Three new rooms were added to the Tunnel of Oppression this year, expanding visitors’ educational experiences.
The Tunnel of Oppression, hosted by The Spotlight, began Monday and runs through 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Elliott Student Union.
Mental illness, LGBTQ+ rights, and domestic violence are the new presentations featured alongside the topics of racism and body image.
This is the fifth year that the Office of Student Activities has sponsored the Tunnel of Oppression.
“It is a program that’s developed to highlight different ways that oppression manifests itself into our daily lives,” said Casey Reed, the graduate assistant for diversity education at Student Activities.
Reed said that because oppression is ambiguous, it can be hard to recognize the behaviors that are oppressive in nature.
“So what this does is it takes smaller subjects that allow us to really see into the issue and be able to recognize oppression as it manifests itself into our daily lives,” Reed said.
Students have volunteered to lead tours that leave every half hour. Visitors spend about 25 to 30 minutes in the tunnel. Reed said there is a 30-minute debriefing session following the tour lead by graduate assistants and some community advisors.
“There will also be safe escorts that will be going through the tunnel with the groups in order to be there in case somebody needs to leave in the middle of the program if they feel uncomfortable or they don’t want to continue,” Reed said.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness will be helping in the Mental Illness room this year, Reed said.
The president of Central Missouri’s chapter, Rosa Rodriguez, said the room is designed to help educate visitors.
“Our room will discuss how our words can affect those who are experiencing mental illness,” she said. “The words we speak have more of an impact than we realize. Our room is not meant to shame anyone but, rather, to raise awareness of how hurtful our language can be.”
Rodriguez said they are nervous about how their message may be perceived since this is the first year they have participated. However, she said they are looking forward to sharing their passion with those who come through as well as going through the tunnel themselves.
Another part of the tunnel is the debriefing session after the tour. Jeina Stoumbaugh, the graduate assistant for Student Leadership in the Office of Student Activities, said the debriefing can get heated. This will be her second year helping out with the tunnel.
“The debrief sometimes got intense with different opinions, pre- and post-tunnel, that were sometimes contradictory to other people in their classes,” Stoumbaugh said.
College students and students from Warrensburg High School run the rooms.
Stoumbaugh said she is looking forward to the body image room, which will be led by the high school students.
“I think that is such a unique topic for such young people to be working with and they do such an impressive job every time,” Stoumbaugh said.
Reed said it may be hard to see how oppression is holding you back, and this program could help students broaden their sociocultural vision to see how our words and actions can affect others.
“Students should come because you never know what you don’t know and knowledge is power,” he said.