By Alyssa Richards
As of 2023, 50.4% of incoming students were White, making Purchase a Predominantly White Institution (PWI) by a slim margin.
The SOCA and OAPIA club executive board members danced at the Fall semester Club Fair. (Photo by Arlenis Marmolejos)
On Sept. 4, Purchase held a Club Fair near Campus Center North for students to engage with potential clubs. Students were encouraged to embrace their niches and cultural backgrounds.
Out of many, cultural clubs could stand out among students of color. To name a few, Latine Unidos (LU), Organization of African People in the Americas (OAPIA), and Students of Caribbean Ancestry (SOCA).
The OAPIA club e-board members at Purchase’s Club Fair. (Photo by Arlenis Marmolejos)
“OAPIA’s purpose is to create a safe space for [Black, Indigenous, and People of Color] BIPOC students on campus from the entire African diaspora," said Alicia Garbutt, senior and president of OAPIA.
She continued, “Whether it’s 1980 or 2024, students of color at PWIs will always need somewhere that they can feel seen and heard and to find other people who they can connect with.” Garbutt says the “A” in OAPIA also means African American, Caribbean, Latinx.
The SOCA club's e-board members at the Club Fair. (Photo by Natalie Tulloch)
Christia Richards, a sophomore language and culture major is part of the Black diaspora. Richards has gone to all three clubs’ meetings. She describes SOCA as “educative and fun at the same time” and feels there should be more clubs that represent different countries, as they even educate those who are not people of color.
Richards also says that she feels comfortable in those clubs as she’s “surrounded by the same community,” and “there’s a lot more things we can relate about.”
The African American students at Purchase may be of a small percentage, but the community makes their voices heard through strength in numbers. As of 2023, 12.1% of students were of this demographic.
Similarly in 2023, Purchase was recognized as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) due to 25% of its students being Hispanic.
Anthony Cruz, senior and president of LU acknowledges this and is glad to see people from many backgrounds enter the school.
Cruz says, “I think Latine Unidos was created to make Hispanic students feel seen and heard. Of course, we ensure that the activities/events are open and accessible to as many people as possible."
He continued, "I also think Latine Unidos was created to educate and inform those who might not relate to certain cultures, not aware of certain traditions, or not informed of respectful ways to appreciate and not appropriate.”
The LU club e-board members at the Club Fair. (Photo by Arlenis Marmolejos)
LU hosts a variety of cultural events, showing the importance of maintaining tradition in a place so far from home.
Representation is not only crucial in the student body but also among faculty. Carlos Amado, the assistant professor of communications and French shares his experience of being the only Hispanic man in the room.
When Amado was pursuing his French PhD at Vanderbilt University, he expressed that he often felt like the “odd man out.”
“I have felt isolated,” Amado said, “but just by the nature of me being different than a lot of the other people who study in my field.”
Purchase is a part of the Promoting Recruitment, Opportunity, Diversity, Inclusion and Growth (PRODiG) grant which encourages the hiring of women in STEM and unrepresented minorities in the SUNY system. As of 2020, Purchase has hired three out of five of these staff.
To this, Amado said, "I think when White people are hiring or interviewing, people of other cultures, they should be mindful that just because you have cultural differences, it is not a negative. It’s a positive that can contribute. Not just to the diversity of the school, but to [White people] personally. It will allow them to expand their own horizons.”
Amado furthers this by saying he hopes he was not just hired because he was Latino, and that having diversity among professors encourages students of color to look up to somebody who has made it professionally.
The smallest racial percentage at Purchase is Asian students at 3.8% as of 2023.
Iverson Li, an undeclared freshman said, “I don’t know any other Asian people, which is a surprise, and I want to, but it’s just been difficult. … I’m just not seeing people enough.”
Due to this low population, Asian students could have trouble finding people to culturally identify with. However, on campus, the Humans of Asian and Polynesian Ancestry (HAPA) club engages in a variety of activities that connect students of all Asian backgrounds.
Students can join LU on Tuesdays weekly at 10 p.m., OAPIA on Thursdays at 10 p.m., SOCA on Wednesdays at 10 p.m., and HAPA on Thursdays at 7 p.m.
More information is available on the culture clubs via PantherLink or on their Instagram accounts, @lu_sunypurchase, @oapiapresents, @socaatpurchase, and @sunypurchase.hapa, respectively.
Comments