January 30, 2008

Fine-Tuning the Role of Chief Diversity Officer

For college presidents at a loss over how to choose a chief diversity officer and what role that person should play, a paper just published by the American Council on Education answers those questions and more.

The paper, “The Chief Diversity Officer: A Primer for College and University Presidents,” is meant to “infuse discipline and clarity into the process of developing chief diversity officers’ capabilities in higher education,” said Damon A. Williams, one of the authors, in a news release issued by ACE.

Mr. Williams, an assistant vice provost for multicultural and international affairs at the University of Connecticut, wrote the paper with Katrina C. Wade-Golden, senior research scientist at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives.

The authors recommend, among other things, that:

• Chief diversity officers report to the president or chief academic officer.
  
• Senior leaders require the diversity officers to collaborate with key departments across the institution.
  
• The officers be given both symbolic and actual resources to accomplish their goals.
  

The paper also examines the growth of chief diversity officers on American campuses in recent years and details three models of organizational diversity in higher education. —Audrey Williams June

Comments

1. Why have a “chief” diversity officer at all? Or any “diversity” officer?
   In order to institutionalize nonmeritocratic discrimmination. Show me a college or university that has a “diversity officer” and I’ll show you a college or university that is already discrimminating on bases other than academic merit or else is planning on doing so very soon.

   — Joseph F Foster    Jan 30, 03:31 PM    #

2. Dear Mr. Foster, why do you sound so angry? “in order to institutionalize nonmeritocratic discrimination”, what you call the tenure system? Two quick examples, Stanford and Brown Universities and they have more quantifiable measures then most. Thanks for your comments, sorry that your are are not open to the possiblities of inclusion.

   — Alvin Lee    Jan 30, 03:39 PM    #

3. In no case have I ever heard of a professor giving a better grade to a nonwhite or otherwise traditionally underrepresented student. Financial aid is based on need, and residence life doesn’t steer students of color to specific dorms. What discrimination system remains, be it meritocratic or nonmeritocratic? I believe that answer is personal prejudices and more nuanced discrimination that many students continue to experience, and having a diversity officer of any kind works toward building a community which is more compassionately aware of each other than one which has members who make sweeping generalizations about things they only think they understand.

   — sifudan    Jan 30, 03:47 PM    #

4. Thank you sifudan. I tell students of color who are concerned that affirmative action may diminish their accomplishments, while affirmative action may have helped to get me in, it didn’t get me out, and it certainly didn’t get me my cum laude.

   — Daisy    Jan 30, 03:59 PM    #

5. And we wonder why tuition is going up so much. Since men are now a “minority”, can we expect to see an office of “men’s affairs”? I bet we never do. Talk about discrimination!

   — almost a graduate    Jan 30, 05:21 PM    #

6. If American society is truly meritocratic, then someone please explain to me how George W. Bush managed to become President of the United States of America, Governor of Texas, owner of a baseball team and in charge of an oil company. I would say Affirmative Action must have been at work except Mr. Bush is not a member of an historically discriminated against group in our society. Mr. Foster, your prejudice or lack of awareness of institutional discrimination does not mean that universities cannot benefit from efforts to try to correct past and current discrimination.

   — Rick    Jan 30, 05:27 PM    #

7. How come each time someone wants to provide an example of a white person allegedly being advanced well beyond his or her qualifications they automatically go to George W. Bush and never to the assorted members of the Kennedy Family? What other family has such a wide collection of mediocrities who trade upon a famous name?

   — J. Ward    Jan 30, 07:21 PM    #

8. Well, Mr. Lee (2) and Mr. Rick (6), if you want to stop discrimination, stop discrimination. And what exactly did you offer Stanford and Brown as examples of? And tenure is not generally awarded just for good behavior—not in real universities. If you really want to end discrimination in college admissions on the bases of race, ethnic group, and religion, then stop discrimination on the basis of race, ethnic origin, or religion. Then you’ll be in compliance with the Constitution and you won’t need a diversity officer.

   — joseph F Foster    Jan 30, 09:46 PM    #

9. I always thought the 21st century word “diversity” was meant to be confusing, perhaps with some hidden agendas advanced due to the lack of clarity.

   Why not use the word “variety” instead? Variety is definitely a 20th century word. It conjures up silly references to Dean Martin and other “variety performers”.

