UNH President's Commission on the Status of People of Color
Final Report submitted to President Joan R. Leitzel August, 1999

Introduction
Recruitment Committee
Climate, Equity and Welfare Committee
Academic Programs Committee
Community Relations Committee
Concluding Observations

Introduction:

In introducing its initial report last spring, the Commission quite appropriately emphasized its attention during its first year to the goals established in the 1994 document, Building a New University Community. Now, in spring '99, some perspective is provided by noting that even while the '97-'98 Commission's work was in progress, the Black Student Union found it necessary to issue a set of demands which were substantially reiterated during the following fall, just two weeks after the '98-'99 Commission's opening meeting and that the 1994 document itself was a response to a similar set of demands. Given that the latter document is only the University's most comprehensive effort to address a set of problems first focused on campus over 30 years ago, the fact that frustration abounds and impatience reigns in this realm is entirely understandable, no matter how distinguished a record our institution may have accomplished in many other areas. This is not to say that honest efforts have not been undertaken and considerable progress made, but at the very least it suggests that the communication to the interested parties of our processes and results have not been totally successful.

We mention this "up front" because when our four committees reviewed the year's concerns in the context of the 22 recommendations made in our first report, it was clear that many items were either "on hold", "in process", or "in transition", due to a variety of understandable if seemingly chronic reasons. Thus it is important that as an institution we continually take heed of the frequent "disconnect" between the pace of diffused academic actualization and the passage of student generations.

In light of the foregoing, the present document is not an assessment of the current status of each of last year's recommendations; neither is it a list of fresh initiatives. In addressing matters that achieved particular resonance during the year as seen through its committees, the Commission has prioritized a number of items from an extensive list which both history and current circumstances have provided. In a closing section we offer a few general observations and reflections, including some advice to the 1999-2000 Commission.

Recruitment Committee:

Committee Members:

Sharon Demers, Jeff Jackson, Roxanne Medina-Lewko, Rolanda Sequeira, Jim Washington, and Paul Verrette, chairperson

Undergraduate Student Recruitment:

As we review the status of the recommendations made last spring, as well as subsequent events, the most helpful factor in approaching these issues is the presence of Mark Rubinstein. The Vice Provost for Enrollment Management has met with the committee, its chair, and the full Commission and his presentation of possible initiatives and strategies, coupled with refreshingly broad philosophical insights, generate both hope and confidence. To attempt to prioritize his ideas on both recruiting and retention at this point would be presumptuous; suffice it to say that he clearly is sensitive to the reasoning behind the '97-'98 Commission's first three recommendations (consolidation of functions, development of a plan though 2005, linkage with student advisory groups) and that the formalization of these matters is receiving due consideration as Mark completes his first year. (It should be noted that our recommendation concerning a long-range plan is also part of the November agreement with the BSU, and the concept of the student advisory in Building a New University Community.)

Recommended Action:

1. Obviously, the Commission is not privy to any budgetary aspects of Mark's proposals, we can only urge that the implementation of his vision, which certainly would enhance the institution as a whole, be given the highest priority. It appears to the Commission that Mark is serving as his own Director of Financial Aid; we trust that this is only a temporary expedient.

Faculty Recruitment:

Although modest gains have been made in recruiting faculty of color, the current pace will make extremely difficult the attainment of the approved BSU goal of 10 black tenure track faculty by 2003. The Commission understands the difficulties and complexities of the recruiting process, but we are also aware that the Special Assistant to the President for Affirmative Action is outside the administrative loop through which academic departments normally do their business.

Recommended Actions:

2. We urge that the President and the new Provost insure that the Deans directly monitor the recruiting process following the usual meetings of search committees, etc. with the Special Assistant. We are aware that all of the incumbents have changed since the Deans accepted greater responsibility for the process early in 1995.

3. Furthermore, the audit of the 1992 departmental five-year Affirmative Action plans is incomplete, and subsequent years also need to be included. If permanent staffing in the office of the Special Assistant is not available for that purpose, then a temporary arrangement should be contrived. A thorough study of this history could yield much useful information, and such a major effort on the University-wide five-year plans should not be allowed to have been an empty exercise, contributing to a negative image of our commitment and/or procedures.

