University committee gets to work on diversity plan

The University Equity and Diversity Committee wants to find out whether VCU really is as diverse as it seems.

Over the next several semesters, the committee will take a hard look at diversity among faculty, staff and students as it drafts a diversity plan to incorporate into the larger VCU 2020 Strategic Plan.

The committee hopes to present the plan by the end of the semester to the provost and vice president for student affairs. The plan’s objective is to establish university-wide diversity goals, timetables and accountability measures.

“The goal of the diversity plan is to ultimately end up with an environment that is inclusive,” said Velma Jackson-Williams, diversity committee co-chair.

A partner in the planning process, the Center for Institutional Effectiveness already has begun to measure whether faculty and staff feel inclusive in their work environments.

Last semester, the agency administered climate surveys to all faculty and staff. The data from the surveys, comprised of multiple-choice and short-answer questions, will serve as the basis of the eventual diversity plan.

Thus far, the agency has only surveyed faculty and staff. Student climate surveying is supposed to begin next fall semester.

Mark Hampton, director of the Center for Institutional Effectiveness, said the climate surveys were designed to gauge faculty and staff perceptions of how diversity influences their day-to-day work experience.

“What we want to assess is the kind of climate people are experiencing or perceiving based on who they are, where they are and who is it they work with,” he said.

Hampton stressed that for the survey’s purpose, diversity is a relative term that is broadly defined.

“It’s not about what you are,” he said. “It’s about what you are in the context.”

“To be a leader in higher education,
you’ve got to represent the world,
not just the community you’re in.”
-Mark Hampton, director of the Center for Institutional Effectiveness

A male instructor in a predominantly female discipline such as nursing, for example, might perceive a lack of gender diversity in his environment. In another field, however, the same perception might hold true for a female instructor.

Hampton said climate surveying is a necessary step in formulating the diversity initiative.

“If you try to plan without understanding the way things are now, you may make a plan that has absolutely no relevance to the university or to any particular issue we’re facing,” he said.

Velma Jackson-Williams, assistant vice provost for institutional equity, said she hopes the diversity plan will address a number of issues faculty and staff currently face. Tenure process is at the top of the list, she said, because racial and ethnic minorities continue to cluster in collateral, or non-tenure, positions.

Statistics from 2005 revealed that more minorities filled non-tenure or tenure-eligible instructional positions than they did tenured ones. While minorities represented 26 percent of tenure-eligible or potentially tenure-eligible assistant professors, they accounted for only 11.7 percent at the tenured-professor level.

“Everybody should be getting tenure at a similar rate, and that’s not happening,” Jackson-Williams said. “We need to figure out why that’s not happening.”

Despite discrepancies among some groups, Hampton said, VCU still does a good job at championing diversity. He said he thinks the climate surveys will reflect the university’s efforts.

“Very likely, we’re going to find general satisfaction with the climate here. We may find some areas of interest but not particular areas that are headline-worthy,” Hampton said.

Now that the Center for Institutional Effectiveness has collected the faculty and staff climate surveys, the Equity and Diversity Committee will conduct focus groups and subcommittee meetings with participants to explore their responses.

After the committee creates the diversity plan and shows it to the provost, the committee will present it to the Board of Visitors for final approval as part of the university strategic plan.

Hampton said a university-adopted diversity plan is vital for VCU to remain cutting-edge.

“To be a leader in higher education, you’ve got to represent the world, not just the community you’re in.”