Abstract
Boucher et al. (2013), along with Kinzler and DeJesus (2013), have shown negative perceptions toward those speaking with a variation of the “Southern” accent, even when saying the same thing as a more “Neutral” speaker. This case follows a first-generation college student from the southeast, now in a different region of the U.S., who experiences just that. Other students, staff, and faculty respond consciously or subconsciously to this situation in different ways, while the student finds solace in others with similar struggles.
Keywords/Phrases
First-generation college student, dialect discrimination, institutional intelligence model, sociocultural theory
Primary Characters
Riley Miller—First-year student, Howell University (he/him/his). Riley is a first-generation college student from a rural area of the Southeast. Coming from a blue-collar background, Riley’s father works in a large factory that gins cotton during the week and operates a sawmill part-time. His mother worked at the local grocery store as a cashier and is now unable to work physically. The Millers raised four kids in a small, run down trailer.
Riley is the only one of his siblings to go to college—he was chosen for a new scholarship that Howell is offering to those from economically disadvantaged areas. Riley’s academic performance was above average, which was quite the feat, considering he was still working a job himself and providing as best as he could for his family. Before travelling to the northeast to attend Howell, Riley had never been outside of his home state. While the scholarship is a full-ride, he had to work extra shifts at his landscaping job back home in order to afford to move his few items up to the university.
Sarah Rae Hoosier—Junior, Howell University (she/her/hers). Sarah Rae is a first-generation college student who grew up in an environment very similar to Riley’s. She was raised by her grandparents—h er father passed away from a drug overdose when she was an infant and her mother was incarcerated several years ago and is still in prison and has no contact with Sarah Rae. Sarah Rae was also an average student academically but attended Howell on a volleyball scholarship (this was the only scholarship she received). Without this scholarship to Howell, she would not have been able to go to college.
Dr. Johnathan Pratt—Chair (he/him/his). Dr. Pratt grew up in an elite suburb in the northern Midwest. Now in his sixties, he serves as the Department Chair for economics at Howell, a position he has held for the past 10 years. Dr. Pratt is known for running a tight ship and having a singular focus on academics. If he’s not editing journals, or in his study which is a library of textbooks, he is teaching the economics core course, ECON 1000, which lays the foundation for students. He made sure when he took the Department Chair role that he retained this teaching appointment, as he wants a students’ first impression of higher education to be with him.
Callie Owens—Staff Conflict Manager, Howell University (she/her/hers). Callie is a young, energetic, and empathetic employee who started at Howell eight months ago. She grew up in, and obtained degrees from, the west coast. When Callie’s husband got a lucrative job in the area, Callie moved and recently started as the Staff Conflict Manager. She works with the campus Ombuds, human resources, and other key campus partners to assist with conflict resolution and mediation among staff.
Randolph Hamlin—Director of the Ombuds Office, Howell University (he/him/his). Mr. Hamlin has been assisting in Faculty and Student conflicts in the Ombuds Office at Howell for the last 23 years. Because he has had this position for so long, he has become increasingly lax in his duties. He is from the same town that Howell is in but has such a reputation for his longevity at the institution, some may say he has “Checked out.”
Institutional Context
Howell University is a private, research university in the Northeast. Howell’s has a reputation for academic excellence. The tuition is high, the GPAs are high, the snowfall is high, and the research dollars accumulated by faculty at Howell are also high. To graduate from Howell is very prestigious. Within the past several years, Howell has instituted a scholarship program at the undergraduate level, to assist in recruitment of students from disadvantaged areas and backgrounds. The general public has been wary of this effort, with social media comments saying that it was just to “Check a box” and that a few scholarships to students from a tough upbringing is a drop in the bucket to Howell’s expenditures and is just a way for administrators to say they’re “trying” to improve diversity (economically, demographically, etc.) at the university.
Case
Riley was nervous as he attended his first class, ECON 1000, at Howell University. He still couldn’t believe he was at a place like Howell. He thought back to hearing his name called for the scholarship during his senior year of high school. He blushed and walked up on stage, speechless. He knew he had performed well academically, and that Howell chose those with great potential from areas with little economic opportunity or mobility. But he had so many other responsibilities and worries in his life with his family, that he never dreamed something like this scholarship would be possible. He remembered his mom was so proud, she told everyone at Sunday School that week. But his dad didn’t really say much other than in his slow southern drawl, “Don’t get the big head with that award.”
