The mentor
By Jayne M. Iafrate
When Tony Allen Laing '96 entered Wheaton in 1992, he recalls, there were only 10 other African American students in the freshman class. Four years later, five of the students graduated.
Today, the numbers are on the rise; 162 current students self-identify as Black, Hispanic or multicultural, and they make up 9.9 percent of Wheaton's student body. Overall, 14 percent of current students self-identify as non-white. The gains are due in part to several factors: the Marshall Multicultural Center, an affiliation with the Posse program and the college's continued growth in international recognition, among others. Still, the lingering issue of increasing recruitment and retention of students of color˜especially men˜remains a problem for many in the Wheaton community. Laing has a few ideas toward a solution.
Laing, the Black Alumnae/i Steering Committee and campus staff and faculty believe that a strong alumnae/i support system can boost student interest not only in Wheaton, but in higher education and career aspirations as well. As a result of nearly a year of discussions, Laing in February introduced the college's Men of Color listserv, an online forum designed to link self-identified Black, Hispanic and multicultural students, staff, faculty and alumni to a support network that reaches around the globe. It builds on past programs and this year's initiative by President Ronald A. Crutcher to mentor male students.
"This is the first step," said Alex Vasquez, associate dean of Academic and Campus Life. "I'm happy that the Black Alumnae/i Steering Committee has agreed to join the effort started by the Marshall Multicultural Center and male faculty members to reach out and support men of color on campus."
Laing and Raul Lorenzo '97, assistant director of Admission at UMass-Amherst, will moderate the listserv, and they hope it will help students to draw on the wide experience of alums. (Interested in joining the listserv? Click here.)
"Wheaton's alumni of color are pursuing graduate and professional education in business, the social sciences and education, among other fields," Laing explained. "We hold key positions of responsibility.... As Black and Latino male graduates, we have also joined a strong coalition of outstanding female alumnae who have helped pave the way for us. Our collective post-Wheaton experience should be of great interest to faculty, staff and male students of color at the college.
"It's my hope that the listserv will serve as means to share ideas, create another avenue of support, post announcements, and continue the dialogue that we started from the most recent gathering of Black and Latino male students, alumni, faculty and staff in February," Laing said. "In the past, not all of these groups have come together to form the network of support our current students need."
Aiming high
Laing is no stranger to the need for a support network. The youngest of eight children, he grew up in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood, where he and his siblings joined thousands of other children in the voluntary school busing program of the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (Metco). A sometimes controversial program, Metco has been taking inner-city students out of Boston's predominantly minority schools and to suburban schools since 1966. For Laing, heading out 22 miles to Concord every weekday, it was one of his first lessons in diversity.
"I had to get up at 5 a.m. to get to Concord-Carlisle High School," Laing said. "It got better as time went by. In fact, it helped me as I made the transition to Wheaton; it exposed me to other cultures, and forced me to learn how to defend my ideas."
Laing was an active high school student, involved in student government, several clubs, drama, the Credit Review Board and track, where he lettered and earned state honors. He also served on the Metco Council, where he met with students to discuss common issues and form supportive bonds. He accomplished all this while working 10 hours per week.
When it was time for college, a counselor at Concord-Carlisle introduced Laing to Wheaton, and the match was good. With a generous financial aid package in hand and an eagerness to grow in mind, he did what Wheaton political science professor Darlene Boroviak said is emblematic of Laing: "He aimed high and risked failure in order to accomplish as much as he could."
A 'double minority'
Laing entered Wheaton when coeducation was still in its infancy, and when he took a look around campus, he quickly realized that few faces looked like his. He threw himself into challenging courses—Boroviak still marvels at how Laing enrolled in her "Research Methods" course as a freshman despite her warnings about its rigor—and joined the track-and-field team. It was there where Laing began to examine what it meant to be a "double minority"—black and male—at Wheaton.
"Being on a varsity team seemed to reinforce many stereotypes [about black men]," Laing later wrote of his early days at Wheaton. "Being referred to as an athlete, not an intellectual, was disturbing." He quit the track team and vowed to make sure it was his actions that defined him, not his skin color. He became a class officer and, eventually, president of the Black Students' Association. And he found a voice, he said, "that might not have been heard before."
