The James A. Welton house, the former meeting place of the Black Student Alliance (BSA), has not been used in several years since becoming unsafe due to flooding.
Kalli Onai, alumna ’19, and member of the James L. Curtis Institute for Social Change, said she hopes Albion College is doing their “due diligence” to make sure the house can soon enough become “a safe place for students.”
“Some flooding that happened in the basement of the house made the basement a little unsafe for students to be inhabiting,” Onai said. “Black Student Alliance loved utilizing the house.”
BSA President and Chicago junior Tatiyana Oliver said since she’s been in the group, BSA has “never had the opportunity” to be in the house.
Oliver added that members of BSA were “told that the infrastructure within the house is really bad” and that “it’s hard to rebuild from where it is now.”
Associate Director of the Office of Belonging and a co-advisor of BSA Rivkah Gamble said BSA is working toward funding for “getting all those renovations made.”
“Then hopefully, fingers crossed, we can get back into the house,” Gamble said.
There have been no work orders on the house because no one on campus owns it or claims it, Director of Maintenance Operations Jim Diaz said.
“In 2021, (BSA) had meetings there, but then they moved to that lounge in Kellogg,” Diaz said.
Diaz added that he hasn’t been in the James A. Welton House in three years, so he “can’t be sure” about the current state of it.
According to Albion College Archivist Elizabeth Palmer, alumna ‘10, the James A. Welton House was originally the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority clubhouse, but was renamed in honor of James A. Welton, alumnus 1904, the first Black graduate of Albion College.
Palmer said professor of history Marcy Sacks and her students decided to rename the house in his honor in 2000.
In her time as a student and member of BSA, Onai said the organization used the house. She added that it is her hope that there can be a space like that again.
“My hope is that Black and Brown students on our campus feel like they have a space that is theirs, that is private, that doesn’t feel highly visible and that feels communal,” Onai said.
Oliver also said her hope for the future of BSA is to have a dedicated space, even if it isn’t the Welton house. She said BSA is “currently in the process of trying to communicate with President Webster about getting some type of new space.”
According to Executive Director of the Curtis Institute and an advisor for the BSA Ari McCaskill, the James A. Welton house was a hub for the Black student community on campus in the 1980s.
“It became the Black Student Alliance house for the remainder of its existence as a place for students to gather – to really take ownership of the space,” McCaskill said.
Students used the space to “plan events, host events, study and be in community with one another,” McCaskill said.
McCaskill added in the ‘80s, when there was a smaller Black student population, the space became a place for said students to “feel comfortable and safe.”
James A. Welton’s “legacy lives on” through BSA, and “he would have been pleased to know the number of Back students on this campus has grown,” McCaskill said.
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