Psychology department researches race relations on campus
Ruth Williams, a professor in the School of Education and Psychology, and her team are conducting a research test regarding race relations. They posed the question: “Is Southern Racist?”
In the 2018 winter semester, Mia Budescu’s 11-question-survey, “Perceptions of Systemic Racism,” was administered to 417 Southern Adventist University students. This survey aimed to address how much a student believes he or she is impacted by systemic or institutional racism. At the end of the survey Williams and her team asked, “Is Southern racist?” By the vague language, this left the definition of the term up to the responders. However, they did not give racism a definition.
The results showed that 53 percent of the responses said “no,” 30 percent said “I do not know,” and 17 percent said “yes.”
“I find [the results] extremely encouraging for us as we move forward in terms of looking at ways of making this campus not just perceived as being less racist, but really being a place that is safe for all students who come here – that all students have a voice,” Williams said.
Out of the 17 percent of students who responded “yes,” 39 percent were black, 17 percent were Asian, 12 percent were white and 12 percent were Hispanic. Out of the students who participated, 133 were male and 288 were female.
“Obviously there is a disparity in the perceptions by ethnicity,” Williams said. “When we look at it in terms of ethnicity, we have one ethnicity whose perceptions of this being a racist school is statistically significantly higher than the others.”
Now that Williams and her research team have the results of their survey, they are diving into the qualitative phase. They are analyzing the results of the written portion of the survey according to gender, race and ethnicity to try to find themes throughout the answers.
Kenzie Trupp, Steven Metott, Zakeya Sisco, Ryan Roberts, Amanda Reed, Mike Hastilow and Kristi Young are a mixture of undergraduate and graduate students, and have all been a part of Williams’ research team. They have helped Williams through either conducting and/or analyzing the research.
This research is a result of the apology of Southern’s president, Dave Smith, regarding the perceived racism throughout Southern’s history.
“I want to applaud the courage of the administration of Southern Adventist University, particularly Dr. Smith, in taking a bold step and making public something that people often times sweep under the rug and do not think about,” Williams said. “I am so pleased to be part of a university that has that kind of courage.”