Staff Recruitment:

As recommended in the Commission's 97-98 report, Human Resources has initiated data collection on staff promotion rates among people of color as compared with promotion rates for the general UNH staff. We anticipate that Human Resources will continue to gather and report this data on a cycle not to exceed three years and as a result of these findings, appropriate steps are taken to ensure the retention and recruitment of staff of color.

The appointment of David Butler, Assistant Vice President for Human Resources, should result in increased awareness of the circumstances of people of color on the staff, although the Commission cautions that unintended expectations often arise when a person of color him-or-herself is placed in such a position.

Climate, Equity and Welfare Committee:

Committee Members:

Malik Aziz, Cheryl Daly, Pat Gormley, Jee Eun Regina Song, Fredric Taylor and Barbara Krysiak, chairperson.

The Committee's charge for the 1998-1999 academic year was to monitor and up-date the progress of the University on issues of climate, equity and welfare, defined by President Leitzel in her response to the Commission's report for the 1997-98 academic year, through the Division of Student Affairs and the Offices of Affirmation Action, Alumni Affairs, and Human Resource Services and Benefits Administration. In order to do this, the following individuals were sent letters asking them to respond to questions regarding the issues related to the responsibilities of the Division of Student Affairs and the other Offices:

Ernest Gale, Executive Director of Alumni Affairs
Pat Gormley, Special Assistant to the President for Affirmative Action
Leila Moore, Vice-President for Student Affairs
Mark Rubinstein, Vice-Provost for Enrollment Management
Joan Tambling, Director, Human Resource Services and Benefits Administration

Written responses were received from all but Mark Rubinstein who gave an oral report of his activities in his first year in his newly created position to the commission at its regular April meeting.

The questions in the letters were drafted from the charge to the Climate, Equity and Welfare Committee. The following represents the issues of concern and the responses:

A. Climate Surveys, Focus Groups, Exit Interviews, and Studies.

1. Climate Surveys:

The Office of Residential Life conducted two surveys in the fall right after Thanksgiving break: Student Profile Survey and the Residential Life Survey. The division of Student Affairs found that their ability to generalize from these surveys was limited given that they only accessed students who lived in on-campus housing, and in both cases the number of students who identified in the racial/ethnic categories other than Caucasian were very small.

The Office of Affirmative Action is working with the Division of Student Affairs to ensure that future surveys include appropriate questions regarding the quality of life at the University. Surveys conducted in the fall of 1999 will reflect this activity.

The Office of Alumni Affairs has not conducted any alumni climate surveys of its own because of lack of funding. However, the Executive Director will work in collaboration with the Division of Student Affairs and the Office of Affirmative Action on any future efforts that might occur should there be resources.

2. Focus Groups:

The Division of Student Affairs has sponsored the following activities this past year.

a.) Large group Race Talk discussions were held once a semester a benchmark for ongoing community conversation. This activity was planned and implemented through the collaboration of several campus groups and with significant input and involvement of students.

b.) Small group race dialogues: Race Matters. These dialogues were student-to-student conversations held in the resident halls. Two discussions, deemed positive, were held prior to March 1999.

c.)SHARPP has been consistent in offering several group discussion opportunities.

d.) Grounds for Thought. This group activity ran for six weeks with participation by eleven white female students. The focus was on a sophisticated understanding of privilege and power. Some positive outcomes were realized, as students became more involved in diversity issues on campus.

3. Exit Interviews: From the responses to the letters, no formal exit interviews have been held by either the Division of Student Affairs or the other Offices involved in this report.

4. Studies:

a.) Staff Equity Study: The staff equity study did not reveal discrepancies based on race. However, race will continue to be a variable that is included in future staff salary equity studies.

b). The Division of Student Affairs is planning a study focusing on violence against women for the spring of 2000.

