CMYK
THE OFFICIAL STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS • FOUNDED 1922
VOL.
101
I S S UE 8
reflector.uindy.edu
FEBRUARY 22, 2023
Job changes in Office of Student Affairs By Grace Lichty ONLINE EDITOR
There have been several recent organizational changes made to the University of Indianapolis Division of Student and Campus Affairs, according to an email sent by the Office of Student Affairs on Jan. 25. The roles of university staff Jessica Ward, Rev. Arionne Yvette Lynch, Robbie Williford and Steven Freck have been adjusted. According to Freck, his previous title was the Associate Dean of Students and is now the Senior Associate Dean of Student Life and Leadership. Freck said that his new role is very similar to what it was before. “Some additional responsibilities were added in terms of student support and things like that, but my main areas of focus are still very much focused on developing the student experience,” Freck said. Freck said that if a student worked with him on something before, he is still the person to be in-touch with. He said that his role will not look
much different from a student-facing alongside the Office of Human Resources, perspective and that the changes are more other various departments and other behind-the-scenes. deans at the school. As for the impact “We've had some turnover in our of the changes of student affairs titles area over the past year, just with people on students, she said the effects will be leaving for various reasons. I think it minimal. was an opportunity for us to look at what “I think it gives us a little bit more made sense for the university to make ability to reach out and help students sure that all the areas that need to be kind of across divisions, because students addressed are getting the attention they usually, if they need something, they're need. So I think coming to either me, that's why people's or Steven Freck or titles changed,” Robbie who's over Freck said. ...As far as the day-to-day ResLife,”Ward said. According to “So students are stuff, it doesn't Ward, her previous already funneling to title was the Senior us. It just gives us the change anything." Associate Dean of ability to be able to Students and Title reach a little farther IX Coordinator and to help them. But I is now the Associate Vice President/Dean think day-to-day students aren't going of Students and Title IX Coordinator. to see a difference. They still know what Ward said that she is in charge of the I do. Students are still going to come to oversight of Residence Life, all student me regardless of what my title is, [it is] conduct and Title IX. the same thing with [Freck]. So as far as Ward also said that her role is similar to the day-to-day stuff, it doesn't change her previous one. She said she now works anything.” more closely with student involvement According to Freck, the Office of on campus. Ward said she also works Student Affairs is a great place for any
student or family member of a student to go and that everyone should feel welcome to reach out to anyone in the department. He said the office is here to serve students to the best of their abilities and recent changes set them up to better do so. “We're always looking for student input,” Freck said. “So if students have something that they want to see changed, if they want a particular program, if they're nervous about something that's happening on campus, we want to partner with students, so they should feel comfortable coming and talking with us.” According to the email from the Office of Student Affairs, Williford now serves as the Director of Residence Life and Rev. Lynch now serves as University Chaplain & Director of the Lantz Center/EIP.The university also appointed Matt Gray as the Student Affairs Logistics Coordinator and Technical Specialist.Gray is returning to the University of Indianapolis as he was previously a Residence Director and Assistant Director of Residence Life. The Office of Student Affairs remains under the leadership of Amber Smith, Vice President of Student Experience, Success and Belonging.
