AROUND THE QUADS
STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: Reggie Gossett ’06
Student, Activist, Public Intellectual
By Jennifer Preissel ’05
The second in a series of profiles of students shaping life at Columbia and beyond.
Reggie Gossett ’06 is a born activist. Raised in Roxbury, Mass., his parents were
labor organizers. “I was brought up to think that I was not doing something constructive
unless it had a community benefit,” Gossett says. ”My parents taught me to think
about how I see myself in the various communities I live in.”
Gossett’s commitment to create change already was visible while he was in high
school. While captain of the Belmont H.S. wrestling and track teams, he devised an African-American
history class to fill what he viewed as a hole in the school curriculum.
At Columbia, Gossett’s activism has evolved. His academic work as a comparative
ethnic studies major has “been fundamental in helping me, as I step out of the gates,
to see New York City in a different way.” In the course “Writing Black New York,” Gossett “saw
through literature how places in the city have changed over time — how Harlem was
a politicized state in the 1930s and became a place of marginalization and poverty.”
Gossett’s academic interests inform his participation in the urban community. In
adjunct professor Laurent Alfred’s “Youth Voices on Lockdown” seminar,
he studied prison issues in the United States, including inequities in the system for low-income
people of color. As part of the seminar, Gossett taught workshops for prisoners under the
age of 18 at the Riker’s Island Penitentiary Academy; in these classes, Gossett and
his students critically analyzed media portrayals of prison life and the ways in which the
incarceration of individuals affects the communities to which they belong. The workshops
provided a way “to connect their lives to the larger prison crisis,” Gossett
says.
Nell Geiser ’06, a member of Students Promoting Empowerment and Knowledge (SPEaK)
who has worked closely with Gossett on issues affecting the campus and the city, says of
him, “He’s worked on the prison industrial complex, he’s worked with critical
resistance in New York City, and he brings those issues to campus. Being a New York activist
as well as a campus activist is important for people to see; that as a Columbia student,
you also can be involved in city politics.”
Gossett’s concern for city issues and matters of race and class has been closely
intertwined with his campus work. He says his politically-aware upbringing fashioned many
of his principles. As a student council member, Gossett has worked to bolster student financial
aid packages and bring issues of student body class and racial composition to administrators’ attention.
Gossett figured prominently in racism debates following campus incidents in spring 2004,
including an “Affirmative Action” bake sale by the Columbia College Conservative
Club (students of different races were charged different prices for sweets) and a cartoon
printed in The Fed parodying Black History Month. Gossett and other SPEaK members joined
with other student organizations to stage a silent protest on the Low Library steps, wearing
black t-shirts with the slogan, “I am being silenced.” He also worked on a student
delegation that met with members of the administration, campaigning for the University to
take a proactive approach to addressing campus tensions. These actions helped lead to the
formation of the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the appointment of a vice provost for
diversity.
For the past two years, Gossett has been a senior associate to University Chaplain Jewelnel
Davis, advising her on campus student sponsorship projects. He has organized student dialogues
on the University’s response to students with disabilities, the MEALAC controversy
and hate crimes. He also has worked to bolster discussion between administrators and students
by organizing meals where students can bring their concerns directly to administrators such
as President Lee C. Bollinger and Provost Alan Brinkley.
To supplement his classroom education, Gossett treats the city as an interactive textbook.
From dance parties in Brooklyn to museums on the Upper East Side to the bustle of 125th
Street, Gossett finds New York City to be a different urban experience than that of his
Boston youth. “Manhattan is actually really small,” Gossett says. “While
there is segregation, it’s more stratified in Boston, which has marginalized spaces
for people of color. In New York, different communities are separated by blocks — forced
interaction and tension creates vibrant spaces.”
As for his future, Gossett has no grand plan. While he has interests in labor organization,
education and publishing, he will, without a doubt, incorporate activism into his work.
“I see Reggie as a public intellectual,” Davis says. “I see him as a
lifetime activist and I see him, and this is not gratuitous, as one of the most valuable
alums we will have from Columbia College. He loves Columbia, he enjoys the best of what
CU offers and he takes seriously the rigors of a Columbia education. He will be a lifetime
contributor to the Columbia community.”
Jennifer Preissel ’05 is the history project coordinator for
the San Francisco Film Society.
|
Contact CCT
Advertise with CCT
University 
College 
Alumni Home