Laing gravitated toward his interest in international studies and public service, and it wasn't long before he declared a major in political science. In his junior year he studied abroad at the University of Ghana-Legon in Ghana, West Africa, and he won a competitive internship in Washington, D.C. Success inside and outside the classroom, however, didn't shield Laing from what he saw as "ignorance" in some of his fellow students, and he recalls being both a student and a teacher as he tried to combat stereotypes.
"As an alum today, I need to give voice to my experiences and be a role model and mentor," Laing explained. "So many black alumnae/i feel the need to do the same. Maxine Blackman '74 has mentored women of color, and Ruth Ann Stewart '63 and her husband, David Levering Lewis, have mentored me. And there are many others."
He speaks with great affection for Stewart and Lewis—both noted professors at New York University—with whom he has shared a strong bond for nearly a decade. The relationship exemplifies the student/mentor connection and speaks directly to the need for a stronger program for current students.
"They are like a mom and dad to me," Laing said. "I can go to them with both problems and ideas, and we respect each other's opinions. They are very caring people, and I've been fortunate to develop a relationship of support and trust."
Stewart is equally impressed with Laing: "He's a clear and positive thinker, determined and achieving in his every pursuit, and adventurous and curious at a time when too many seek refuge in the ordinary, safe and predictable.
"We have watched Tony challenge and advance his knowledge and intellect, all the while growing into a truly fine young man," Stewart added. "It has been a rewarding and exhilarating experience and, if we can keep up with him, one that we expect to just keep getting better."
From Metco to Miyorka
Laing graduated from Wheaton in 1996, and the following year returned to Africa to conduct research as a National Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. In Cape Town, South Africa, he lived with host families and conducted extensive interviews to study life after apartheid, and even today he stays in touch with people he met in South Africa.
These connections to the past seem to fuel Laing's progress toward the future. As a master's candidate in international development and public service at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, he returned to Africa a third time, studying land mines and public policy, and then proposing solutions to lingering problems to the United Methodist Committee on Relief, a for profit based in New York that hired Laing and others to conduct fact-finding as part of their yearlong independent research project at NYU/Wagner. He received his degree in 2000 and still returns to the campus, just as he returns to Concord Carlisle High School and Wheaton College, to discuss his unique experiences with current students.
"Growing up, Tony witnessed many of his friends and family members dropping out of education and falling through the cracks," Boroviak said. "Study abroad in Africa, graduate internships in Africa, and other firsthand experiences—lived experiences—have led to his commitment to public service because he realizes that richer public service programs, with more people participating in them, can save and transform lives."
Today Laing is transforming lives as a senior graduate student service coordinator in the Department of Media Studies at the New School in New York. There he counsels students in academic strategies and careers.
"Everything I did at Wheaton I now get paid to do," he said.
But he's also thinking about the future as he stretches his talents in different directions. He is considering doctoral programs, and this summer he will participate in a Fulbright Teacher and Administrator Exchange abroad. In addition, he's calling up his past drama experience to help produce Miyorka: A Different Kind of Love Story, "a musical inspired and influenced by the West Side Story and Cinderella stories, as well as the urban contemporary musical classic, Rent." The musical opens in late June at The Culture Project/45 Bleeker, a downtown Manhattan theater. (Tickets are available at www.theatermania.com)
"It's all I do after work," Laing jokingly lamented about his role as fundraiser, scheduler, financial planner, marketing guru and contact person for the cast. While he's always been interested in the arts and he's excited to see his off-Broadway show go up this summer, he has other plans. "I enjoy the theater, but it's not the direction I want my life to take right now."
Right now, Laing is focused on Wheaton. He's proud of the relationships he's built with alums, staff and faculty—he called Boroviak and former Alumnae/i Relations staffer Deborah Fontes "lifesavers"—and he knows the time is his to give back to Wheaton and to nurture the next generation of students who will become alumni.
Men of Color listserv
To subscribe, send an e-mail (subject line: Menofcolor mailing list) to Tony Laing at kwamelaing@hotmail.com or Raul Lorenzo at rlorenzo@admissions.umass.edu. To send an e-mail to the list, please write directly to menofcolor@wheatoncollege.edu.