WARD
Ransom Place: Indianapolis' Black history How Indianapolis' Black community was uprooted from its historic, prosperous neighborhood By Kassandra Darnell EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Downtown Indianapolis was once a thriving area for Black Hoosiers, with Ransom Place as a hub for the community, according to the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. Located in a six-square block surrounded by 10th Street, St. Clair Street, Paca Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street, Ransom Place is a historic neighborhood for the once-prominent African American community in Indianapolis. University of Indianapolis Assistant Director of the Office of Inclusion and Equity
and Title IX Investigator CariAnn Freed described Ransom Place and Indiana Avenue as Indianapolis’ own ‘Black Wall Street.’ “In Indianapolis, it [Ransom Place] was the first community that really gathered and flourished, and it was closer to downtown right off Indiana Avenue,” Freed said. “If you drive down Indiana Avenue, you'll actually see a placard of what's left of Ransom Place. And it's really just a tiny little block…. That's where Black doctors, Black lawyers, the shops, the clubs, the restaurants, all used to live on Indy [Indiana] Avenue. You see in the progression of Indianapolis history as you look in maps and things like
INSIDE: OPINION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 NEWS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 SPORTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 5 FEATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 ENTERTAINMENT. . . . . . . . . 7 RETROSPECTIVE . . . . . . . . . . 8
that; downtown used to really be where the Black people were.” Ransom Place’s growth coincided with the establishment of Indiana Avenue, which became the central commercial and leisure district for the Black community, according to the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. The street used to be lined by Blackowned businesses, churches, theaters and more. And while many who worked in the area worked bluecollar jobs, some residents were physicians, attorneys or even city councilmen, according to Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. One of the most prominent residents of Indiana Avenue was
Graphic by Arrianna Gupton
Madam C.J. Walker, who relocated her business to the avenue, employing local talent and leadership to build her business empire, according to the website New America. When she died in 1919, she was considered the wealthiest self-made woman in America—regardless of race— according to New America. However, Black residents and business owners of Ransom Place and Indiana Avenue were eventually pushed out of the area as a result of segregation, white flight, redlining and the construction of I-65 and I-70, according to New America. UIndy Assistant Professor of Sociology Colleen Wynn said redlining comes from a federal policy that influenced how home loans were insured in the past. The Federal Housing Administration and Homeowners Loan Corporation created maps based on the ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses and jobs of residents, as well as if the neighborhoods were racially integrated. “The people here hold whitecollar jobs, [and] they were, in those neighborhoods, primarily white,” Wynn said. “They were stable families, people that they [the FHA and HLC] believed would pay back loans. And so…they literally colored them [those areas] green on the map. So green was the neighborhoods where loans would be highly insured and guaranteed there…. If they felt like it wasn't a good place to give a loan, for a variety of reasons, they literally colored them red so that when their people went to give loans, they could look at the map and say, ‘Oh, nope, we can't guarantee a loan in that neighborhood.’” In the 1960s, many Black residents in this area were forced from their homes when Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis systemically acquired properties to expand the university, ultimately eliminating the quality housing that was available to the Black and low-income communities, according to both Encyclopedia of Indiana and New America, respectively. Wynn said this expansion resulted in not only a loss of housing but a loss of community as well. According to Freed,
who did a video project on Ransom Place, a lot of properties in the area are now IUPUI parking lots. “That was their methodology; they would buy up these relatively cheap houses, they would demolish them all, flatten them all to the point where they were able to be a parking lot,” Freed said. “And then that would push out the next neighbor to do the same thing. At one point IUPUI was even buying moving vans to help people get out of the community faster.” According to Wynn, these processes of redlining and the expansion of IUPUI—as well as gentrification—still greatly affect the area today, where Black and low-income residents cannot afford to live in this place that was once a home for Black excellence. “They're starting to be pushed out by students, or I'm sure even young professionals in some of the spaces, or perhaps faculty and staff at IUPUI maybe want to live in some of those areas,” Wynn said. “Even where there are houses and neighborhoods still, it's not necessarily affordable for that community anymore and it's spreading out into the other surrounding places where people were pushed to. They're continually experiencing that, which is all tied up in some of that redlining and segregation.” While the history of Ransom Place and Indiana Avenue is of a once bustling Black neighborhood that was uprooted by systemic racism, Wynn said it is important to acknowledge this history to prevent it from repeating. “I think that helps us to create policies that don't push people out and make sure that we're recognizing how everyone has this stake in belonging there,” Wynn said. “It's important to know about the experiences of people who aren't necessarily like us, or who are like us who we might not know about. The history that we learn, both locally and maybe nationally in the U.S., is often told from such a white-male perspective; it's important to make sure that we're learning history where we can from people who aren't just from that perspective because their experiences of an event are likely very different.”
NEW PROPOSED STATE BILLS
PROFESSOR IN MAYORAL RACE
BAROQUE ORCHESTRA PLAYING
Several proposed bills in the Indiana General Assembly’s 2023 Session feature “unique talking points.” Check out Page 3 for more information.
UIndy Adjunct Professor of Business and Communication Abdul-Hakim Shabazz has put his name in the hat for the 2023 Indianapolis mayoral election. Read more about Shabazz and his background on Page 6.
The Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra will perform “Towards Mozart: The Making of a Master” at Ruth Lilly Performance Hall on March 1. Page 7 has all of the details behind the event.
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