UNH President's Commission on the Status of People of Color
Annual Report for the 2002-2003 Academic Year

September, 2003

Introduction

The mission of the Commission on the Status of People of Color is to represent multiple constituencies at UNH and to serve in an advisory capacity to the President. According to our mission statement, the Commission
proposes, recommends, and evaluates programs, policies, and services aimed at enhancing diversity and supporting people of color within the UNH community;
acts to ensure implementation of goals to increase campus diversity through minority student, faculty, and staff recruitment and retention, and through curriculum development;
identifies, recommends, and supports creative strategies for promoting and supporting campus diversity;
responds to issues, needs, and concerns identified within the community;
and works to establish effective and collaborative working relationships between departments, offices, committees, commissions, and special programs that play a role in fostering diversity on campus and ensuring that the environment is supportive of the minority populations.

The purpose of this report is to provide an overview of the status of people of color at UNH; the progress of initiatives directed toward recruitment and retention of students, staff, and faculty; the appropriateness and success of programming and other initiatives directed toward improving campus climate; the quality and depth of instruction and of the curriculum concerning racial, ethnic, and international diversity; and other ongoing or developing concerns affecting people of color at UNH.

This report is not limited, in other words, to the activities of the President’s Commission on the Status of People of Color. Instead, the Commission presents this report with an eye on its two main roles: to represent the views and concerns of people of color at UNH, and to advise the President by providing an overview of what has been done this year, what is being done now, and what remains for us to do.

Campus Climate

The MUB Wall Incident
The chairs of the three Commissions organized a discussion to try to address the concerns raised by the MUB wall incident of spring, 2002. Serious in itself, the incident also raised serious questions about the relations among many university offices and departments. Differently people viewed differently the issues raised both by the original incident and by the various responses (official and otherwise) to that incident. The Commission chairs organized the discussion, accordingly, to address concerns over growing tensions and a developing climate of mutual distrust. Representatives from various offices--including the Commissions, OMSA, Student Affairs, SHARPP, among others--came to the discussion to try to reestablish an environment of principled collaboration and to try to plan for more effective responses to future incidents.

The discussion we had was promising, but we were unable to continue the discussions beyond the initial gathering. Such continuity would be useful, but we don’t have an institutional forum for this kind of discussion. It would be useful for representatives of various offices to gather regularly to discuss ongoing problems and to anticipate and coordinate responses to the inevitable future incidents that we will face. The Commissions can organize such discussions in response to a crisis, but the Commissions might be perceived as overextending their authority if they were to try to establish a regular forum throughout the year.

Recommendation: It might be useful to draw on the success of the Study Circles and involve the representatives of appropriate university offices and departments in ongoing discussions about diversity at UNH. We need to learn to see through one another’s eyes, anticipate the concerns that will be most important to others while also addressing those concerns that we are closest to individually, and establish lines of communication that will enable us to work as a unified and informed community.

Students of Color Survey

The Commission of the 2001-2002 academic year commissioned a survey of students of color, which was conducted in the spring of 2002. The survey included a questionnaire and focus group interviews. However, after a great deal of study and discussion, the 2002-2003 Commission determined that we cannot endorse the survey’s method, and that therefore we cannot endorse its results (though the results largely confirm our sense of student attitudes on campus). The Commission members believe that many of the questions included on the form are either misleading or inadequate for the task, and that the student interviews are especially problematic, for individual comments are presented as representative views--thus replicating the all-too-common situation at UNH that individual students are asked to be race representatives and subjective responses are given the weight of authoritative statements.
We do not want our response to the survey to be taken to mean that we do not appreciate the work of those who conducted the survey. Under the principled and attentive leadership of Gavin Henning, those who conducted the survey worked hard to prepare a report that would be informative, balanced, and sound. Moreover, Mr. Henning met with the Commission chair on a number of occasions to discuss the preparation of the final report and to address the problems in categorizing and evaluating the survey’s data. In all matters relating to the survey, Mr. Henning has been professional, understanding, thoughtful, and cooperative. We commend Mr. Henning and all those involved in conducting the survey, and we look forward to a productive working relationship with this group in the future.

