noticed that an increasing amount of Professors as well as student Teaching Assistants are all of foreign descent. These individuals come from countries such as China, Korea, India as well as many other countries, in order to pursue a degree, or in search of job opportunities to ultimately improve their chance of success as well as their quality of life. These students and professors come to America with the hopes of becoming successful and achieving everything they hoped and dreamed. However, their situation is much more complicated than that. With an individual from another country there will, more often than not, be an issue with some type of language barrier or cultural barrier. With these barriers, come all types of discrimination.
- One example that is quite prevalent at the University at Buffalo is a major language barrier between faculty and students. While observing one calculus class which, evidently, had a professor from China, had a large amount of discrimination by students. The professor was a man in his early thirty’s with, what seemed to be, a thick accent. Students strained throughout class to understand the professor and his elaborations on certain topics .
- 6Some students even left in the middle of the lecture. After class had ended and the professor had left, there were murmurs of how the teacher was “terrible” and how it was “impossible to understand anything [the professor] was saying”. The discouraged students were also quite reluctant to attend the office hours of the professor due to the difficulty of communicating with him. The language barrier lead students to believe that the teacher wasn’t qualified to be teaching such a challenging course and questions as to why he was even hired were being asked.
- 7However, it wouldn’t occur to the students each and every professor that is hired by the University at Buffalo is highly qualified to teach the course. When interviewing a career counselor about the issue of language barriers in the classroom, the counselor was quoted as saying that “Because the University at Buffalo is a research institution, each and every professor, international or not, is scrutinized based on their research in their respective field” She went on to tell me that neither language or any other aspect is a prime concern for the professors they hire.
- 6Something must be done in order to correct the issue or attempt to correct the issue. In order to properly diagnose the issue, we must first get to the root of the issue itself. No party in particular can be blamed for this issue in its entirety, however action by both parties must be taken in order to ensure a viable solution. The root of the issue lies in the lack of education of both parties as to how to go about dealing with this situation.
- 9My proposed solution would be a two-part solution in which both student and teacher were both educated and given the necessary skills or directions in order to succeed in communicating. First, I would have incoming freshman take a required class that educated the students as to how to go about conducting oneself in the classroom and how to go about communicating with a professor. Regardless of how well a professor can speak English or not, all students can use advice on how to communicate and build a repertoire with their professors. This class would do everything from teaching students ideal times and methods to communicate with professors, ways to approach a professor, ways to deal with a professor who may have an issue with speech, as well as many other possible issues that may arise. Enforcing this class would only be part one of this solution. The other aspect of this plan would be trying to educate the professor on the possible issues that may arise when they begin to teach in America. Explaining to them that the language barrier is a real issue and the consequences that come with this issue would be a main priority. To properly educate these professors, the professors should be told to complete a class that educates them on possible issues they may face throughout their career in relation to their language barriers. English would be taught in these classes and it should be made mandatory for every teacher to provide a printed copy of their notes for all to access so every student has a chance to do well in every class and to be given a fair chance to succeed. I realize that these may not be the most convenient or viable choices to solve an issue such as this, but if something is to be done about discrimination, it must start with young individuals who have made the choice to become educated individuals. Education is the key to creating a society in which hardship is minimalized, maximum benefits are utilized, and a prosperous future is possible