First Year Matters: Exploring Injustice Through Film

On each Arrival Day, Wesleyan welcomes students from all over the country and world with different experiences and stories to tell. Then just a few days into the new academic year, this vastly diverse group of first-year students come together for a common experience through the First Year Matters (FYM) program.

The FYM program introduces first-year students to a scholarly book, film, documentary, or performance each year. This year, the FYM Committee, made up of faculty, staff, and students, selected the film Origin, directed by Ava DuVernay and based the book Caste and the life of its author Isabel Wilkerson. The film outlines the ways caste systems exist in societies throughout the world—focusing on the United States, Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, and India—through Wilkerson’s story investigating their connections to one another while also dealing with tremendous personal loss.

“[The film] was moving and thought-provoking and made me pause just a little bit in terms of the ideas that were being portrayed in the film,” said Kevin Butler, assistant dean of students, director of community standards and FYM Committee member. “That’s something that we always try to do. We want to pick a book, a film, a documentary that we think will grab people's hearts, and will get them to think about something in a way that they maybe haven't thought about it before.”

Students are asked to review and respond to the source material over the summer leading up to Arrival Day. Once they are on campus, they attend a keynote address and small group discussions as a segue into intellectual life on campus. Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies and Co-Director of WesDocs Tracy Heather Strain and Trent Masiki, director of Black studies and associate professor of English at Suffolk University, delivered keynote addresses on the film for separate sets of first-year students on Sept. 5. Strain outlined the film’s thesis and criticisms of the film, before explaining the theory behind the project. She then challenged students to be the main character of their own story and to be brave in opposition to injustices like caste systems.

“I invite you to step up and write a script that is yours,” Strain said. “Naturally, like any good story, there will be obstacles, difficulties, and tests. Literally, there will be tests. And you, as the main character, will have to make decisions. That's how a story goes. Craft a narrative that will endure as honorable. One that is driven by good faith inquiry, intellectual rigor, and compassion.”

Following the keynotes, students gathered in small groups to further tease out their thoughts on the film. Rachael Barlow, director of the Center for Faculty Career Development, served as one of several faculty and staff moderators of the discussions. Throughout, she focused on the power dynamics of the classroom setting and asked students to consider the ways they participate. For example, she asked them to think about who they listen to as an authority for information—just the professor or their classmates, too? She also asked students if they engage in a conversation through an answer-based mindset or one that is more question-based.

A member of Barlow’s group, Aya Riman ’29 said she is used to writing papers and doing well on exams—activities that require her to know answers. She said the discussion pushed her to try to ask more questions.

“I want to figure out how I can shift my mindset to more question–based,” Riman said. “We were talking about looking into other people's perspectives and the polarization in this country. How do we have conversations and ask questions? This is a question for myself, but I'm wondering how I can shift that mindset from answers to questions in class, out of class, and even off campus. I don't know the answer.”

Sydni Chandler ’29 of Natick, Massachusetts, and Barlow group member, said the film made her consider what it was like to live in other time periods, and the discussion opened her mind, which is something she wants to continue focusing on. “I want to try to keep an open mindset of finding people that are very different from me and avoid closing doors,” she said. “That's something I really want to work on.”

Chike Samuels ’29 of Brooklyn, another member of Barlow’s group, said the film helped him connect what he has learned about caste systems and, “how cyclical, repetitive, and enduring these systems are.”

Butler said the FYM Committee hopes to host events throughout the year to continue the conversation.