Ishita Jayadev ’26
Copy Editor
After former SCORE (Scripps Communities of Resources and Empowerment) director Marissiko Wheaton-Greer and assistant director Elba Mandujano left their positions within weeks of each other last semester, SCORE has remained, for the most part, quiet and underutilized. However, the uncertainty of this transition period has offered students and administration the time to reflect on SCORE’s history and think about what they want for the future of this space.
Lauren Mar ‘24, one of the current co-heads of the Asian American Sponsor Program (AASP) and someone who has worked in and around SCORE for the past three years, talked about how her perspective on SCORE’s future has changed within the past few weeks.
“Honestly, I was kind of optimistic about SCORE before,” she said. “But now knowing everything [that has happened] with the Motley and Denison, it feels like the attention on SCORE is increasing and it feels like it’s one of the last few student spaces that admin is going to try to wrestle control over again.”
Unease around SCORE has heightened recently due to unprecedented surveillance around Scripps and the 5Cs, including Motley’s indefinite closure and the increase in campus safety and private security presence around Denison Library.
“I’m a senior and I have never seen the campuses this way,” Mar said. “I feel like I’m fairly well versed in campus history and I honestly haven’t heard of anything to the scale of this, where there’s such a concentrated and collaborative effort to police students. To me, it feels like a power struggle right now between students and admin over the future of SCORE.”
After Wheaton-Greer and Mandujano left Scripps last semester, Nick Daily, a consultant focusing on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training, was hired to consolidate student opinions about SCORE and create a plan for its future. They were also hired this semester to work as a part-time consultant.
“My hope is that the incoming assistant dean and director feel they’re coming into a space that has structure, but is also flexible enough to respond to their vision for what SCORE can be,” Daily said via email.
Daily reflected on student demands from his previous collaboration with SCORE and explained how they were already trying to instate some student feedback.
“During my spring 2024 consultation, students were very vocal about their desire to have 24-hour swipe access to the SCORE living room,” he said. “We have restored the process to request 24-hour access and have informed affinity CLORGs.”
An Oct. 9 email from Dr. Sha Bradley to the broader Scripps community shared a form for SCORE swipe access, and a QR code is posted outside the SCORE living room.
Following years of cutbacks, including a drastic decrease of intern staff from 12 students to 6 in 2024, the SCORE intern program and much of its student-run programming have been fully shut down this semester.
Daily described his vision for SCORE programming during his tenure this semester. “The programming at SCORE will be built on its foundational principles as a center that focuses on marginalized communities and building intersectional solidarity,” they said. “I’m working with students, faculty members, Scripps campus partners, and 7C resources to bring relevant and timely programming to students.”
All current SCORE programming is either run by Daily or Becky Kyles, the international student advisor hired last semester, which raises the question of whether SCORE functions as a student-run space.
Mar expanded on the constant tension between the student and administration presence at SCORE, given that the director and assistant director’s offices are in the building, facing the living room.
“I have my AdBoard [Asian American Advisory Board Student Coordinator] office hours there, because it’s supposed to be a safe space for students from across 5Cs to come and talk to me,” she said. “But I literally sit parallel to Nick Daily [in Wheaton-Greer’s old office] and I just don’t know how comfortable students would be to enter that space. Like knowing there’s just constant admin presence there.”
Mar hosted an event in her sophomore year that she felt exemplified this understanding. “[The event] took place in the evening and it was about the history of AASU and AASP, and I brought in two alums to speak,” she said. “I remember Elba [Mandujano] got boba for the event and then she left for the hour that the event was going on, which I actually did appreciate a lot because I think she recognized too that we were talking about things that I think as admin, she shouldn’t be privy to.”
She also emphasized how much more comfortable SCORE was without any administrative presence.
“When she left I felt comfortable in the SCORE space, I think for the first time working there,” Mar said. “Because it was just alums and students being in community together and openly discussing the histories of these organizations. And the past activism [that created them].”
Daily explained that he has heard similar student feedback and is considering strengthening SCORE as a physical space. “I’ve heard from one student that there are unpleasant and/or underutilized attributes in the SCORE when it comes to studying or hanging out for extended periods,” they said. “One thing I hope everyone can do is imagine what SCORE could be in every way—physically, missionally, interpersonally, inter/intragroup, and more.”
