Black student athletes urge greater awareness, diversity at Mount Royal University

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More than a dozen Black student athletes at Mount Royal University say the school has been slow to offer its support.

“Enough is enough,” says Orest Ndabaneze, a member of MRU’s soccer team and one of 16 Cougars who penned a letter to school administrators demanding improvements on campus and more support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

“We’re calling on you to help us fight against racism at MRU,” reads the letter sent this week to MRU president Tim Rahilly and forwarded to other campus officials, including Karla Karch, director of Cougars athletics, and student union leaders.

Some schools, including the University of Guelph and the University of Calgary, have posted online messages of support for Black Lives Matter.

Ndabaneze said those who penned the letter want Mount Royal to acknowledge racism on campus and to take the proper measures against it.

“I was real upset about the school not making any public announcements on what’s going to change,” Ndabaneze said. “The fact that Cougars athletics and recreation was asking how they can help was like an insult because that’s only a small fraction of the school, we want to reach the whole school.”

“We as Black student athletes have experienced racism from faculty, staff, and even our own teams,” the letter states.

The letter calls for systematic changes such as: “racism to be condemned and mentioned in the course syllabus of every faculty, a commitment to anti-racism training for all professors and students starting this fall and more Black representation on MRU’s board of governors and leadership teams.”

Rahilly said Mount Royal takes the students’ letter “very seriously.”

“Students, alumni, faculty and staff are outraged and concerned about the very real issues raised by the Black Lives Matter Movement. I recognize the collective desire of the MRU community to do more and do better,” he said in a statement.

Jamal Watson, a fifth-year member of Mount Royal’s men’s hockey team, and third-year women’s soccer player Julia Swallow are among those pushing for changes.

“Recognition in the course outline is a very important step,” Watson said. “There are policies in place about interactions and respect to one another in the classroom no matter if they’re Black, white, Asian. It should be brought up that we, Mount Royal, don’t accept racism at this institution and anything along those lines that is brought up will be dealt with appropriately.”

“The letter is to say, ‘Hey, this is what we see is going on here and what we see should get handled a certain way. We want to see a bit of change like we see for other actions on campus.’”

Watson said MRU’s lack of recognition of Black History Month last February was an example of the school’s need for greater support of diversification.

“Not only the school, but athletics didn’t do anything for Black History Month. It was a student-run African-American club who had to put on an exhibit in the library themselves,” said Swallow.

“The idea is you want it to be inclusive for everybody and make everyone feel the same way,” added Watson.

Swallow said Cougars athletics did reach out in an organized online conference with the Black student athletes but was disappointed only two coaches and four other teachers took part.

“We’re not looking to start a witch hunt and by no means do we think the organization at the top is racist,” said Watson. Let’s have a dialogue and figure something out to where this is what we can do and what we can do to support rather than us sitting on the outside and say, ‘Well, what’s going to happen’.”

He said the athletics department has apologized for not being more aware of students’ needs.

“Over the last week, we have been hearing: ‘How can we help with anti-racism? And ‘why it’s not ok to be racist in even the subtle ways and fix things as a whole as a society.’”

Rahilly said he will discuss the students’ concerns with Ndabaneze next week.

“It’s important to me that we pursue broad university-wide initiatives while also supporting the valuable work happening in individual areas, like the conversations happening with student athletes and Cougars Athletics and Recreation,” the statement reads.

Watson said the initiative at Mount Royal can help change the culture and viewpoints of future Black students on campus.

“You see it on a bigger scale in professional sports where you see athletes speaking out about things needing to get taken care of and seeing people responding because of the pressure on them from athletes and from people in those institutions,” he said.

“The (Black Lives Matter) movement is something that starts these conversations for new kids coming into MRU so they feel at home. I want to see better change from what we’ve seen the last two weeks on the other side of that coin.”

Text of letter to MRU administrators

This email is a direct message to Dr. Tim Rahilly, president and vice-Chancellor; Karla Karch, director of Cougars Athletics and Recreation; Robert Godfrey, manager of Varsity Athletics; Shayla Breen, president of SAMRU; Nathan Lawley, Vice President Academic of SAMRU

There is a growing frustration among us, the black student athletes of Mount Royal University.

We feel there has been a lack of support for the Black Lives Matter Movement, and black students at Mount Royal. Racism at Mount Royal University exists. Instead of “We Belong” posts on social media, we need real action

We as black student athletes have experienced racism from faculty, staff, and even our own teams.
President Rahilly has said he wants to support diverse students. So, we are asking you to please support us with these concrete measures:

1. We want racism to be condemned and mentioned in the course syllabus of every faculty.
2. We want the school to commit to anti-racism training for all professors and students starting fall 2020 and continuing indefinitely.
3. We want more black representation on the board of governors and MRU leadership teams.

We’re calling on you to help us fight against racism at MRU.

Enough is enough.

[Signed] Yusuph Kalenga (former Cougar athlete), LJ Hegwood (alumni), Julia Swallow (present athlete), Muhidin Musa (former Cougar athlete), Sharnai Sedres (present athlete), Orest Ndabaneze (alumni), Jamal Watson (present athlete), Patson Choebefu (present athlete), Godi Jibi (present athlete), Nyadholi Thokbuom (present athlete), Moreau Amadou (present athlete), Andre Griffith( present athlete), René Douvinho (present athlete), Bill Michael (former athlete), Azubike Osakwe (present athlete), Tasha Holness (alumni)