The Ethnography of the Brown Commemoration Fieldwork and analysis for the project have focused on the committee’s intention to foster (with the Chancellor’s and Provost’s encouragement) campus-wide dialogues on race and diversity at the university. A nine-person research team—four undergraduates, one graduate students, and four faculty—submitted their 170-page report to the organizing committee’s chairs in November 2004. The EBC research group is now expanding the report into a book manuscript, A Hard Year Downstate: A Student Ethnography of Race and the University. In January 2005, the EBC group met with the EBC Steering Committee for feedback on the report; that steering committee includes representatives from a range of academic departments, from all of the ethnic studies programs and cultural houses, and from several Student Affairs divisions, including Housing. We are working hard to respond seriously to this feedback as we write the book. This project allowed us to explore the complicated university-community relationship around issues of race. EOTU appreciates that the boundaries of the university are in fact blurred, and that the study of university-community relations is a fruitful way to explore university identities and values. Nancy Abelmann, Mark Aber, Rene Bangert, Paul Davis, Bill Kelleher, Peter Mortensen, Nicole Ortegón, Teresa Ramos, and Amy Wan |