“I think admin has one idea about what SCORE is supposed to be,” Mar said. “They view it as being a space provided by admin for students, which kind of justifies admin presence there. Whereas I think students want SCORE to be more like the Motley in which ideally there would be no admin interference and it’s a space for students [run] by students.”
Unbeknownst to many students, SCORE’s history has consistently centered on student activism. A 2001 student-led teach-in called “Whose Voice, Whose Vision?” was created for leaders of women of color affinity CLORGs to express their frustrations with the Multicultural Resource Center that existed at the time, eventually leading to SCORE’s formation.
While the history of SCORE needs to be better publicized to the general student body, Mar emphasized how she was only aware of the SCORE acronym being changed by the administration from word of mouth. “I remember hearing from Scripps alums that the original name was Students of Color Organizing Revolutions Everywhere,” Mar said. “But when I was doing my SCORE orientation when I was working there, they were going through the history and they were like, oh, SCORE was founded in 2003. They didn’t mention anything about the original name. So the only thing I know about that name is through word of mouth from alums.”
From what she remembered from talking to alums, the acronym change felt to her like student activists “had this small victory, and then it was quickly taken away and then further institutionalized.”
“I feel like I’m making a point to tell people that it used to be called Students of Color Organizing Revolutions Everywhere,” Mar said. “Just to keep that like oral legacy alive even if admin says otherwise.”
Daily shared that he is aware and committed to honoring student voices and history regarding the SCORE acronym. “My goal is to ensure that the name/acronym matches the program’s mission and vision,” they said. “Whatever the name or acronym is—students at Scripps have said they would like to keep the name because it honors the history—we should make sure we don’t lose its meaning and focus.”
Despite these assertions of SCORE’s radical roots, Mar still felt a disconnect between the current SCORE space and what it is advertised as.
“I feel like they mentioned SCORE on the admissions tour, and it sounds great on paper,” she said. “I don’t remember exactly how they sell it … but somehow I interpreted it as a place for students of color to feel safe and feel comfortable in. Then, as a freshman, I felt racialized in a way I’d never felt before [at a predominantly white institution]. So I was kind of turning to these spaces for community and validation of my experience, and I also just like to meet more people of color.”
However, she realized SCORE wasn’t what she thought it was after working as a liaison between SCORE and the Asian American Resource Center at Pomona, a position that disappeared two years ago when she wasn’t rehired.
“Elba [Manudjano] was like, oh, we wanna make sure this is a safe space for all students,” she said. “I remember Elba [Mandujano] always told us, when you’re hosting events, make sure you put on the flier that this is for everyone. Don’t use exclusive language. So even if your event is for primarily APIDA students, like mine was, I couldn’t say that on the flier. And like I get you don’t [want to] exclude people. [But] it was that language of all students which discounts students who are, you know, people of color or marginalized in some way, which is like what I thought SCORE was supposed to be. It’s like, well why is it here then if it’s for everyone, what purpose does it serve?”
Mar reflected on what the current iteration of SCORE has looked like for student-driven communication and collaboration. “It’s been nice to have this freedom over the space,” she said. “If we needed to meet last minute, SCORE was available. It’s been nice and accessible in a way that it hasn’t been in the past few years. It’s really funny because we communicate with each other [other affinity CLORGs] through an Instagram group chat. And that’s how we have been reserving the space.”
She emphasized how freeing this process has been. “I think that ideally, SCORE in the future would look something more like that where that communication over the space is a little bit more informal and less institutionalized,” she said. “I don’t think you have to go through admin to reserve the space. I think that’s very counterintuitive to the idea of an open-access space.”
When asked whether she thought SCORE would ever truly be a student-run space due to its institutionalization, Mar replied, “I think there’s always a chance for it to become less institutionalized. I think, looking at the Motley, for example, and the way that they’re able to employ students on their own, have their own sense of leadership and also their own sense of community, even their own way of reserving space and giving out funding. I think that’s definitely something that SCORE can aspire to. I mean I don’t know how practically that would shake out. But I think that a student-run model is totally possible.”
“I think it would be nice for the affinity groups to somehow, if not take ownership of SCORE then to break free from it completely,” Mar said. “I think that this kind of liminal situation going on is not sustainable and I think it’s gotta be all or nothing. Either being completely student-run [under SCORE] or severing ties from SCORE.”
