UPDATED: Oct. 17, 2019 at 6:19 p.m.

All first year students are enrolled automatically into a First Year Experience, or SEM 100 class.

The class centers around group discussion and shared reading of a chosen novel that has certain themes the university feels first year students should focus on during their transition to college life. The course was introduced for the fall 2018 semester with the novel “Born a Crime” by comedian Trevor Noah.

This year’s SEM 100 classes read an assigned book that left many wondering why SU chose it, and rightly so. The planners of the SEM 100 class chose “Lab Girl,” an auto-biography by award winning scientist and novelist Hope Jahren. In the future, SU needs to choose readings for the course that directly address issues of diversity and inclusion as they appear at schools like Syracuse.

Jessie Santillan, the First Year Experience coordinator, helped make the syllabus and organize prompts to be used for conversation in the class. He said in an email that the Inclusive Leadership Assembly — a committee with representation from each school led by Chief Diversity Officer Keith Alford — chose “Lab Girl.”

 

Santillan said the book was chosen due to the themes such as gender discrimination in the STEM field, confronting questions of self-identity, navigating relationships and national issues such as climate change.

“The goal for SEM is, in essence, to practice engaging in civil discourse about topics that relate to identity, belonging and inclusion,” Santillan said.

A number of students have said they have a hard time relating to the messages in “Lab Girl,” though.

Freshman Alex Kim said that he struggled connecting to the novel.

“I could not relate to many of the messages from ‘Lab Girl,’” Kim said. “I found it hard to connect with Jahren, not only because I am a man, but mostly because she was experiencing a very mature situation that I have yet to connect to, and probably won’t in the first year of college.”

The novel focuses primarily on Jahren’s work experience in a very specific field of study. While Jahren is a very accomplished scientist, she has a unique childhood and an even more unrelatable adult life.

When choosing a First Year Experience novel, SU administrators should consider books that do more than offer thematic concepts some students might relate to. Especially in a class meant primarily to foster greater understanding of diversity and inclusion, students need to be reading material that addresses the issues of diversity apparent at schools like Syracuse more directly.

Students fill out an anonymous survey about SEM 100 at the end of their session each year. And though the results of this year’s survey aren’t known, multiple students have said they felt unmoved and unrecognized by this year’s shared reading experience.

About a year ago, The Daily Orange reported that the many people thought the first-year forum failed to address issues of diversity and inclusion. SU can do better. Administrators have undoubtedly chosen well-written books worth reading, but they should strive to find stories that explicitly address diversity on the terms students will encounter it on campus.

CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, in a previous version of this post, Jessie Santillan was misgendered. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Sophia Becker is a freshman. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at sfbecker@syr.edu. She can be followed on Twitter at @sophiafbecker

Published on October 15, 2019 at 11:06 pm