Although we don’t endorse the survey, it is still worthwhile to consider some of its findings. A large majority of students, for example, expressed the view that UNH needs more faculty of color. Some students stated that they had experienced something in the classroom that they identified as racism--for 10%, this involved an experience with a faculty member, and for 23% an experience with another student. Only a little more than a third of the students surveyed felt confident that faculty can handle discomforting issues of diversity, and less than a third believed that UNH offers enough courses that address issues of diversity. Roughly a fifth report that the courses they take are taught from a culturally diverse perspective, and over 40% report that they feel that they are expected to represent their race or ethnic group in class discussions. None of these findings are surprising, but all of them suggest the depth of the challenges we face at UNH.

However, the problems of the survey remain, and we suggest that these results be considered only as suggestive and that this survey be viewed as a learning experience for all involved. It is difficult to conduct a representative and useful survey when one is dealing with such complex issues and focusing on such a small number of community members. As with other groups, individual students of color do not necessarily recognize or understand their connection to a larger social group until they have a negative experience, and they are often unaware of the tremendous work being done behind the scenes that makes it possible for them to find themselves and feel comfortable at UNH. Moreover, we believe that the survey needs to address attitudes beyond those of students of color, since many of the experiences of students of color will be shaped by attitudes of students in the dominant culture community. The results of the survey suggest that we have something to learn from our students and much to confirm about our sense of the campus climate. It would be useful to have some authoritative data, and so we hope that we will be able to build on the good work that has been done on this survey.

Recommendation: We recommend that appropriate representatives from the Commission, OMSA, and other offices and departments be gathered to examine the methods and goals of this survey, study similar surveys at other institutions, and prepare a plan for a future survey. The discussion could begin simply by identifying what we did right and what we could have done better this first time.

Other Climate Issues

While all of the concerns addressed in this report will have something to do with campus climate, it is worth emphasizing that, historically, the experience of the community of people of color at UNH has not been good. We have witnessed and contributed to endless reports identifying problems that haven’t changed much from one report to the next; we have worked hard to establish initiatives, only to see those initiatives disappear due to lack of funding or administrative commitment; and we have worked hard on recruitment and retention only to see potential colleagues and friends come and go quickly. Many are discouraged by the fact that we do not even have enough faculty of color to ensure ongoing leadership for the Commission or for such minors as African American Studies and Race, Culture and Power. Many members of our community refuse to participate any longer in any university initiative, for they feel that nothing will come of it. The situation is in some ways similar to that of the university budget: we are almost always in a state of crisis or near crisis, but we are now so accustomed to it that we only call it a crisis when things get dramatically worse. Similarly, people of color (and white allies) at UNH live in a state of crisis or near crisis--and, similarly, we make the best of a bad situation and have developed a remarkable ability to work wonders with few people and resources. But the frustration is real, people are overburdened, and burn-out is always a danger.

This situation emphasizes the importance of continuing our efforts to maintain the status and promote the good work of the Commission on the Status of People of Color. We have worked hard to gain (and, always, regain) the trust of our community and to establish the Commission as an influential and effective forum in which to address our concerns.

Accordingly, we are greatly encouraged by President Hart’s interest in and response to the Commissions, and particularly by the establishment of the monthly meetings that bring together the President, the Commission chairs, and the Coordinator of the Commissions. These meetings enable the chairs to assure their constituencies that their concerns remain matters of vital importance to the University, and also to update their constituencies on the work that is being done (so as to avoid the problems of miscommunication that plagued us early in the academic year).

Curriculum

Public Hearing on the Curriculum
In one of our major efforts this year, the Commission worked in concert with the other President’s Commissions to hold a public hearing on the curriculum. The hearing was well attended by students, staff, faculty, and administrators, many of whom were willing to speak for the record. In this way, the hearing demonstrated that we have a strong and committed community. It was encouraging to hear what various faculty members are doing in their classrooms, for example. Clearly, we have at UNH the interest and the expertise to bring into our classrooms the significant scholarship on race, gender, sexual orientation, and other identity and social group issues that is developing in a number of academic fields. We have at UNH faculty who are on the cutting edge of research in various fields of cultural studies, and we have a student population anxious to learn.

