Ctscisa

https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/students-protest-at-columbia-theological-seminary/

Students protest at Columbia Theological Seminary International students say they’re unhappy with strategic realignment

We are thankful for the prayers and solidarity of the Student Government Association in Richmond, VA. Written below is a letter of support we received from them on March 22, 2019:​
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As fellow students at a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) seminary, we stand in solidarity with the Coalition of International Studies and Allies at Columbia Theological Seminary. Experiences abroad and relationships formed with international students in our community have enriched our theological education. Therefore, we share in the heartbreak felt at institutional cuts that will compromise the support and inclusion of international students at Columbia Theological Seminary.
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We call for fair representation of immigrant students in decisions that impact their theological education and welfare. As students in an institution with its own legacy of systematic racism and colonialism, we give thanks for the witness and bravery of the students who began this conversation. We commit to share in this faithful work of decolonization on our campus and throughout the larger church.
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In Power,

A Student Government Association in Richmond, VA

A letter of support from Thomas Hampton, an M.Div Final year student at CTS. This letter addresses some of the FAQs, the current student climate, and also clarifies most misunderstandings about the current CISA movement including negotiations, protests and press meet.

Fellow CTS Community:

I want to be clear that I’m not against anybody, but I am against colonization in attitude and action at CTS, and that affects everybody including myself. We need God’s help in this struggle, so this message is actually an invitation to a Prayer Meeting on Friday evening at 5pm in SPACE. Everyone is invited (faculty and staff included).

You probably know that CISA held a press-conference yesterday. Decaturish (bit.ly/2HJ4NmS) & AJC were there. There were also four different Korean news outlets present, including Korean Radio Atlanta. Even before the public event yesterday there was already an article printed by the Korea Daily News (https://bit.ly/2CvxVeb), which is the largest Korean-American newspaper. Among the speakers at the press-conference were five International Students, Dr. Jung Ha Kim (a Georgia State Sociology Professor), Rev. Byeong Chul Han (pastor @ KCPC), and David Park (pastor @ Open Table Community Church & 2010 alumnus).

The center-of-gravity of this discussion isn’t on Columbia Life or CTSCISA.com or a petition website. It’s in immigrant churches, on WhatsApp, and KakaoTalk. I am a proud ally of my International Student friends for their leadership, for applying what they’ve learned in their classes here and adding to it to make their own message.

If we recoil when International Students talk about their pain, then we actualize the repressed thought that we feel responsible for that pain. Then we refuse to deal with it. When people of color criticize systems of white supremacy, if we feel personally attacked, then that is our problem. If CISA says that CTS acts like a colonizing institution, then please realize this is not an attack on the institution unless we refuse to listen to the problem and acknowledge each of our parts in its creation.

During his speaking at the event, Paul Essah said it brilliantly: “Discomfort by those in power and leadership is to be expected when they are challenged. We are not responsible for their emotional response, and we will not stop seeking justice to mollify personal feelings.”

To be clear, I feel great admiration toward President Van Dyk, especially because of the stories she’s shared about her fight for the right to serve communion as a woman in the Presbyterian Church. I think Katie Ricks has one of the most powerful testimonies of just institutional change in the history of the school. I know both Brandon and Khalfani were student activists at Candler, and I only wish I knew more of their stories. I’m inspired by the strength shown by my classmates and their emphasis on social justice.

But I’m concerned about what’s happening right now. One of my favorite quotes is by Hannah Arendt: “The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.” This is an active campus of activists, and my prayer is that we be as proactive in addressing our own proclivities for power and stability as we are when we see it in others.

This current conversation should come as no surprise. CTS has literally trained students to do this work. And, in past moments of protest and pointing out hypocrisy on campus, students engaging this work have been applauded and supported. I think that any students doing the work they are doing now on campus in the future in settings of ministry, government, non-profits or otherwise would be held up as exemplary manifestations of the degree they received at CTS. So, why is it met with animosity now?

Please take this thought seriously: The International Students are the ones who can most clearly identify systems of colonization at CTS, and as fellow members of this institution, everyone who does not feel their pain should listen when it is described to us. If people who don’t feel their pain refuse to listen to them (as has been claimed for the past 2.5 months), then the people feeling pain have no responsibility to continue deferring to the rules of a network they have identified as oppressive.

I will now respond to a few criticisms that I’ve heard from multiple people. If you think I’m calling you out specifically, I’m not; I have heard each of these from multiple sources.

