Oscar Barbarin: 'Finding Yourself in Your Alma Mater'

TERP Magazine recently published "Sights Unseen: UMD Community Reflects on Racism," an article featuring eight members of the UMD community talking about color, identity and racism from different angles. Below, we present thoughts from Dr. Oscar Barbarin, who recently joined BSOS as Chair of the Department of African American Studies and as Professor of Psychology. Dr. Barbarin also has been named the University's Elkins Professor.

"My initial entry into the University of Maryland in 1974 was not a comfortable one. As an African American raised in New Orleans in a era of legalized segregation, I had little experience being among whites. I arrived here as a newly minted Ph.D., appointed as an assistant professor of psychology and director of the Community Field Station, when UMD was still grappling with the tumult of integration and protests from black students over a lack of support. I still harbored uncertainties about how I would fit in and be viewed by faculty and a student population that was still mostly white—in 1975, only about 2,000 of the university’s 36,000 students were black.

Early in my arrival in College Park, I strolled from my office in the psychology department toward McKeldin Library. As I passed others, I tried to catch their eye and greet them with a warm 'hello' or 'good morning' as we invariably do in New Orleans, even with strangers. They all averted my gaze or looked away. I felt a chill of rejection and wondered whether UMD would ever feel like home, given its culture, history and traditions.

The negative feedback I encountered was not directed at me personally, but at the things I valued and were central to my professional identity: applied research with the poor and African Americans. Outside of the core group that I worked closely with, faculty kept their distance. While some students were gracious and accepting, others crossed the boundary into a disrespectful challenging of my evaluations of their work. They seemed to feel that they could question and disagree with me more than with my white colleagues.

But I had nowhere else to go. I had to make it here. I realized that I would be at peace only if I took hold of the situation and owned being a member of the university. I had to convince myself that I, Oscar Barbarin, black man, belonged here, and this was my university just as much as it was that of my white colleagues and students. I cannot say that I was persuasive enough to quiet my anxieties.

Today, I see that both the University of Maryland and I have changed for the better. I am awed by the growth of the university, how well the campus has maintained its classic beauty, and the success at efforts to diversify demographically. In my return to the campus, I experience no self-doubt, no questions of belonging. At last, I can truly say I belong here.

When I pass by students, though, they still look away (this must be Northeastern culture). When I see students of color, I wonder how many continue to experience uncertainty and entertain questions about belonging. How many are engaging in the same self-doubt that pained me many years ago?

My hope for them is that Maryland will do much to make this their home away from home, so that in the future they will look back at their time here and say with conviction: UMD is my alma mater in the truest and most authentic meaning of the words, 'My nurturing mother.'"

Excerpted from TERP Magazine; read the full story.

Published on Wed, Sep 30, 2015 - 10:05AM