   But that’s really what is trying to be done, isn’t it? To get some new ideas and perspectives into the ivory tower? And to grant educational opportunities to all?

   — John    Jan 31, 06:22 AM    #

10. What role should they play? Let’s see—-ummm—snoop, spy, tattletale, submarine, torpedo, rat, excuse, token—the possibilities are endless. The reflex to handle an issue or human point of suffering via appointing someone “highly placed” “in charge of” it—is understandable in six year olds but less excusable in adults. It bespeaks an ideology of “heroic managers” solving all on white couches! What gets handled by such “add ons” to organizational forms is trouble proliferation—where the issue at issue is drowned in side-issues like spying, snooping, tattletelling etc. If you want your issue covered with a thick chocolate coating of that—then go for it! Appoint! After all what is faster and easier than making some new visible “appointment”—there are not a few leaders out there incapable of any leading other than “appointing”. Why master all that nasty changing culture and uncovering corruption stuff—that is bad press anyway—it is sooooo muuuuch cleaner to “make an appointment”. Let’s appoint a budget shortfall director, a diversity director, a uniformity director, a bad hire director, a collaboration director, a status-improvement director, an any-issue-you-want-handled director. You know, in your innermost soul, that someone is pretending to have a value, to fix a problem, when they appoint a Chief X Officer—nothing broadcasts insinerity quite like such phony measures. The old bait and switch—here I offer the beautiful appearance of concern, instead of the dirty reality of change mechanisms.

    — Richard Tabor Greene    Jan 31, 06:51 AM    #

11. Diversity is not a “21st century word”; its roots are Old French. Unfortunately, it has become a lightning rod to people, e.g. academic decisionmakers, male and female, who seem quite comfortable in a variety of homogeneous settings, making unlearned assumptions that allow them to remain comfortably naive. I fear that this would not change even if the word were changed to variety, potpourri, or melange, for the mere fact that everytime these same folks are asked to explore their assumptions, the situations that necessitated the need for an officer of variety are reduced to what word choices are used to describe the situation rather than actually critically examination the situation and the assumptions that created it. And yes, President Bush has become a whipping boy of sorts, for real and right reasons, but we can put Kennedy or Rockefeller or Clinton, in the discussion of meritocracy and look at what happens; once again we veer clear of what the actual problem is that creates the need for diversity officers. People sitting in meetings with people who look like them who exclude other qualified people who do not look like them because the decisionmakers are more comfortable making decisions based on their often collective, albeit unspoken, assumptions about the Others. Comfort and Power are tools that help to create the need for diversity officers. Should we have them? No. Do we need them? Yes. Because we cannot rely on everyone to do what is just and right and fair. If we could, we wouldn’t need a lot of the legislation that is in place that helps to create equal opportunities for not only people of color, but women and disabled people as well.

    And it is so very sad and speaks volumes that Mr. Greene feels that a diversity officer is appointed to be a snoop, tattletale, etc. and perhaps speaks more about the individual instititutional attitude about appointing D.O.‘s as window dressing which
    sometimes happens when the institution wants to gussy up the seamy underbelly of its discriminatory practices, be it “chocolate”, white chocolate, pink or covered with sprinkles. Why does it feel so very threatening to hold a mirror up and look at the situations that created the need for such a position?

    — Marva Nelson    Jan 31, 07:01 AM    #

12. As someone who supports our Diversity Officer, I think you all have clearly defined ‘diversity’ according to your own angry agendas. You have no idea what goes on in these offices. I don’t believe any of you have enough knowledge or experience to be so critical.

    — Jackie Rufo    Jan 31, 07:23 AM    #

13. Just to be clear, my comments were intended to be supportive of diversity intiiatives too. but I guess they weren’t supportive in the RIGHT way.

    It’s too bad we can’t have dialogue instead of all this name calling.

    And Jackie you sound smarter than all of us put together.

    — John    Jan 31, 08:04 AM    #

14. I don’t understand why the responsibility for achieving diversity is not built into the job descriptions of all those managers and administrators who are directly responsible for decision maiking. Why is it necessary to lay another later of costly bureaucracy on the organization?

    — Sam    Jan 31, 09:00 AM    #

15. No John, (13), Ms. Jackie sounds like Daddy’s Little Girl who just cant conceive that anybody who knows anything about or has any experience with the subject would disagree with her. In that way of thinking, there is simply no room for an informed considered loyal or benevolent opposition. We either dont understand or we do understand and are evil.