However, the hearing made it clear that we still have much work to do. While we have increased support for the most academic minors most relevant to these issues (African American Studies, American Studies, and Race, Culture and Power), the support is still inadequate to encourage the development of these minors--which could serve as interdisciplinary centers for curriculum development and student research opportunities. It is clear, too, that we have more work to do in regards to teacher training. Many faculty members simply fail to address those concerns grouped under the heading of diversity even when teaching courses in which such concerns are of central importance. It is clear as well that we need to do more to prepare instructors for the first-year composition course, for some students addressed this course specifically when noting their concerns. Finally, it is clear that we need to continue our efforts (and do more to make our efforts successful) in faculty recruitment. We need an informed, culturally-experienced, and diverse faculty, and we need to keep in mind the full range of concerns as we engage ourselves in the work of recruitment (so that we do not forget about race, for example, when addressing the need for more women in the sciences, or forget about sexual orientation when addressing the need for greater racial diversity).

Recommendations:

1. We recommend that the results of the public hearing be circulated, and that these results be used to initiate campus-wide discussions, at all levels, on how we can better address scholarship on race, gender, sexual orientation and related concerns in our courses. One such discussion will be centered in the Composition Program, since the outgoing chair of the Commission on the Status of People of Color is now the English Department’s Director of Composition. Other discussions might be centered in the Teaching Excellence program.
2. We recommend that funding and other incentives be provided for course development in these areas. Administrators and faculty should work together to determine the best use of and goals for these resources.
3. Administrative support for African American Studies, American Studies, and Race, Culture and Power (which now share a single staff person) should be increased, so that faculty involved in these programs can do more to encourage faculty forums and seminars directed toward curriculum development.

Recruitment and Retention

Diversity at UNH
One of the problems we face concerning recruitment and retention is that “diversity” remains a rather shallow concept for many. One is still likely, for example, to hear people talk about race simply in terms of skin color. Not many seem to understand the significance of diverse cultural experiences. Accordingly, we wish to be clear about our sense of the importance of “diversity” at UNH, with a particular emphasis on racial diversity.

What race is (in the United States, for it is different in different places and at different times) is what has been created throughout U.S. history. Race is the complex product of legal, economic, social, scientific, and even theological practices. As Toni Morrison writes in her essay “Unspeakable Things Unspoken: The Afro-American Presence in American Literature,” For three hundred years black Americans insisted that “race” was no usefully distinguishing factor in human relationships. During those same three centuries every academic discipline, including theology, history, and natural science, insisted “race” was the determining factor in human development. When blacks discovered they had shaped or become a culturally formed race, and that it had specific and revered difference, suddenly they were told there is no such thing as “race,” biological or cultural, that matters and that genuinely intellectual exchange cannot accommodate it.

We are still confronting (or, more often, avoiding) the complex and challenging effects of this history, including a nation that often tries to deny or revise its history. As Morrison suggests, those whose lives have been most consciously and violently shaped by the past are told that either that the past doesn’t matter or that the past isn’t what it used to be.

And this situation defines a significant part of the university’s responsibility to both address and benefit from diversity. We need--on campus, in our community, in positions of authority and power--faculty members who have been variously and differently shaped by this history. We need courses that address this history and social order, and we need a community of intellectual and social exchange in which we realize the presence of history in our lives, in our institutions, and in our approaches to our disciplines, so as to realize (in practice as well as theory) the promise of diversity and the promise of conflict.

Faculty
One of the Commission’s primary objectives this year was to look for ways to systematize the process for recruiting faculty of color. This is difficult work, though, given that each department runs its own hiring process, with various levels of cooperation with or attention to the input of Pat Gormley and others. We’re not convinced that departments are doing all they can to ensure that they have a diverse pool of candidates, and the university is not yet at the point where departments are either inspired or pressured to think carefully about how to define individual positions. Indeed, it is still difficult to have an informed discussion about diversity and recruitment at UNH.
However, there are some promising signs. We commend Pat Gormley for her tireless attention to the hiring process, and we have seen substantial signs that some departments are getting the message. We commend former Provost David Hiley for making it clear that search committees will be held to a high standard for recruitment procedures, and that the administration will notice (and not silently) when faculty searches fail to attract a diverse pool of candidates. We commend those deans who are similarly working to both lead and (when necessary) pressure departments to think carefully about attract a diverse pool of candidates. We commend the Diversity Team for lending support to all of these efforts and for doing all they can to make visiting faculty and new faculty feel welcome and comfortable at UNH.

