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New St. Olaf diversity dean Eida Berrio is making the college a more welcoming place

mjc
November 6, 2000

NORTHFIELD, Minn. ? St. Olaf College?s dean for community life and diversity has a new task with an old St. Olaf tradition: making sure that everyone at St. Olaf feels that he or she belongs.

Eida Berrio is a smiling, effervescent bundle of energy who after just three months in her new job has begun to transform the St. Olaf campus. "My charge is to work with the community, to learn what people believe needs to be done" to make sure that that no one at the college feels like an outsider. But she readily admits that "no one person can do this. Each person needs to ask: ?What do I want to do to make St. Olaf a friendlier, more welcoming place?? "

Berrio?s new community life and diversity position was created and Berrio was hired after a blue-ribbon committee conducted an in-depth examination into the needs of underrepresented groups. The committee decided that a dean of community life and diversity could increase diversity on campus and make St. Olaf more welcoming for everyone ? students, faculty and staff.

Berrio?s task is to make faculty members and administrators aware of existing diversity programs, to provide leadership in strengthening those programs, to create new initiatives, and to work with diverse communities outside of St. Olaf to make prospective students and their families aware of opportunities at the college.

"We want to make sure that every person feels he or she belongs at St. Olaf ? to make sure everybody is on the list, even if they look different, act different, speak different or have different preferences. We have to make a point to be kind to each other ? not just publicly, but privately too."

It all harks back to the college?s earliest days. "Diversity always has been part of the mission of St. Olaf College," Berrio points out ? "helping those who are underrepresented." Only the names have changed. In 1874, when the college was founded, the underrepresented groups were Scandinavians and Eastern Europeans. Today they are Hispanics, Hmongs and African-Americans.

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Diversity, Berrio explains, is one of the college?s core values. And it is a multifaceted concept that means more than just ethnic or racial diversity.

One of the misconceptions that Berrio wants to quash is the myths about human differences that are perpetuated by popular media. "We base many of our judgments on the media, which portray people inaccurately. If we pass judgment on things we don?t know, we err. By making sure that we understand differences, we grow. We enrich what we already know. We all relate better to one another."

Berrio knows. At age 12 she came from Panama to Brooklyn, N.Y., with her mother. She spoke no English. She felt alone and afraid. "I was overwhelmed. There weren?t that many people in my neighborhood who spoke Spanish. It was quite a shock."

But more than anything she respected her mother?s dream to give her children the opportunity for a good education. "She sacrificed so much to do this for us," Berrio says of her mother.

Berrio and her siblings lived on the edge of Brooklyn, next to the Italian community, with the "New Ricans" ? the New York Puerto Ricans. "It was West Side Story in real life," she says.

"I had wonderful friends who were black, wonderful friends who were Hispanics, wonderful friends who were Italians. I didn?t see myself as belonging to any one of those groups. I belonged to all of them. I never understood why they fought. It was incomprehensible."

Two weeks after she started at a Brooklyn public school, Berrio was told to take an IQ test, in English. "No English," she wrote across the test. She was placed in the "dummy" track, with other immigrant students. With no other Panamanians and few Spanish-speakers in her school, she learned "Spanglish" ? a mixture of Spanish and English.

Then one of her teachers reached out to her, and helped her to learn English. Other immigrant children weren?t so fortunate ? they quit school. "Pushouts," Berrio calls them, not dropouts.

It was a memorable lesson for Berrio: "A mentor doesn?t have to look like you to work with you and help you. For someone who?s different, the road to success begins with one person. It takes a leader." And it made Berrio acutely aware of the importance of classes in English as a second language. "Children need to learn academic subjects in their own language while they learn the second language."

Berrio succeeded in junior high and high school, and vowed to become a teacher. She enrolled at Bergen County Community College in New Jersey, then transferred to Montclair College, majoring in English as a second language, and also studying Italian.

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She taught for a year at Jersey City (N.J.) Community College, earned her certification to teach bilingual education, and taught English as a second language at several other New Jersey community colleges. She served for six years directing student recruitment at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark. She worked for the New Jersey Department of Higher Education for a year, worked at Princeton for four years, and went back to New Jersey Institute of Technology for six years as dean of student services.

She left NJIT for St. Olaf because "I liked what I saw here, and I was impressed that St. Olaf created the diversity position." And thus far she?s been pleased "by the openness and the eagerness of St. Olaf students, faculty and staff to learn more."

Berrio?s strategy is to work with underrepresented groups as well as with majority groups, "to convince the underrepresented groups to be open to the majority groups," as well as vice versa. She also seeks opinion leaders to encourage their peer groups to be more receptive to new ideas and cultures.

As she talks with students, Berrio urges them to beware of linking their identity to a particular group. "Try not to approach others with your own set of values. Be open to try things. Move out of your comfort zone a little bit. Be open to leaving a group. Don?t be afraid to say the wrong thing, but don?t be judgmental," she urges.

Berrio, a Catholic, uses her faith as an example of how students can embrace diversity. "I don?t feel that I?m betraying my faith when I attend Baptist or Pentacostal services. It?s not better or worse than my faith. It?s different. We have to move away from placing value on differences, better or worse. We have to respect others."

"In all communities there is good and bad. Find the good."

Berrio doesn?t expect immediate, radical changes. "None of the immigrant groups who built this nation became strong overnight," she says. It took two to three generations, and it will take many months at St. Olaf. Institutional transformation takes time."

"But I feel very optimistic. There are so many wonderful things here. This college has so much to offer. The fact that this position was created is a big step forward."

St. Olaf College prepares students to become responsible citizens of the world, fostering development of mind, body and spirit. A four-year, coeducational liberal arts college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), St. Olaf has a student enrollment of 2,950 and a full-time faculty of approximately 256. It is one of Money Guide?s top 100 "elite values in college education today," and it leads the nation?s colleges in number of students who study abroad.

Contact Michael Cooper at 507-786-3315 or cooperm@stolaf.edu.