    — joseph F Foster    Jan 31, 09:10 AM    #

16. Dialogues are so often shut down when people’s credentials are questioned. We can’t reduce the dialogue to questioning people’s rights, knowledge, or experiences to feel the way that they do. Perhaps some of the authors of the harsher comments have seen things at their institutions that served to stereotype all diversity efforts. That does not, however, absolve them from questioning and critically exploring and challenging the status quo: why more administrators, faculty, and staff that are representative of our underrepresented populations are not in place at their respective institutions.

    Those of us who support Diversity Officers and diversity initiatives must also be mindful that we should not engage in name-calling and portray ourselves as missionaries of self-righteousness.

    All of us must be mindful that diversity does not mean simply finding an Other in order to put a bandaid on a gaping chest wound. Unfortunately, this is the common view of diversity on many campuses that leads to the sort of rancor and name-calling present on this blog.

    Many of us who do work in these offices or behind the scenes are sick with diversity fatigue. We are weary of explaining, trying to get people to see how the institution is better served by diversifying its ranks. It’s not just my job; the responsibilities rest with all of us. And believe you me, a lot of us would greatly welcome others picking up the ball and helping out in this Sisyphean effort at equalizing the playing field for everyone, not just one particular group. I find it mindboggling that my peers do not see how we could save a lot of money and time—the most valuable of all commodities in academe—dealing with student problems if more of us—across-the-board—spoke up in meetings and classrooms about what we see and hear that produces a climate of fear and anger and mistrust.

    Is it really any wonder that our students often model the same attitudes and behaviors: incivility and intolerance, to name a couple—that we mirror for them on our campuses?

    Sam offers great food for thought. Can we discuss this for starters?

    — Marva Nelson    Jan 31, 09:28 AM    #

17. Does it seem inappropriate and maybe slightly ironic to any one else that we use “chief” for a diversity officer? Can’t we use “senior” rather than appropriating a term from a group of people from whom we have appropriated a lot of things? Everytime I hear “chief” anything on campus, it makes me cringe, but nothing is worse than “Chief Divesrity Officer”!

    — Chris    Jan 31, 09:52 AM    #

18. Talk vs. action is an important dimension. If the issue is how students treat each other, a campus-wide attempt to assign people to discussion groups will probably cause more hurts than would have occured in the course of normal social interaction. Teamwork in courses is much more likely to promote cooperative, individualized perceptions across a range of kinds of people, so long as the various groups of students are there, and they are personally and institutionally motivated to succeed. Admissions is an area in which institutional policy and a recognition of the personal value and societal responsibility of admitting a wide range of kinds of people can have a direct impact on evaluating individuals on a range of appropriate dimensions, including what they bring to the student cohort as a whole. Hiring of staff is usually under the umbrella of an HR organization. Competence is necessary, but the comfort of hiring people like yourself needs to be institutionally counterbalanced to achieve fairness for all. At the faculty level, the problems are typically that hires are made one at a time, faculty committees are too often operating without institutional guidance, and even extra effort may or may not be able to overcome the perception that there are no suitable candidates with unusual backgrounds or identities available at any given time.

    Diversity is best served when faculty, staff, and student applicants are evaluated with careful regard for their ability to succeed in the institutional environment, and value is placed on having a range of kinds of people succeed in that environment. Whether that requires a specialized, top-down initiative depends on how each particular institution inculcates its values.

    — Bill S.    Jan 31, 10:42 AM    #

19. Sam does make an excellent point. If a school wants diversity, responsibility for it should be placed throughout the organization — with department chairs, administrative heads, admissions officers, and so forth. Then you’ll see diversity happen.

    What troubles me, though, is how to define and measure diversity and the lack of open discussion about how it will operate. Should diversity be racially or economically based? What constitutes satisfactory diversity? What will accountable persons (chairs and so forth) actually do — and what are they doing — to achieve diversity?

    — wm    Jan 31, 11:02 AM    #

20. Marva I dare say you are the smartest person in this discussion. I agree with you that we should be instead discussing what Sam suggests: to lay the responsibility of achieving diversity in an institution on the hands of those making the hiring and admissions decisions. But take it from me a person who has been in a similar position for fifteen years at four different institutions, most universities with diversity missions do place that resposibility on hiring committees, deans and provosts. What more often than not happens is that people say things like “there were no qualified people in the pool” or “the folks we saw didn’t have what it takes to make it here” or “they just don’t fit.” And I always ask, “So who fits?” I trust that only whites would be considered fitting for certain institutions. Committees are very often bent on hiring people just like themselves and will go to great lengths to find fault, real or not, in the “others,” making this a need for a CDO.

