Shortly after the presidential election results were announced on November 9th, Baruch College president Mitchel B. Wallerstein sent out a campus wide email encouraging students, namely Latino, Muslim, and LGBT students, to come together after the election and offered various counseling services to those possibly affected by the election. As Baruch was named by both U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review as the most diverse college campus in the country, with 160 nations represented in the student body of 18,000, more than a few students had reason to be concerned by the outcome. Aside from the main Baruch Student Counseling Center, Baruch Student Life and several of the student operated clubs pledged to provide affected students with a safe haven on campus.
This poster was placed in the Student Atrium after the election, reassuring students about Baruch’s role as a safe space.
Several of the counseling services are provided by Baruch PAWS, or Peers Advocating Wellness Services. “Baruch College has always had an obligation to provide a place for students of all backgrounds to come together without fear of ostracism.” PAWS Associate Director Joy Allison said. “And in the wake of Trump’s election, that overall mission cannot be stressed any further.” In conjunction with the Undergraduate Student Government, Student Life initiated a campus wide campaign to increase awareness of safe spaces around the school, as well as the counseling services provided. As USG President Daniel Dornbaum explains, “While some people are handling the election results in their own way on by themselves, Baruch still needs to be there for those who might have been emotionally overwhelmed because of it.” According to Dornbaum, their joint effort campaign has been thoroughly successful across campus so far. In the weeks after the presidential election, student visitors to several counseling centers and clubs have increased exponentially when compared to previous years.
Pamphlet in the Baruch GLASS lounge.
While they aimed to provide support to concerned students, a few of the students that run said clubs have voiced personal issues of their own regarding a Trump presidency. “I am not so much afraid of a Trump presidency,” says Gabe Norman, president of Baruch’s primary LGBT student club, Baruch Gender Love And Sexuality Spectrum, “but more so of the people who voted him into office. Because after he was elected, a lot of people saw this as a reason and sort of permission to act out the biases and discriminatory actions they felt they were not allowed to do under Obama’s presidency.”
The Baruch branch office of AIESEC, a non profit and non governmental organization that teaches leadership development and personal empowerment skills to foreign exchange students, also stepped in to help Baruch’s foreign student body. “This election could not have happened at a worse time for us, since two exchange students from Europe that are coming by next semester both happen to be of Muslim descent. With a mixture of the election and the issues that Muslims face in Europe, that is a couple of things that obviously has us very worried.” explains Baruch AIESEC Incoming Exchange Assistant Rebecca Clabby. “But regardless as such, our big priority is to make both of them feel welcome on and off campus, and also to show them that not everyone thinks and acts like Trump and his supporters. So hopefully we can get that overall message across.”
Meanwhile, the Black Student Union were possibly the most blunt when it came to explaining their fears for the next four years. “As somebody of African descent, I can say that Trump and the people that he’s adding to his cabinet don’t have minorities in their best interests at all.” say BSU member Vanessa Santana-Fi. “Coupled with the violent actions of his supporters, I fear how race relations will be during his presidency.”
While several of the clubs aimed towards groups of people that faced harsh backlash after the election were there for said groups, a few clubs that some would never have expected to be at all affected still voiced concerns of their own towards the president elect. “I feel that theater and the arts are going to suffer tremendously under Trump.” claims Nicholas Leung of the Baruch Thespian Club. “After the incident with Mike Pence and the cast of Hamilton, as well as Trump and the alt-right’s vitriolic reaction to it on social media, it shows how ignorant they are about how inclusive both theater and the arts really are. You have got people from all walks of life coming together in one place to entertain the masses. And I feel that the arts will be heavily affected by those who don’t understand its inclusivity at all.”
Baruch students voice their thoughts and concerns for President-elect Trump.
In an incident that further expanded Baruch’s safe space program, the attack of Baruch freshman Yasmin Seweid prompted outraged responses from Baruch’s sizeable Muslim population, both at the incident and how they felt the school didn’t do enough in response to it.