One year later, Cross-Cultural Center allows students to explore identities

The Cross-Cultural Center celebrated its first birthday last month. Students see the center as a place where they can feel comfortable with who they are. Panther Archives

A year after the Cross-Cultural Center opened, ‘17 alumna Annabell Liao, who said she has been the only woman of color to serve as student government president, spoke to visitors at the center’s anniversary celebration about its impact on campus.

“It’s such an honor to be here today to speak at the one-year anniversary of the Cross-Cultural Center. But you know what the bigger honor is? Being surrounded by so many women of color right now,” Liao said in her speech. “You all are taking up space in a predominantly white space, and that’s radical.”

For years, students had pushed for a space on campus that welcomed diversity and multiculturalism. However, President Emeritus Jim Doti opposed a potential multicultural center, saying that it would “ghettoize” the campus. Though he later clarified his statement, saying that the school should invest more in fostering campus-wide cultural conversations, he said that a multicultural center would not happen as long as he was president.

“The CCC is a place that I know will always be there to provide a safe, yet challenging, place to present and explore my identity.”

Developing the Cross-Cultural Center (CCC) became a high priority for President Daniele Struppa after his inauguration in 2016. It officially opened five months after he took office, and it celebrated its first year on campus Feb. 26.

“The CCC used to be a name that not many knew when I would mention it to them, but now it’s become a ‘Chapman term’ that everyone knows about, which is pretty cool,” said sophomore Beatrice Lam, president of the Korean Student Association. “The fact that it has reached its goal of providing a space for people to explore their identities is an observation I make every day.”

For Lam, the center is a space in which she feels comfortable about her own identity, and can also engage in dialogue with others.

“Regardless of the day I’ve had, the CCC is a place that I know will always be there to provide a safe, yet challenging, place to present and explore my identity,” said Lam, a communication studies major.

Farrah Su, a ‘17 alumna who served on the advisory board for the center and was a board member for Chapman’s Asian Pacific Student Association (APSA), said multicultural organizations made her feel like she belonged on campus.

“As a Taiwanese-American first-generation college student raised in New York, I felt really lost coming out to California for college,” Su said at the center’s one-year celebration. “In my classes, it was hard to find people who looked like me, and faculty and staff that would relate to me.”

Su said she felt disconnected from her peers freshman year. The Randall Dining Commons had “racist imagery” above the Chinese and Italian food stations, and in 2013, someone submitted a comment in a suggestion box in Argyros Forum saying that there should be fewer minorities on campus, Su said.

“All of these (experiences) made me feel like I shouldn’t belong here,” she said. “I joined APSA the second year of my college experience, and I felt most welcome there. I was able to meet friends who shared similar experiences.”

The Cross-Cultural Center was created to provide a space for students to find a sense of belonging, and also to host dialogues, programs and conversations, according to the organization’s website.

“We really want to develop a sense of identity, empathy and community among Chapman students,” said Negeen Lotfi, program coordinator for Student Engagement. “I think the goal for the CCC was to really cultivate that through various programs, resources and services.”

For the future, Lotfi and the rest of the Cross-Cultural Center programming team plan to evaluate how the center is being used, as well as reach out to students who don’t currently use it.

“We want to engage students who maybe don’t feel like they have a space, or don’t recognize the value they can get from engaging in what we have to offer,” Lotfi said.

Lotfi, who graduated in 2016, wishes the center had been around when she was a Chapman student.

“I just know how that would have meant to me to walk into a space, and honestly, just to see people who look like me,” Lotfi said. “It makes a difference. For me, I see moments where students feel clearly empowered by their conversations with others.”