    — Josie Herrera    Jan 31, 11:12 AM    #

21. Although diversity does include student concerns, let’s face some basic flaws on the faculty’s side of the equation. When laws still require the disclosure of a minority faculty who lodges a complaint to report a hostile work environment, how does the “Chief Diversity” officer protect non-tenured, minority faculty from being further harrassed? Tenure can be denied on the mere accusation of “uncollegiality,” which can be made with impunity. The issue is not about giving a promotion or special treatment to anyone. Diversity in the workplace needs to center around giving deserving people an equal opportunity to succeed without feeling that their contribution is being dismissed—for the mere fact that they think differently. The suggestion of focus groups may raise awareness and might change people’s minds as long as the focus groups contain some of the very people that we are trying to recruit or retain.

    For example, how do we keep minority faculty from being denied tenured because they are accused of being “too sensitive” to comments while being accused of being “insensitive” to others’ feelings? It seems that the double standard goes beyond just promoting or hiring someone for their ethnic identity; the double standard still protects those who create the hostile work environment. The mere imposition of an administrative mandate does not change the hearts of the harassers, as Marva points out.

    — pirata    Jan 31, 12:09 PM    #

22. As I read all the comments, I’m not sure if should laugh or cry. What hogwash! The one comment that makes sense is Sam’s (#14). The solution to the “diversity problem” is known as the Golden Rule – “Do unto others…etc.”

    We seem to have created an entire industry around this issue, when the best thing that could ever happen is for it to go away. The strength of this nation is NOT that we are diverse. The strength of this nation has historically been the fact that, no matter where you came from, no matter what your religious beliefs, no matter what your skin color is, you are an American. E pluribus unum.

    Let’s quit being oversensitive.

    — annoymous for obvious reasons    Jan 31, 01:22 PM    #

23. What do you do with people who don’t follow the Golden Rule? Nevermind the problem of differing interpretations of it.

    Obviously there’s no need for heightened sensitivities when everyone behaves wonderfully, respectfully, and fully conscious of their motives and actions.

    Good laws and “rules” are only a starting point.

    — wm    Jan 31, 02:48 PM    #

24. I venture to ask: Have any of you bloggers read the Williams/Wade report? Many of you seem to be acting like on-the-spot authorities or authorities without portfolio. These are not issues that can be resolved with the pedestrian knowledge you seem to espouse. Get a book….and read it!

    — Abu Boakai    Jan 31, 04:01 PM    #

25. Part of the difficulty in addressing the diversity issue is the assumption that we are all American. We are not. Please, let’s not get off nto the Patriot Olympics and the romanticization of constitutional history. And can we not hide behind our words for less than “obvious” reasons?
    Saying that something is hogwash or doing drive-bys that challenge the breadth of our knowledge and experience is self-serving, to say the least.
    I understand the fire of frustration just as much as anyone when it comes to this subject and no, world peace will not be achieved in this or any other blog. And no, I don’t want to hold hands and sing Kumbayah. But, at least, some of us are able to dialog in a relatively safe space and bounce ideas off one another. How can we encourage our students to engage the life of the mind when we seek to squelch, stifle, or kill constructive conversation?

    I’m culling comments form several posts and attempting to address them.

    One of the great challenges we must face up to is the reality that many immigrants, like our ancestors, are coming into academe and taking their cues about how to stereotype each of us as Other.

    For example, I know of colleagues who are not happy about someone from a fundamentalist Muslim country coming into our hallowed halls, but they treat women colleagues privately and public with great disdain, find fault with their dress, and act like they are invisible.

    Focus groups tend to attract “members of the choir”. The same holds true for once or twice a year diversity seminars where the college president (or their designated point person) looks for some pithy MLK, Gandhi, or Langston Hughes, Cesar Chavez, pick- a-minority-quote and shakes hands with all of the faculty and staff of color because it is the one time during the year that they are able, nay, expected to show up en masse. To do so outside of this invites suspicion that someone is plotting to do something about the way things are being run on the academic plantation. I am always amazed at how people will butt into a private conversation and ask: “What’s going on?” These are usually some of the same ones who do not see faculty or staff of color unless there is a culture-specific event that they just happen to know about. Forgive the digression.

