![\"Alumni,](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2011\/09\/110218_Alumni_Dinner_1443.jpg\")
<\/a>Alumni, students, parents, and friends have the look of listeners during the Multicultural Voices listening tour event in Atlanta last winter. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College.<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cThe framework is genuine \u2014 to listen,\u201d Anecia O\u2019Carroll says.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s talking about \u201cMulticultural Voices,\u201d the college\u2019s alumni listening tour that started in Atlanta over the winter.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Carroll, who oversees multicultural and international programs for the Office of Alumni and Parent Engagement, is member of the Alutiiq tribe of Alaska. As such, the Bates tour is modeled less on the trendy presidential campaign versions seen in Iowa these days and more on O\u2019Carroll\u2019s own background and experiences.<\/p>\n
The Bates tour, she says, is strongly influenced by the tradition of the Native American talking circle, where each person\u2019s voice is distinct, not lost in a din.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an ancient approach to resolving problems and promoting understanding,\u201d says O\u2019Carroll, an expert in career counseling, psychotherapy, and multicultural initiatives who has lived in diverse communities around the world.<\/p>\n
Fairchild McGough Dixon \u201994, who attended the Atlanta session, says the \u201crousing discussion\u201d felt like a Tuesday night seminar class from college days past. \u201cIt\u2019s what I most miss about Bates,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
In recent years, Bates has been resolving problems and promoting understanding with various alumni cohorts, notably in the athletics realm through Friends of Bates Athletics and the LGBT realm through Bates PRIDE.<\/p>\n
In that context, the current listening tour seeks to improve the relationship between the college and its multicultural and international alumni. Measured through traditional metrics such as giving or volunteering, their engagement with Bates is low, says O\u2019Carroll, and that\u2019s why Bates \u201cneeds to hear from this cohort.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tour is an opportunity to \u2018have a real<\/em> conversation about Bates.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Today on the Bates campus, student diversity is at an all-time high, and new programs seek to make the campus as welcoming as its heritage says it should be. The listening tour, then, is an opportunity for multicultural alumni to \u201chave a real<\/em> conversation about what\u2019s going on at Bates,\u201d said student participant Ben Hughes \u201912, a native of Atlanta.<\/p>\n
After Atlanta, the listening tour visited New York City in April and in August stopped in Washington, D.C., for a session in the Patrons Lounge at the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of the American Indian.<\/p>\n
Kevin Rodriguez \u201995 attended the New York City session, held at the Salmagundi Club. It only makes sense, he says, to \u201cseek input from multicultural and international alumni \u2014 we are a great resource. And it offers alumni a unique way to give back to the college and future students.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Rodriguez implies, alumni engagement is a two-way street. \u201cThis cohort should be able to reap all the benefits and privileges that come with a Bates education,\u201d O\u2019Carroll says, \u201cand should also share the responsibility of giving back to Bates.\u201d<\/p>\n
The listening tour is creating a definition of \u201cBates alum\u201d with more hues.<\/p>\n
Atlanta attendee Dixon, who is white and a native of Louisiana, recalls that Bates was \u201cseductive\u201d to her as a student because it offered an environment \u201cwhere it would be OK to be a smart woman.\u201d At the same time, her Southern drawl made her ripe for stereotyping. \u201cI took extreme issue with the notion that the South was the only region guilty of racial inequity,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
During the listening tour, attendees have talked about the \u201cbenefits and privileges\u201d idea that O\u2019Carroll mentioned.<\/p>\n
\u201cMinority\u201d students and alums, broadly defined here in terms of racial, socioeconomic, or geographic identities, also suggest that they\u2019ve not equally benefited from the Bates name as alums who fit neatly into the Northeast culture. Dixon, for example, recalls returning home to Louisiana and realizing that Tulane fraternities offered their alums more networking oomph than the Bates name.<\/p>\n
Rahel Wondwossen \u201905 attended the New York City session. After teaching in New York City with Teach for America, she is the new high school principal at New Orleans College Prep charter school.<\/p>\n
This fall, one of her former students, a Latina from the Bronx, is at Bates. \u201cIt\u2019s a huge victory for her \u2014 and a challenge,\u201d Wondwossen says. \u201cClearly, she will receive an excellent education at Bates, along with the support she needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Wondwossen, who is African American, knows that her student will have to learn quickly how to navigate a new, predominantly white culture at Bates. \u201cI had attended a predominately white school, so I had more code-switching skills\u201d \u2014 that is, the ability to shift between linguistic styles \u2014 \u201cthat allowed me to transition in and out of various cultural groups,\u201d Wondwossen says. \u201cShe has never experienced such an environment, and I was worried about her feeling isolated.\u201d<\/p>\n
From the listening tour, she learned about various Bates initiatives around diversity and inclusion. \u201cI left feeling like\u00a0the college is moving in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Carroll says the process of re-engagement must be sensitive. \u201cBates has not been too present in their lives, so this is no time to show up out of the blue and ask for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, the challenge is to maintain deliberate forward motion. \u201cAfter listening comes responding, then listening again,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a cycle of discourse and responsive action. We will let affinities form or re-form, and, yes, accept gifts of time and support for Bates as they naturally come forward.\u201d<\/p>\n