By Katie Goss ’23
News Writer
“We are calling for a Scholar strike ... on September 8-9 2020 to protest ongoing police violence and murders in America,” tweeted Anthea Butler, a professor of religious studies and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, on Aug. 26.
Butler’s tweet introduced the Scholar Strike to a larger audience. Inspired by the NBA and WNBA strikes against racial and social injustice in the United States and in response to recent protests against police brutality and racial injustice, the strike was designed to “raise awareness of and prompt actions against racism, policing, mass incarnation and other symptoms of racism’s toll in America,” according to the official Scholar Strike website. Faculty and students across the United States participated in the strike from Sept. 8 to Sept. 9. Canadian students participated on Sept. 9 and Sept. 10.
In an article written for CNN by Butler and Kevin Gannon, the director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and a professor of history at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, the writers stated that the Scholar Strike is “a two-day action on September 8-9 where professors, staff, students and even administrators will step away from their regular duties and classes to engage in teach-ins about racial injustice in America, policing, and racism in America.”
The Canadian Scholar Strike website stated that “Many of the Black, Indigenous and racialized academics who work in Canadian universities are precariously employed; hired on only part-time or short-term contracts. The few that have been hired into full-time faculty and staff positions have found it difficult to remain in those jobs, they have either been fired or laid off because of institutional racism and other forms of violence in the university.”
Those who participated in the strike across the two countries did so in a variety of ways. Some professors canceled class altogether and sent out materials to educate students on the history of racial injustice, police brutality and the strike itself. Others held class and chose to use the time to educate their students about racial issues either more generally or specific to the subject they teach. Some of those who decided to hold a class centered around the ideas of the strike also used the time to provide an opportunity for in-class discussion and for students to talk about their own experiences.
Though Mount Holyoke did not make a formal statement about the strike, faculty and students both acknowledged it within the community. “I decided to participate in #ScholarsStrike for two reasons. The first is that while Mount Holyoke has made some new commitments towards anti-racism, I believe that the institution still has a ways to go to achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Associate Professor of Film Media Theater Amy Rodgers said. “I think it's up to each of us as faculty and staff to push the institution towards these goals and to commit to doing that work on our own as well.”
Rodgers canceled class on Tuesday and linked a number of resources surrounding the topic of the Scholar Strike to her students to go over if they wanted to. She felt it would not be beneficial to make going through the resources mandatory in any way, or to make students feel they had to do so.
Rodgers specializes in what she calls “white- and male-dominated” 16th and 17th-century British literature. In an effort to learn more about these issues within her own field of early modern literature, Rogers attended a webinar about how to make classes and scholarship in her field more inclusive and relevant to students of color on the Tuesday of her canceled class. “I still have a lot to learn and unlearn, so this seemed like an ideal opportunity to do some of that work,” she said.
She further explained that, in the webinar, participants discussed including more work from different parts of the world and making race a more prominent topic when teaching all of the early modern texts. “In other words, it's not enough to just spend one day on race when you're teaching ‘Othello’ during a 14-week semester,” Rodgers said.
Visiting Lecturer in Astronomy Jason Young used part of his class time on Tuesday, Sept. 8, to watch a lecture about racial injustice within the field of astronomy and provided other resources about the topic for his students to read afterward. On Wednesday, he dedicated an hour of class time to have a discussion on the topic.
“I think our culture’s at a turning point, but I also think that that will only happen if folks don’t accept the status quo,” Young said.
He felt that taking a day to think about the movie before returning for discussion made the following class more productive. “I've never moderated a discussion like this, and I kind of didn't know what to expect, but it was really constructive,” Young said. “[The students], I felt, were very interested in the topic and felt it was very important and wanted to participate in a discussion like that.”
Students had their own thoughts about the two-day strike and how their professors acknowledged it. Both of Gina Pasciuto’s ’23 professors acknowledged the strike.
“One of my professors canceled class on Tuesday and sent us the link to the Scholar Strike page, and the other spent Wednesday’s class showing us a debate on representation and Black culture in the theatre, so we could discuss it,” Pasciuto said. “I was glad that my professors were acknowledging something so important.”
Another student, Julia Griffin ’23, said one of her professors did not mention the strike at all. A second, her chemistry professor, still held class, but recorded it for those who missed it for the strike.
“My chemistry professor sent updates through email and Moodle with links to an article on diversity and inclusion in [the chemistry field] and to the National Museum of African American History and Culture,” Griffin said.
Although some students seemed to appreciate the ways in which their professors acknowledged the strike, others voiced criticism in regard to how well it was implemented and advertised across the College.
“I personally don't know how effective the Scholar Strike was because there was hardly any mention of it by the administration. I think there was a missed opportunity to circulate this movement wider in the MHC community,” Griffin said. “I understand that administrators might not want to encourage a strike, but it should at least be acknowledged if the College is truly committed to being anti-racist. If we traditionally have Mountain Day off from classes, we should definitely have at least a day dedicated to fighting racial injustice.”
Although there was no email or message sent to students from the administration, the faculty did receive an email from the Interim Dean of Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dorothy Mosby and the American Association of University Professors providing information in regard to the strike.
“This is a significant moment in the nation and as academics, we are in a unique position to have difficult and brave conversations about racial injustice and systemic oppression in our history, society, and in our campus community,” Mosby wrote in the faculty email. She also urged faculty members to participate in ongoing campus discussions regarding anti-racism at Mount Holyoke.
According to Young, Mosby’s email was the first time he had heard about the strike. “The faculty did receive information about it, although only a few days prior,” he said “The email we received from the Dean was generally supportive of social justice and supportive of this idea [of the strike].”
Both Young and Griffin acknowledged that the strike might not have been advertised widely by the administration due to the fact that strikes are a withdrawal of workers’ services in a form of protest in order to stand for, or against, a cause. In the context of the Scholar Strike, all scholars were encouraged to strike at the universities and colleges, including the administrators.
Young also mentioned that the strike could cause a disruption in this accelerated pace with the new module system. “I thought that it was an important strike, but I also wanted to balance that with the fact that we are running twice as fast with the module system,” he said.
Rodgers also mentioned this issue of disruption with the strike; however, it did not affect her class. Instead, she moved assignments and readings around on the course syllabus to account for the missed class.
“This work can't be done alone,” Rodgers said. “We have to be honest about what we don't know and reach out to learn from and collaborate with scholars and teachers who have been doing this work for a long time.”