A new diversity office proposed in the first draft of the forthcoming Diversity Strategic Plan worries some students, who are skeptical of how it will mesh with existing diversity offices.
At a summit of minority student leaders Friday, students also voiced concerns about how the plan will meet its goals and measure its progress. The plan is intended to provide a roadmap to a more multicultural campus, but students worry it won’t meet its goal if a final draft doesn’t provide more specifics.
“The plan itself has good intentions of trying to create a more welcoming atmosphere for all student, faculty and staff they define as under-represented. A lot of what is described here isn’t very specific,” said Jacob Crider, judicial chair of the Coalition for Latino Student Organizations. “It leaves open an option for interpretation, and interpretation sometimes can go in the wrong direction. A lot of what is described in here is very vague, gray.”
The plan, the first draft of which was released to the university community Thursday, calls for the creation of a new Office of University Diversity led by a chief diversity officer. This official would work toward funding campus programs to support diversity and report directly to university President Dan Mote.
Students at the fifth annual Multicultural Involvement and Community Advocacy (MICA) Leadership Summit wondered how the office described in the draft would relate with the Office of Multi-ethnic Student Education and MICA. OMSE focuses on supporting minority students in academics, while MICA focuses on advocating for and organizing multicultural communities at the university. Students said it was unclear where this new organization would fit in.
Rob Waters, assistant to the president for equity and diversity, said that the new installment would be a coordinating office charged with implementing the plan.
“One of the big points of the plan is that we have a lot of offices and individual coordination, but there is no unity,” Waters said.
Students also questioned the plan’s call to target minority students and measure their academic progress.
For Khrysta Evans, vice president of student affairs for the Black Student Union, this problem begins with how the university defines minority groups.
“These measurements are not broad enough,” she said. “It definitely missed the LBGT community, religious diversity, along with geographic diversity — anything that would help the university become a microcosm of the world.”
Evans added instead of creating one more department to address diversity, the university should restructure programs already in existence.
“I feel like they are not really utilizing the resources on campus and they should try to enhance the resources already on campus,” she said.
The purpose of the summit was not to provide answers or resolutions to questions the students asked, but to create a foreground for discussion at a town hall meeting on the Diversity Strategic Plan scheduled for Tuesday at noon in the Stamp Student Union.
In the past, student leaders criticized the administration for not including student voices in drafting the Diversity Strategic Plan. Though the upcoming town hall was established in response to those concerns, many participants still worried about how many students will attend the meeting.
“There aren’t that many groups that have signed up. And it is unfortunate the representation is not there yet,” OMSE Vice President Michael Andrews said.
One student noted a lack of diversity at the summit, which he said increased his concerns about awareness of the town hall meeting.
“I feel like it was kind of under-represented. I didn’t see as many student groups as I had hoped to see,” said Watson Lum, a Taiwanese American Student Association junior officer.
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