Stepto and Carby were taken aback by students' attempts to make such connections between race and the department. Foltz thinks that there is a line to be observed. However, the social should not be allowed to crowd out the academic or confine it. But, community involvement, long present at Columbia, has been left out of the academic program at Yale. Carby pointed to a recent grant to develop a class to go into the community as well as run a lecture series.
New Haven is a unique field of scholarly inquiry and of social interaction.
Francoise Hamlin, GRD '03, a graduate student in Af-Am studies, echoed these sentiments. I personally want my audience to be more than just academics. O'Meara, who is white, explained that reactions vary when he tells people his major. I think there's some sort of appreciation shown by people of color. Identification of some sort between the program and students , for better or for worse, is what led to its creation and what will continue to drive change.