    All institutions have an implicit or explicit diversity mission. Let’s acknowledge that and realize that the top administrators do charge the search committees, HR, etc. with carrying out this mission. Therefore, it seems abundantly clear that some of the Big Kahunas don’t have a clue as to how to effectively convey the need to save money and time by fully and openly addressing and modeling what their mission truly looks like. Open discussion is most definitely key to this occurring and this does not mean passing the buck/flame to minorities and asking them to take care of this piece (and continually get their fingers burned in the process—oh, what else do you people want—) so that one can be absolved from feeling discomfort when some hard questions are asked from all quarters.

    Or the administrators, faculty, staff hide behind cliches like “that person does not make a good fit” or “the committee can’t find a qualified candidate that represents the potential of diversifying our ranks”. Please. I am sure that we all can name a number of folks in our ranks who do not make a “good fit” or who we wondered what sorts of qualifications they truly had that allowed them to teach, manage, etc. My response to “fit” is what does that look like specifically? Can you map out specific criteria that illustrate “fit”? As to “qualifications”, I ask “well, where did you look?” Quite often, HR or whoever is in charge of beating the bushes for candidates has a stock list of places to search and they do not want to move out of their comfort zone and look elsewhere because that would mean the criteria for “fit” might have to change.

    What is the definition of diversity? Is it racial or economic? I am going to step out on a limb here and state that it’s all economic. Smart leaders will look for good, qualified faculty and staff who know how to play well and share with others and make the institution look good, and that should not mean necessarily toeing the party line. Good administrators should welcome critical insights that help them become better critical thinkers in order to bring in more students—remember the students, our bread-and-butter—even those of us at prestigious research institutions-so that those students, in turn, can learn how to become better critical thinkers and become more than adequately equipped to deal with the culture-specific challenges they will face when they enter the workworld as researchers, managers, faculty, staff, etc. so that our beautiful America can regain the respect it so rightfully will have earned rather than the disdain we continue to experience due to our inept culture-specific bumblings because we just can’t figure out that diversity piece. It’s just all a bit too much.

    How to define diversity is one of the biggest hurdles that folks on either side of the fence—for or against—pull up and stop short at out of fear, anger, and rresentment.

    How can the candidates you interview add to or rather compliment the skill sets, departmental goals, collegial atmosphere, and college’s mission?

    Let’s take race out and substitute this word with ability. How many of your institutions look for people with specific skill sets for a particular department who are disabled? Probably not many. Why? Because that would mean the school might have to alter the status quo accomodations it already has in place. We see disability as a liability rather than an asset.

    And, aren’t we all quite happy with the way our classes are set up? Our offices? Our college campus? Our computers? Why should we change things? Because many of us are Baby Boomers and are not going to be able to retire anytime soon, set in our ways, and mythologize the “good old days”.

    Accommodations will have to be made sooner or later. A lot more students who are disabled, at least physically, as well as learning, are flooding into our classrooms, thanks to new drugs, therapies, etc. Are we going to continue on with the status quo or make accommodations that compliment the great work that we already do?

    Now replace disability with race or gender or sexual orientation, or nationality, or religion…