The Commission has tried to support these efforts this year. The Commission chair addressed the Faculty Senate in the fall of 2003 to raise awareness of our recruitment needs, and to ask for the Senate’s help in looking for innovative approaches. The Commission chair has talked with the Faculty Senate and the President also about involving the Faculty Senate in the process of approving and/or monitoring searches at each stage. The Commission also sent a letter to each department offering our assistance in the hiring process--either by providing information or by connecting potential candidates to the community here at UNH.

The Commission has also looked into situations concerning visiting or adjunct faculty--scholars who might be interested in applying for permanent positions when they arise. We need to make sure that these scholars have the proper mentoring so that they have the scholarly achievements they need to submit a competitive application. In some cases as well, visiting faculty have not been sufficiently aware of the conventions of academic processes--how to put together a curriculum vitae, for example.

We have seen some encouraging signs of progress, but it remains clear that we need to do more to systematize and institutionalize the process of identifying, connecting with, attracting, and hiring faculty of color. This was a very promising year in terms of the pool of candidates considered, but a typically frustrating year in terms of actual hires.

Recommendations:

1. In addition to continuing education and, frankly, administrative pressure for all faculty searches, we need more flexibility in our hiring. This might mean looking for interdisciplinary opportunities--for example, making better use of the African American Studies and Race, Culture and Power Minors. But this should also mean that we are prepared to create new lines when necessary to hire a promising faculty member.
2. We need to promote mentoring at all levels, keeping an eye out for adjuncts who might be encouraged to apply for a tenure-track position.
3. We need to promote a much clearer message of what diversity means and why it is important to have a diverse faculty at UNH.
4. We also need to do more to ensure that those faculty we hire actually stay at UNH. We are in danger of losing some of our faculty because their spouses are unable to find work in the area--a problem that can involve not only employment opportunities but also questions of cultural awareness and multicultural competence in various offices and departments at the University. We need a better communication system so that the right people can be informed about problems that faculty are encountering, and we need to be clear about the importance of diversity for all available positions at UNH.

Staff
Much of what we’ve said above about recruiting diverse pools for faculty searches applies as well to the hiring of staff. We commend the efforts of Sean McGhee of OMSA and others who look for opportunities, make an effort to connect people with jobs, and work to promote an appreciation of diversity across campus. However, this should be everyone’s job, and all offices should be aware that they are expected to go to some extra trouble to attract a diverse pool of candidates for the positions they are looking to fill.

Recommendation: The Human Resources department should develop a clear set of standard practices applicable to all offices, and all searches should be carefully monitored to ensure that we are doing all we can to connect people with positions, when possible, and to look for ways to create possibilities when none seem to present themselves.

Students
We are encouraged by the progress we’ve made in recruiting and retaining students of color, though of course we need to continue to build on our successes. We commend the Office of Admissions for the work they’ve done, and we hope that they will continue to listen to and support the experts they’ve hired and examine their recruitment methods to look for new possibilities. We commend also the impressive community of devoted professionals who have worked to create a strong recruitment and retention network. OMSA has established itself as a real center of excellence at UNH; the success of CONNECT speaks well of the hard work and imagination put into that program; and the untiring efforts of various individuals on campus help us to listen to and respond to our students. Of the latter, Dr. Roger Beattie deserves special recognition for his attention to the details that make the difference between success and overwhelming challenges for a number of our students. Like Dr. Beattie, many people on campus do not wait for students to encounter problems; they look ahead, watch for signs of problems down the road, and work hard to ensure that our students are successful and strong in both their academic and their social lives.

UNH is fortunate to have such professionals, and so it is important that these key players be informed and involved in any discussions having to do with recruitment and retention of students of color. They have much to bring to the table, and they need to know when legislative, financial, or other concerns threaten to disrupt the continuity of our efforts.

