Tag: Oshun

Last week, Thursday, Oct. 25, a group of students staged a protest in Founders Hall (“Protest calls for diversity training,” Oct. 26). The impetus for this action is not linked to one specific event, rather the systematic inequality at the University of La Verne.

After six months of developing the concept for OSHUN, the group’s student leader received an email last month from several key departments rejecting the organization to serve as a funding structure. 

The University administration failed the test and in the process showed that it had not prepared well for the exam. In this case, not only was the vision of the diverse population deemed incompatible with the standard way of doing business at La Verne, but “class” was dismissed before the student’s voice was allowed to be heard.

Oshun is a goddess of the Yoruba people in southwestern Nigeria; she is the goddess of love, fertility and protection. She stands for opportunity, spirit, harmony, unity and negotiation.

On April 17, junior speech communications major Tyler Anderson and another black student proposed Oshun, a separate funding hub for black focused clubs on campus, to Loretta Rahmani, chief student affairs officer, Lawrence Potter, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Richard Rose, professor of religion and philosophy, President Devorah Lieberman, Provost Jonathan Reed and Beatriz Gonzales, chief diversity officer. Anderson announced the plan to some students at a Black Student Union meeting May 7.