    — Marva Nelson    Jan 31, 05:02 PM    #

26. As the current CDO at a science and engineering university where white faculty, staff and students make up 98 percent of the people there, I have smiled, grimaced, laughed and gotten frustrated with the discussion going on in this forum. This being my 22nd year in higher education, I’ve watched institutions go from having Minority Student Service offices, to a multitude of titles such as the Office of Multicultural Affairs (my favorite) to the Office of Life and Equity, etc. What does that say to an educated casual observer? I would suggest that this indicates there is still a significant amount of ignorance and confusion concering this topic of diversity in higher education. Just to use one examples of the 100 plus responsibilities I have as a CDO, is working with the universities private industry partners. Some of you should take the time to have a conversation with some of these fortune 500 companies, and ask them why they have CDO’s or diversity officers. Here is what they’ll say to you if ask. It’s more PROFITABLE to have a well trained diversity workforce than not. It comes down to money for them. Where do they get this well educated diverse workforce? You guessed it, from our universities, community colleges and technical institutes. Several years ago, three very large multinational private industry partners to my university told the CEO, CFO and our CAO, that if they could not change and provide a more diversified graduate, they could no longer afford to continue to commit to the millions of dollars in annual gifts they currently bless us with. You know what my university did? That’s right, they created a CDO. When I was approached by the CEO to consider becoming the CDO, the task they wanted me to accomplish as the new CDO was to give the companies what they wanted, a more diversified student graduate. Let me make one thing very clear to those of you who are thinking that the university wanted me to increase the underrepresented student enrollments. True, but that was only a very small part (they want a 2 percent increase). They wanted me to use my expertise of the last 20 years to lead the university and the current 98 percent of white faculty, staff and students into becoming a more inclusive and pluralist insitution. Living in the real world, and knowing that only senior administrators (CEO/CFO/CAO) with the clout and budgets of those positons, was going to make that happen. That is why they use the title Chief Diversity Officer. Also for those of you who have worked with traditional senior administrators understant that they have very little actual education or experience in the field of diversity, that is the primary reason for the creation of a CDO. As a side note to Chris #7, Chief is not an American Indian word, so using it is not an affront to my people. It was placed upon our culture by European immigrants and Hollywood, neither of which understood diversity, but then that is a discussion for another day. I have given you a very small peek into what a CDO does, and would love to discuss with people who are sincerely interested in what a CDO does for a university. You will find that our position not only benefits companies who rely on us to provide them with the best graduates we can, but also those who have and continue to be discriminated against. Another more important benefit is to white students, because they need to be given the education to make them more competitive in this wholly different world that exist out there today, one which requires international awarebess and understanding to be successful.
    Thank you for your time and I hope some of you have a better understanding of what we CDO’s do for the university, the faculty, the staff and more importantly, the students.

    Your Friendly CDO

    — BC    Jan 31, 05:38 PM    #

27. Thanks, BC, for being such a friendly CDO and breaking it down for us and explaining that it’s all about the profit/money.

    One little aside: White students are not the only ones who need to be given the education to make them more competitive. I am constantly amazed at how other ethnicities are woefully ignorant of what it takes to be more internationally not to mention, nationally aware in order to be successful in their academic and career pursuits. Why? Because they are taking their lead from the myopic majority rather than critically examining the entire landscape that surrounds them.

    — Marva Nelson    Jan 31, 06:08 PM    #

28. Someone — wish it had been I but it wasn’t—once observed that it is very difficult to get someone to understand something when their paycheck depends on its not being widely understood. I appreciate the account from the CDO (17, Mr. BC). Corporate America finds it profitable to have a competent work force, regardless—we hope and I believe to be generally the case—regardless of race, creed, or ethnic origin.
    But they find it unprofitable to be involved in litigation over accusations of improper discrimination, creation of “hostile climate”, and costly and annoying to have to mount defenses against the shakedowns of the professional Affirmative Action Police and the Diversity Industry. In short, they may not be as interested in a diverse work force for diversity’s sake as they are for quietness sake.

    — Joseph F Foster    Feb 1, 11:17 AM    #

29. Ms. Nelson, you have added many intelligent insights to this discussion. So when I read “Thanks, BC, for being such a friendly CDO and breaking it down for us and explaining that it’s all about the profit/money”, I was surprised. The tone sounds sarcastic—am I correct? And if so, what underlies the sarcasm? BC (#26) begins by saying “Just to use one examples of the 100 plus responsibilities I have as a CDO”. BC is not telling us what “it’s all about”, he/she is giving an example. Yes, it’s a political/financial example, but awareness of those dimensions and the appropriate use of that awareness are dismissed at one’s peril.

    As you said, Ms. Nelson, “Saying that something is hogwash or doing drive-bys” isn’t productive, but all of us are capable of slipping into that approach, myself included. I’d suggest that at the very foundation of achieving diversity as well as “engag[ing]the life of the mind” is being slow to anger or to judge.

    Every so often, a little hand-holding and singing Kumbayah might not be a bad idea. :)

    — CT    Feb 2, 01:04 PM    #

30. I didn’t take Marva’s comment to be sarcasm so much as dismay. BC said, with his own emphasis, that “It’s more PROFITABLE to have a well trained diversity workforce than not. It comes down to money for them.” I don’t know how else to interpret that statement than at face value. And if accurate at face value, then that statement is a surprise, because it’s not one that receives much emphasis. It’s always been about the “handholding and singing Kumbayah.”