Riley had kind of chuckled internally when he went to the cafeteria for breakfast that morning. He thought fondly back to breakfasts that “Mama” cooked. Grits, homemade sausage gravy, biscuits, and Riley’s favorite—the “Fried ‘taters.” But breakfast at Howell wasn’t the same. Fruit trays, bran muffins, a custom yogurt station. It was good, but wasn’t what Riley was used to.
As he sat in class, toes tapping with nervousness, Dr. Johnathan Pratt walked in sporting a white beard and a thick wool blazer. Riley thought to himself that he needed to get some thick wool clothes – It wasn’t this cool in September where he was from. Dr. Pratt announced to the class of fifteen, his name, accomplishments, and reputation. He did so in a way that was poetic, fancy, and embellished. He then asked the class if they would introduce themselves, giving their name, background, and what brought them to Howell.
Riley marveled as he heard his classmates introduce themselves. The students were from all over the country, and the world. Oregon. New York. Canada. China. Indonesia. Belgium. Riley’s toe-tapping got faster the closer they got to him. He thought internally that he had nothing that would match up with these students. They had perfect 4.0’s. Travelled globally. Liked English literature, the ballet, playing the saxophone. Even the way they spoke matched Dr. Pratt’s tone and style. Finally, it was Riley’s turn.
Riley knew he had inherited a drawl from his father and mother. Where he was from, you were looked at oddly if you didn’t speak that way. Even so, Riley did his best to hide that as he scrambled to think of something and cautiously uttered:
Hey y’all, I mean…ever-body…uh, hi everyone. Um, my name is Riley Miller, and I’m from a purty sma—I mean um a little town, a place, down south. I ain’t…I don’t, I mean, got any big umm stories to tell…we didn’t have much to do ‘cept work. On Sund-ee (clears throat)…Sun-day….we’d all go eat dinner at mamaw’s…uh granny’s…um um my grandmother’s house, and so that was fun. But yeah, I’m tickled…um, happy I mean…to be here.
Riley could see everyone in the class cringing as he let out a final statement to try and save it with humor, “And my diddy…my father… told me to learn summ’n. So, I’m here to learn summ’n.” That comment didn’t save his introduction. The class looked at Riley as if he had three heads.
Dr. Pratt mumbled under his breath (loud enough for the entire class to hear) that he knew who wouldn’t be presenting during group projects. The class laughed. He then interjected to the class that they should address this body with professionalism. He reiterated that it was no place for colloquialisms or backwards speech. This was a place of higher learning, and he expected everyone to carry themselves as such. He cajoled the class to speak a “Standard” and “Proper” way, and that to not do so would most certainly result in not living up to what Dr. Pratt called “The Howell Standard.”
Riley didn’t speak the rest of the class. For the next week, Riley shuffled into the class, sat in the back, and kept a low profile. He was so self-conscious; he became a recluse in his dorm. He didn’t want to speak for fear of being singled out and looked down upon. He didn’t want to venture out because he constantly compared his hand-me-downs to the expensive clothes of the other students. He didn’t ask questions in class, or look for clubs to join, or even call home to check on his family.
Two weeks in, he got up the courage to go back to the cafeteria. He choked down another bran muffin, and granola yogurt. A young woman sat down by herself a couple of seats away, on a phone call. He was surprised to hear a familiar twang in her voice as she talked with her earbuds in. This was the first time since Riley had moved to Howell that he had heard someone speak in a dialect similar to his. There was that drawl! Riley feared he had forgotten what a drawl was. After she hung up, Riley went to introduce himself.
The two hit it off immediately. Sarah Rae Hoosier was from the state next to his, and she too had roots that showed in her voice and way of life. They connected as if they were lifelong friends who had been reunited. Riley told her about feeling like a fish out of water, and what had happened in ECON 1000 with Dr. Pratt—saying that he felt discriminated against “Because of how I sound.” Sarah Rae encouraged Riley, saying that she had felt much the same when she came two years ago. But during this time, she became familiar with the works of James Gee, and Rosina Lippi-Green’s book English with an Accent. These works and others, grounded Sarah Rae in her own identity, and confirmed what she knew (and subsequently passed along to Riley) that their way of talking—while different than most around Howell—was as complex, unique, and deserving of respect as any other. She pointed out that the students from across the globe now at Howell spoke differently than Dr. Pratt and other professors—but because those ways of speaking didn’t necessarily have negative connotations like the way she and Riley spoke, those students were not reprimanded or stereotyped. Sarah Rae encouraged Riley to speak to a campus Ombudsperson about this incident and the way he was feeling.
