Authors
"Friendship is a simple thing, and yet complicated; friendship is on the surface, something natural, something taken for granted, and yet underneath one could find worlds."
—Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy (1990)
Our Story : Beginnings
THEN 2000:
Two women from two different worlds: one, a Jamaican-born girl raised in the Bronx; the other, a white girl raised in a working-class neighborhood in Detroit. Twenty-two years apart in age and experience. Assigned as mentor and mentee, they struggled within society’s unconscious biases and crafted their own racial reckoning with difference.
NOW 2024:
Janice (Jan) Gross is professor emerita of French at Grinnell College. Heather Lobban-Viravong is Vice-President for Inclusion at Ursinus College.
These are simply the titles that they currently hold; It is their friendship that tells the fuller story about being black and not being black.
Heather Lobban-Viravong
I have always listened intently to others. Finding ways to make them feel valued and affirmed is a vital skill, a skill that comes naturally to me. I've learned to become more intentional about using it over the years, especially in higher education where faculty, students, staff, and other constituents come together, each bringing a multitude of perspectives to the table. I strive to make them all feel heard and affirmed in their own way.
In a world that's starting to come to terms with the identity of others, I believe that our work begins with listening to our fellow human beings. It makes sense that one of the most important friendships of my life involved a lot of listening, on both our parts. We listened to all that we had in common, but especially to what made us different.
For years, my interest in questions of the self and identity has influenced the way that I approach my work as a teacher and administrator. Here too, I see reading as a form of listening, and writing, especially poetry, as the spark of individuality. These are some of the ways in which we can show up in the world. More than ever, we need to recognize the crucial role of good listeners as we tell our stories, and as we search for a shared space of mutual affirmation. This belief has inspired and continues to inspire me at every point of my personal and professional life.
Janice (Jan) Gross
I was always drawn to the experience of dialogue, of how we find ourselves and learn about each other in the process. I chose to teach the language, literature and culture of the French-speaking world because I wanted to help learners “imagine the other.” For me, literature and performance open the door to those unfamiliar worlds and the ways of being in those worlds. Most of all, they encourage us to become sensitive listeners. Moving outside of ourselves, we encounter difficult, uncomfortable or confusing conversations that can help us question our own assumptions about all that we perceive as different: gender, religion, society, history, politics, memory, etc.
From international and intercultural exchanges to simple everyday encounters in the street, we have so much to learn about each other. As our world sinks deeper into an unwillingness to listen to, much less accept, what others have to say, I see openness to dialogue as a powerful antidote. It can help us see - and not judge - how others experience the world. More than an academic or artistic pursuit; it is a survival skill for our future.
In the end, to engage in meaningful dialogue takes effort, the effort to discover the "other." It led me into the unlikely friendship of a lifetime and made me want to learn more about how we perceive difference, the other's and our own, from the inside out.
Conversations: Black & White and In-Between
The significance of our approach to interracial exchange attracted the attention of Dr. Aidsand Wright-Riggins, Mayor of Collegeville, PA, who invited us as featured guests on “Collegeville Connects.”
This hour-long segment gave us a first-time public forum for pursuing an in-depth and unscripted exchange about some of the interracial sensitivities and experiences that had shaped our project.