Two girls are at a Union party at the University. The music is loud and everyone is dancing to the music. One of the girls bumps into a Champaign resident. The girl proceeds to call her a “townie.” This starts an argument and later a confrontation. The resident begins to use profanity towards the girl, as everyone gathers around and the music stops. This is what Odinaka Ezeokoli, senior in LAS, recalls occurring when her friend got into a confrontation at a party with a local resident.

“This was my first time realizing that people really do not like this world,” Ezeokoli said.

She is anxious to return to Chicago, and feels she is here only to get a degree. She said she feels no connection with the community because she is not from here.

Heather Downs, a graduate student in sociology, said this is the typical attitude one would find at any college campus in the country. She said this is not a racial phenomenon, but just a phenomenon that students typically do not connect with their outside community. She said that a student can get caught up in a world of social academics, which makes it hard for that student to break away from the world.

“I think this is also a class issue,” Downs said. “U of I is a middle-class institution and you will have people of color who come from a variety of classes . but the institution within itself is middle class and it will dictate how students view their surrounding environment.”

Ezeokoli lives in Chicago, and outside of going to school here, she said she feels no connection with the city.

“I like Chicago better, but I don’t look down on those who are from here,” Ezeokoli said.

Downs said typically, students are not concerned and maybe clueless with what is occurring outside the campus. She said this can be described by what sociologists call a social bubble. She said the students will only relate to people who exist in this bubble and they shut out everyone outside the bubble.

“A lot of students aren’t identifying themselves as members of other communities, and therefore they are not invested in this community,” Downs said. “I think this is damaging to both the University and the outside community.”

Lauren Senter, junior in Communications, said the University may play into how students view the local residence of Champaign.

“The students bought into the hype that this University is selling that they are the best and the brightest the nation has to offer,” Senter said.

She said students feel since they made it into this school, that they are above those who did not.

“(Students think) I am observably better than the people who work in the kitchen at the dining halls, because that is the best they can do,” Senter said.

Downs said this is due to the University being a middle-class institution.

“It is a middle-class institution and it teaches middle-class values,” Downs said. “It prepares you for a middle-class job and it is going to reflect middle-class interests.”

Gregory Wilson, a graduate student, said he feels the factor of time constraints prevents students from getting involved. He identified reasons students do not volunteer in the community.

“We come to a point in society where students don’t feel as though they have to give back to any communities anymore,” Wilson said.

He said this type of attitude helps the gap between the community and the campus grow, which he feels is a major problem.

“I think at some point, we just lost that since of urgency,” Wilson said.

He said this problem is going to continue to grow because of the students the University admits.

“I think people are coming from more affluent backgrounds and they are emerging from more situations to teach them to sort of just believe in the factor,” Wilson said.

He said the University students view the community as people who engage in multiple fights at the University. He said it is this misconception that helps further the separation between the community and the campus.

“We come down from wherever we emerge from and we are trying to tell them that they can’t come to our events and they have been here longer than us,” Wilson said. “I think there is a systemic pattern of miscommunication and misunderstanding is really the source of the contentious relationship between the two groups.”

Downs said the campus is experiencing a class divide. She said the University is middle class and they see everything through that lens.

“The hostility from the community to the campus is described by social class theory,” Downs said. “There is an issue of stratification that is economic.”

Downs said the economic stratification suggest that people will only be with each other who are in the same social class.

“I think that in our community there are a lot of organizations that need a lot of help and they will benefit from having young people a part of their organization,” Downs said.

Oliver Hatchett, senior in Communications, said he feels people who do not interact with the community are missing out on meeting great people. Hatchett owns an entertainment company in Champaign and he said this has helped him meet many of the residents in town.

“Because I throw parties out here, my advertising is primarily done to the community,” Hatchett said.

He said the students on campus are not open to new experiences and they can sometimes be closed-minded to new opportunities.

“I think a lot of the times we need to be more accepting, knowing that we are going into their town,” Hatchett said.

Hatchett said many of the students do not leave the campus, and as a result, they miss out on the many services the community has to offer.

Ezeokoli added, the campus needs to have more programs that will make the community feel welcomed and this will eventually end the disconnect.

“We need more things on campus besides parties; if there were more programs and interactions it would not be this way,” Ezeokoli said.

This is the second part of a three-day series on the relationship between the African-American communities on campus and in Champaign-Urbana.