    I’d be interested to hear BC’s comment about Marva’s statement on national and international ignorance and their effects on success. That’s a provocative point, as it gets into broader issues than race. If non-racial are significant, why are they not addressed? I will conjecture that when people of every category imaginable are at last widely accepted and respected for what they do — write, perform, build, manage, teach, and so forth — diversity for its own sake will no longer matter because its aim will be achieved.

    A fixation on race — without defining what we really care about — encourages and tolerates more racism. It leads, for example, to that oft used s/he “just wasn’t a good fit.” Indeed, what does that mean? In our own spheres of influence, we can do our part by knowing the criteria for hiring, firing, and acceptance of work product, then holding people to account for weak or coded language.

    — wm    Feb 4, 12:13 PM    #

31. Diversity is a complex issue. Having someone who is in charge of monitoring it at a school/university is a lofty goal. I do not envy the person charged with such a task. It should not be taken lightly, nor entered into with other than honorable intensions. This country has a long way to go in dealing with race/ethnic issues. Having someone like a CDO near the top of the university administration sends a message that this issue is important. It is not an easy or clear-cut task, but one that must be undertaken if education is to be made accessible to everyone. Like BC mentioned, it may be motivated by the demands from the private sector, but everyone will eventually benefit.

    — Marie Nubia-Feliciano, M.S.    Feb 4, 07:06 PM    #

32. In my 30+ years in Ivy and R-1s, it has been my very painfully informed observation that these offices are typically collections of “administrators” who would not be able to function anywhere else in the academy or in the market-driven entrepreneurial world of corporate considerations, where the professional rubber meets the road.

    The résumés of these “officers” and their assorted lackeys read like a grocery list of “how-to-make-whitey-pay-up”.

    These “Equity, Diversity, Affirmative Action, Pluralism” and other offices charged with the quantification of “diversity” on campus XYZ is job one. And they can usually be counted on to head up all the forced diversity brainwashes and the recruitment of VERY highly paid “multi-cultural-baiter-fleas, who will are always only too happy to come to campus to reduce staff to tears for the sin of being born white.

    These offices typically spend much of their time mailing out Affirmative Action questionnaires that they promise are “anonymous” and then crunching these numbers into voluminous (and vacuous) “reports” filled with “findings” and “recommendations” for the next 5 or 10 years, usually titled something grandiose like, “”Diversity 1990, 2000, 2005, 2010”, blah, blah, blah.

    I served on more of these do nothing “fact-finding” committees than I can recall without cringing from pangs of nausea, where “Whitey” (who paid the tabs for these bureaucratic indulgences to political correctness) was always the scapegoat. Racial epithets where not rare at these hate-fests, that is of course between runs to the cappuccino urn and trays of imported English scones on the linen-dressed banquet table at the back of the room and of course in between cell phone conversations and text messages to hairdressers and manicurists.

    Their work is not easy. It takes a lot of effort to be that bigoted, that hateful and that dishonest, but apparently it is worth the price of their new BMWs, Mac-Mansion in the All-White suburbs and their cruises up the fjords of Norway.

    Sign me…diversity survivor (and please spare me any of your race-hatred. I have witnessed your “protected” race hypocrisy for the last time).

    — g.    Feb 4, 07:35 PM    #

33. Pity the person whose professional title contains the word “diversity,” because he will be a laughingstock to all but the most unthinkingly ideological.

    Oh BAD ME! I used the masculine pronoun to denote a gender-neutral subject! Does this mean…could it mean…must it mean I need diversity re-education?

    — Conservative Faculty    Feb 5, 02:24 PM    #

34. Well said, 32!

    — Conservative Faculty    Feb 5, 02:33 PM    #

35. conservative: “tending to preserve established traditions or institutions and to resist or oppose any changes in these’ moderate, cautious, safe”.

    It is truly unfortunate that g. is living in a 60s version of a bad movie. However, we should not whitewash everyone’s experience based on the experiences of a few. Nor does it constructively advance the conversation by reducing it to the realm of sarcasm. It is, however, much safer to take those two routes, vent and rant, than to proactively discuss how we can all, each and everyone of us, engage those who would reduce the idea of diversity to an “us versus them arena” or focus on nitpicking about the words used rather than the actual problems.

    — Marva Nelson    Feb 8, 11:49 AM    #

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