The Corvallis Multicultural Literacy Center is a longtime cultural institution in the Corvallis community. Over the years it has become a place to feel welcome for many, especially those from international backgrounds. A vibrant community exists there growing out from years of providing services as well as opening space for cultural education, exchange, and belonging.
After years of renting this space from Oregon State University, the CMLC is now being effectively evicted from the space to make room for expanded student housing and parking. OSU has offered to provide another space that is both smaller and in poor condition. OSU has treated this rich cultural space like a mere provider of services that can simply be uprooted and transplanted, rather than the vibrant community center that it is.
This is one chapter in the broad trend of the corporatization of the university. OSU is feeding into a cycle of unsustainable endless growth in these investments into expanded student infrastructure. This pattern of expansion harms the broader community of Corvallis by expanding infrastructure and housing for students into spaces supporting the resident community.
The planned demolition of the CMLC shows that the university is also more than willing to trample spaces of multicultural community in exchange for infrastructure to support its ever-expanding growth.
OSU has claimed to be a sanctuary campus but now plans to demolish one of the most culturally vibrant, welcoming spaces on its campus.
Show up and demand that the university embody through action the values of inclusivity and justice it claims to hold dear.
Defend the CMLC!