I’ve had well-intentioned friends say to me: “The International Programs Office never was that great.” It did have its flaws, mostly related to the amount of work required of it. But what I’m concerned about is the trajectory of the seminary’s recent hiring/firing decisions and how it appears to be conflicting with the trajectory of the global Church. Taking a job that was not done well by one person and spreading it across a few people who do not have the legal and logistical expertise in the area will hardly improve results. Especially if we are committed to the experience of international students on our campus.

I’ve had well-intentioned friends say to me: “This protest is causing division in our CTS community.” But pointing out existing division in the student experience of our community is not an act of division itself. If you thought there wasn’t division before then you just weren’t listening, and you were actually participating in the division. It sure is hard, but the only way to approach our ideal beloved community is by pointing out the divisions, and disproportionately putting our resources into bridging them. Critics may suggest that an ideal community can never be institutionally realized, but this doesn’t stop us from working and hoping towards this telos.

I’ve had well-intentioned friends say to me: “Why don’t the International Students go through the proper negotiating process?” I believe they tried that. If you’ve been following along, you probably remember that this recent conversation (from the student side) started over two and a half months ago, but it was an extension of an extremely old one. Negotiations went back-and-forth. You can follow along with the links on the CTSCISA website: International Students adjusted their proposals based on feedback from the administration. Reinstatement of Dr. Park was on the first list, and after being informed that there was just no way this could happen, that proposal was replaced by a request for a CISA seat at the decision-making table when decisions are made that would affect mostly International Students. This IS negotiation. Eventually, the core CISA group made the decision that they weren’t being heard, and they decided to bring their case to people they thought might hear them (like Korean radio). If we think they don’t have that right, then we are already causing division on the level of personhood: saying that a group doesn’t have the right to pursue its own interests. It would mean we are a part of the problem.

I’ve had well-intentioned (white) friends say to me: “By protesting you’ll just make things harder for the International Students.” Certainly, the history of social movements shows that fighting for empowerment often gets messy. But what are you afraid of at CTS? If you think the administration is really as tolerant as they say, then you wouldn’t have this fear. If you’re actually afraid of administration enacting revenge on the International Students for speaking out, then this is exactly the type of system that would need to be opposed. Either there is nothing to be feared, or there is something very much to be feared that needs broad opposition. Either way, the support required of you is the same.

When International Students say that a school has to be decolonized, you don’t need to hire a PR firm or prevent Professors from speaking publicly. Hiring a PR Firm, or threatening legal action looks like the response of an institution with something to hide. A community that values marginalized voices would respond with an open and honest admission of its shortcomings and a plan to fix the problem.

We need to come together as a community, and it needs to be centered on the International Students. To this end, all students have been invited to the International Student Bible Study this Friday for a time of prayer at 5pm in SPACE, which will be led by the International Students.

For International Students everywhere,
---Thomas


https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2509545589075433&id=100000600498894

Columbia Theological Seminary students protest closing Office of International Programs Columbia Theological Seminary boasts a large international presence among its 300 students.

The letter of Support from Rachel VanKirk Mathews ,Class '18. We thank you for being in solidarity with us.

To the Administration of Columbia Theological Seminary,

I was asked to speak at a lot of events at Columbia: to donors, prospective students, alumni, the board. From the first time I began telling my story at CTS, it began like this, “As someone who came from a large Southern school that is majority white and still very segregated, my first day of Greek school at Columbia was very surprising. In my Greek small group of eight, I was the only one under 30, in good company with many women, and one of only two white students. My Greek TA was Korean American, my daily study buddies were Korean and Vietnamese, and my classmates who sat on either side of me during class were African American and African. In this, Columbia felt and feels different. However, I learned that CTS, like all seminaries, like all churches, has work to do and challenges to overcome. Dr. Van Dyk has said that, ‘diversity is not inclusion.’ Truly, Inclusion is what we are working towards, but have not yet achieved…”

The fact that I and other white students were asked to speak so often, compared to my International and classmates of color was brought up often in student circles. The student experience at Columbia is very intense and hard because there are so many issues with how students are treated who are not American, white, middle-class and above, residential, without disability, and of a look and sound that photographs well for advisement or sounds good in front of donors. We are taught to be imaginative, but it is clear to students that the systems in place at CTS could use a heavy dose of Christian imagination.