Programming

Programming is one of our strengths at UNH, and this past year saw a number of successful and effective programs. We benefit greatly from the professionalism and organization of the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs, the vision and support of the Coordinator of the President’s Commissions, and from the energetic efforts of the UNH community of scholars--particularly those involved in the interdisciplinary minors.
We cannot offer here a comprehensive overview of all the featured speakers or programs presented this past year, so we will single out a few that give us an opportunity to think about how we might make the best use of our programming efforts. These events all emphasize the university’s educational mission, and they all are results of long-term planning, established programs, and scholarly preparation.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration
This week-long celebration offers us a model of collaborative effort. Planning of the event was stretched out over the course of the year and involved an impressively diverse group of staff, students, and faculty. The events addressed the need for the community to come together in a festive environment--a celebration--but the events also encouraged a thoughtful engagement in the legacy of Dr. King and in the mission of a public university. We addressed social, intellectual, and spiritual concerns--and, in the spirit of Dr. King’s work, we embraced the challenges we face as a community. All those involved in planning this event deserve the university’s deepest gratitude.

Included in the celebration was a forum on hate speech that offers a promising model for future programming. Reading packets were assembled and made available for classes, so that those attending the event could prepare for it and then follow through on it. Many teachers have reported that their students enjoyed a sustained engagement with the issues raised at the forum. In other words, we worked to create a deep educational experience rather than simply an afternoon’s experience.

Race, Culture and Power
This interdisciplinary minor has long led the way in organizing forums for faculty and student discussions focused on race. The minor now is planning a one-day conference: “Race, Culture, and Power in the Educational Process: A Conference for Educators.” As with other events of this nature, this event will benefit from the collaboration of many members of the university community--and, as in the past, OMSA and the Coordinator of the President’s Commissions are taking the lead in providing that collaborative support.
This event is one of many organized by this minor, and so it suggests the value of enhancing our support for the minors. The interdisciplinary minors provide us with established centers of informed scholarship and teaching, a devoted core of faculty, established links with other programming offices on campus, and a growing number of students who have the conceptual framework they need to understand and participate in the cultural concerns we are addressing. In short, the minors suggest what we might do to get beyond superficial understandings of diversity and into a more scholarly engagement with various fields of study.

African American Studies
The African American Studies organized a community presentation this year--a dramatic lecture/poetry performance piece that involved faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students. The performance took place at the Seacoast African American Cultural Center in Portsmouth. The event made the front page of the Portsmouth Herald, and the group was invited to make this an annual event at the Cultural Center. In bringing students and faculty together, in joining the UNH community with the community at large, and in connecting the work we are doing with the work of local community leaders, this event suggests a productive direction for our efforts in the future.

Future Plans

Affirmative Action Programming
Under the leadership of President Hart, the Commission has helped to plan for a series of events in the 2003-2004 academic year that will help the UNH community work through and define its commitment to those many concerns gathered under the heading of “diversity.” Building on last year’s successes, these events promise to be focused, educational experiences that demonstrate the virtues of scholarly engagement in and dialogue about some of the most challenging concerns in our culture.

Collaborations
Under the leadership of Sean McGhee and Michele Holt-Shannon, a group of people representing the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs, Student Affairs, SHARPP, and the Race, Culture and Power minor, among other offices and organizations, has met to discuss the possibility of planning programming to meet the needs of teachers--in short, of coordinating the work in the classroom with the educational work beyond the classroom. These initial efforts are focusing on the Composition Program, since this program includes a number of sections of the same course, thus making it possible for programmers to meet the needs of a large number of faculty and students. We will continue to build on these collaborations, which perhaps can serve as a model for developing focused and effective connections between Student Affairs and Academic Affairs.

Coordination of the Commissions

A long-standing problem at UNH is that the work of diversity is done by many people in many overlapping centers of activity. Certainly, more can be done to organize and coordinate these efforts--but it is important that different groups in the community still believe that their specific concerns are recognized and attended to. Accordingly, the three commissions focused this year on coordinating our efforts. Much of this work was done under the leadership of Mary Taylor, who regularly brought the three chairs together, helped to bring all the commission members together for joint meetings, and helped us identify possible areas where coordinated work would be possible and desirable. The three commissions collaborated on a number of projects this year, the most significant being the public hearing on the curriculum, and this work speaks well of the possibilities for the future.

Perhaps the most important and helpful development in these efforts has been the establishment of regular monthly meetings with the President. These meetings help us to work together and to prioritize our individual but related concerns; they help us to keep an eye on developments elsewhere in the university to avoid overlapping efforts; and they help us keep our constituencies informed and assured that the work of the Commissions remains an important priority at UNH.