Riley called and emailed the Ombuds but could never get a follow up or a meeting. Riley then reached out directly to the director of the office, Randolph Hamlin, on Hamlin’s individual email. He had reviewed Mr. Hamlin’s bio on a website and felt this situation—and lack of response—needed running up the ladder to him. Unfortunately, the result was the same. No response to emails. No calls back to Riley’s voicemail. When Riley would stop by, the door would be closed with a sign that said “Out.”
One day while checking at the Ombuds office and seeing Mr. Hamlin’s door closed again, Riley noticed a young woman sitting in an office on the other side of the hallway. At his wits end, he went in and introduced himself and asked if she knew when Mr. Hamlin would be back. She sighed and said she didn’t know either and apologized for the frustration. She introduced herself as Callie Owens, Staff Conflict Manager. Riley liked her personality and empathetic spirit. “Mind if I sit down?” he said, and she obliged. He began to pour his heart out to Callie, who listened intently. When he concluded, Riley mentioned that he knew she could not do anything because she was there to help staff with situations, and not students. Callie said that she would see what she could do—she was new too but wanted to help him. Riley went out the door with his head hung low, but at least at peace that he had shared it with someone.
Callie was appalled at the behavior of Dr. Pratt and felt it needed to be brought up to the Dean and maybe even the Chancellor. But this wasn’t her purview–It was Mr. Hamlin’s. He was supposed to work on student and faculty issues. Being new, she was afraid that reporting this would put her under the microscope, and worried that Mr. Hamlin—a man who had been there over two decades—would throw her under the bus for “Going above his head” on an issue that should be his, and that administration would not take her anonymous report seriously because it had to do with a legendary faculty member. Still, she empathized with Riley and felt he was being prejudiced against just because of the way he sounded. Callie wrestled with this internally for the next week, with no sign of Mr. Hamlin in his office.
Discussion Questions
- How should Callie balance wanting to help Riley while keeping in mind her new position at the university? What does her body language say about her initial feelings of the university that she has gathered in her short time there?
- What are things about the university that Callie needs to know and understand to help Riley and do her job effectively? How might she go about getting that information?
- How can both Riley and Callie—new in their student and staff roles at Howell respectively—find their place, implement change, and remain true to their ethics?
- What should the university’s response be to Dr. Pratt? What repercussions would be appropriate?
- What are other areas where Riley may be struggling at Howell? What other questions could he ask Sarah Rae in regard to how she overcame similar struggles? What other questions might Cassie ask Riley in order to provide him the best support?
References
Boucher, C. J., Hammock, G. S., McLaughlin, S. D., & Henry, K. N. (2013). Perceptions of Competency as a Function of Accent. Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research, 18(1), 27–32. https://doi.org/10.24839/2164-8204.jn18.1.27
Gee, J. P. (2015). Social linguistics and literacies : ideology in discourses. Routledge.
Kinzler, K. D., & DeJesus, J. M. (2013). Northern = smart and Southern = nice: The development of accent attitudes in the United States. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66(6), 1146–1158. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2012.731695
Lippi-Green, R. (1997). English with an Accent. Routledge.
Author Bio
Jeremiah Farmer (he/him) is a PhD student in the Literacy, Language, and Culture program at Clemson University. In his full-time role, he works as a Student Services Manager for Clemson’s Department of Automotive Engineering. Motivated by his upbringing and love of storytelling, old traditions, and the agricultural lifestyle of times gone by, his intended research topic centers on biases against, and perceptions, of the “southern accent” (of which there are many variations), how that may lead to accent dilution or loss in certain geographical areas, and techniques and cultural shifts to preserve these old dialects specifically. Before working in higher education, Jeremiah spent over five years in the country music radio industry. He holds a Master of Human Resource Development (MHRD) from Clemson University, and a BS in Political Science from Appalachian State University.