A small group of students came together last night in Monroe Hall to discuss University-Charlottesville relations in a Black Student Alliance-sponsored forum.
The forum was led by Dean of African-American affairs M. Rick Turner; Rev. Alvin Edwards, pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church and former mayor of Charlottesville; and University students, including one of the victims of the series of assaults that have been carried out in recent months against University students.
These assaults, allegedly perpetrated by Charlottesville high school students, helped motivate the BSA to organize the forum, said Renata Keys, chair of the BSA community service division.
Leaders of last night's forum, entitled "Colliding Communities," said University students and administrators need to build relationships between the University and Charlottesville.
"We need to move beyond discussion and continue to build relationships," said third-year College student Davin Rosborough, an assault victim and one of the leaders of the forum.
"As long as people don't know each other, there will be divides," Edwards said.
Much of last night's discussion centered around the relationship between black students at the University and black Charlottesville residents.
Many black Charlottesville residents resent University students of their own race, leading to violence at predominantly black social events, said third-year College student Brandon Woods, one of the leaders of the forum.
Edwards and Turner lamented what they see as a failure on the part of black University students to reach out to the black community in Charlottesville.
They especially called for more involvement by black students in programs that provide role models to local youth, such as Madison House's Big Siblings.
"We could all do a little bit more" to serve and interact with the community, including students and administration, Turner said.
Even when University students reach out to the community, local residents often are not aware of their efforts.
"Most black folks in the community don't think the University is doing anything in the community," Turner said.
To combat that perception, representatives of the University administration recently brought a list of community outreach programs in which University students are involved, such as Madison House and fraternity and sorority service programs, to a meeting of community members.
That meeting was one of a regular series of gatherings in the last month that was started in reaction to the arrests made in connection with the assaults.
Three informal committees, attended mainly by black Charlottesville residents, have discussed race and University relations, problems facing youth in Charlottesville and the defense of those charged in this year's assaults.
Both Turner and Rosborough praised those community meetings.
"A lot of people in the community really care," Rosborough said. "I feel like we're getting somewhere."
One of the ideas generated by these committees is to create a body composed of University and high school students that would plan joint social events, Rosborough said.
Local youth "often don't feel like there's anything for them to do in Charlottesville," he said. "At the same time, they feel they're not welcome to do things at the University."
Despite the small representation of University students at those meetings - and despite sparse turnout at last night's forum -- Turner was confident that a new era of addressing University-Charlottesville relations is at hand.
"If you predicated success on numbers, this would be a dismal failure," Turner said. However, "this is a start"
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