The current mistreatment of international faculty is heart-breaking to me, but not surprising. While at Columbia, I spoke with many of our non-white faculty, both domestic and international, and there was a thread between them. The academy and Columbia favor the white, Western way of embodying a professional academic that does not as highly weight a professor’s investment in their denomination, church, community, and students as it does their publishing and teaching. There have been serious pitfalls, from a student’s perspective, in how faculty of color are evaluated. The things I learned from observing Dr. Park and Dr. Azumah in their church contexts, being welcomed by their churches, being taught by their parishioners over a period of time, is of just as much value to me today as a working pastor as the deep and insightful things I learned from them in their or any classroom. I want to recommend CTS to my students at UKirk Lexington considering seminary because of these experiences, for good teaching and theological insight are found in many seminaries, but CTS is a treasure for its diversity of staff, faculty, and students. Yet, faculty are all measured by one Western standard, which is unfair for an institution that claims to value and benefits from both its domestic and international faculty alike.

The current mistreatment of international students, specifically a lack of regard for their needs in dismantling the Office of International Programs and dismissing Dr. Park who was head of the Korean American Ministries, is heart-breaking to me for many reasons, all of which have names. The African friend who sat next to me my first day of Greek school and became a deep friend to me was Dinah Baah. She is still the most prophetic preacher I have ever heard. My dear friend Richard Johnson is still one of the most loyal friends I made at Columbia, we still communicate with each other, and he faced many issues when arriving to Columbia. My dear friends Gerlyn Henry and Garam Han are sisters and peers who I will rely on for the rest of my life. I know these and many other international students depended heavily on the dedicated Office for International Programs when arriving to Columbia, and throughout their time there. As someone attending seminary at a place that does not show international students it values them as highly as other students in the classroom and community, in a country that is hostile to immigrants, the support of the Office for International Programs was essential to their ability to be successful.

How could I, as an alumni that benefited so much from my friendship with international classmates, diversity in the classroom, and learning from international professors, not support my international peers at Columbia in asking for the following from the administration:

The reinstatement of the Office of International Programs;

That the Director of the Office of International Programs be filled by an immigrant faculty member who is globally trained and empathetic to the interests of immigrant and international students; and

Seats at the decision-making table for representatives of the Coalition of International Students and Allies when key decisions are made related to the Office of International Programs, or decisions impacting immigrant and/or international students as a whole.

I urge the administration of Columbia to take the solutions proposed by the international students of Columbia seriously, and take less time in instating them. I am disheartened to see people I value so highly leave the Columbia community because we are so colonial in how we make decisions, so unable to get out of our white, Western ways of thinking higher education should be done. I want to be able to recommend students to Columbia because my experience, though intense and hard, in a diverse community was invaluable to me, the most valuable thing Columbia has to offer. But I am afraid CTS will become less diverse if we do not use our Christian imaginations to move our community past diversity to a more true inclusion, affirmation, and equity of all. I write all of this out of a love for the community of Columbia, a deep gratitude to all international staff, faculty, and students, and a hope that we can together live into the Kin-dom of God a little bit more each day, by the Grace of God.

Sincerely,

Rachel VanKirk Mathews

M.Div, Class of ‘18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&time_continue=686&v=3wNxp69q6tM

International students at Columbia Theological Seminary protest For the full story, visit Decaturish.com

Theological Seminary

CC -Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington Office,
PCUSA Racial and Intercultural Justice Office

Columbia Theological Seminary students protest closing Office of International Programs Columbia Theological Seminary boasts a large international presence among its 300 students.

Please Sign and Share the petition

CISA Petition Link : https://bit.ly/2HFmJyT

Gratefully,
Coalition of International Students and Allies (CISA) at Columbia Theological Seminary

website:
https://www.ctscisa.com/

email:
[email protected]

https://www.facebook.com/ctscisa

Sign the Petition Decolonize Columbia Theological Seminary: Immigrant students against institutional racism!

We are the Coalition of International Students and Allies (CISA) at Columbia Theological Seminary (Decatur,GA, USA)

We are demanding institutional commitment and culture that promotes intentional equity, diversity, and inclusion of students through policy changes that addresses the needs and prevents discrimination against students from international contexts.

Kindly share our petition found in our page timeline and offer your solidarity in this difficult hour.

Gratefully,

Coalition of International Students and Allies (CISA) at Columbia Theological Seminary (Decatur,GA, USA)

website:
https://www.ctscisa.com/

email:
[email protected]

https://www.facebook.com/ctscisa

Ctscisa We are the Coalition of International Students and Allies (CISA) at Columbia Theological Seminary, (GA, USA)

https://www.ctscisa.com [email protected]