B. Discriminatory Harassment Policy.

The Office of Affirmative Action published incident/complaint data for the first time for 1997-98. However, the Affirmative Action Office feels that there is a need for more data gathering, including climate surveys, in order to make any analysis meaningful.

C. Staff Training.

Activities sponsored by the division of Student Affairs included:

1. A breakfast was held with staff and students on a panel. The focus of the discussion was climate issues and ways staff not only can improve climate, but also change the way they work.

2. Two workshops were held with staff focusing on raising consciousness on diversity issues. The workshops were voluntary and open to all in the Division of Student Affairs.

3. The Office of Affirmative Action is planning discriminatory harassment training to complement activities in the Division of Student Affairs.

D.Faculty In-Service Training

1. The Office of Affirmative Action is sponsoring training entitled: "Excellence Through Community: A Conversation". This training is to be held in each of the Departments in the University.

2. The President's Commission on the Status of Women initiated an in-service project on diversity for faculty. A Diversity Committee was formed to plan and implement these workshops. Members of the Diversity Committee included representatives from: the Center for Teaching Excellence; the President's Commissions on the Status of People of Color and Women; Race, Culture and Power Minor; African American Studies Minor; Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Task Force; Women's Studies; and the College of Life-Long Learning. Three workshops were held in the 1998-99 academic year. The workshops were varied and offered a potpourri of activities engendered to have participants explore diversity issues through classroom activities and curriculum. The evaluations were positive.

Planning for the implementation of a series of workshop/seminar activities for the 1999-00 academic year is underway

Recommended Actions:
1. Resources: There needs to be funding, staff and designated time and responsibility provided for the following:

a) To develop, implement, and analyze an appropriate climate survey that can be used yearly with all University constituents. The responsibility for the development should be in the Division of Student Affairs with help from the Affirmative Action Office. For example, there would be a section that could be used with alumni and distributed and collected by the Alumni Affairs Office.
b) To conduct exit interviews of students, staff, and faculty of color. The Exit Interview protocol developed by the Academic Affairs Sub-committee of the Commission is a great start on this process.

2. Training: Present training on diversity issues needs to be expanded and coordinated among the Division of Student Affairs and the other offices. Training should be mandatory. It also needs to be connected to survey results and other data being gathered.

3. Focus Groups and Dialogues: These should continue and occur regularly among all constituent groups: students, staff and faculty. It's also important that there be a focus on strengths as well as weaknesses. Always working from a deficit point-of-view often serves to alienate individuals rather than build community.

4. Faculty In-Service:

a) New faculty orientation needs to be a yearlong activity to allow for discussion of classroom and curriculum issues related to diversity.
b) Departments need to be encouraged to participate in workshops/seminars that help them integrate diversity issues into their disciplines and classroom instruction.
c) Symposia, colloquia, lectures, presentations on diversity issues should be thematic and offered by the University utilizing our own faculty expertise as well as outside speakers.

5. Building Community. Most important, however, is that all of us need to work together collaboratively to build a University culture and climate that appreciates and encourages diversity.

Academic Programs Committee:

Committee Members:

Edith Butler, Barbara Larson, Yae Sock Roh and Walter Ellis, chairperson.

Priority Concerns:

The Academic Programs Committee serves as an advocate to: 1) attracts and retain faculty, students and staff of color, and 2) provide a quality education for all university students. This year's committee was concerned about President Leitzel's agreement with the Black Student Union's demands on November 10, 1998. An agreement was made by the President to support curricula that address the fields of Race, Culture, and Power and African American studies. The Academic Programs Committee was unclear as to what was meant by "support". The committee, therefore, drafted a letter (Appendix VII) to President Leitzel congratulating her commitment to the Black Student Union to meet the diversity goals of the University of New Hampshire. This letter spoke of the need to meet with the President to find out more about what she meant by "support".

The Academic Programs Committee felt the President Leitzel's response to this letter was not adequate. In response to academic support for Race, Culture, and Power and African American Studies, the President's response was to bump it back to the Dean of Liberal Arts where there appears to be a lack of support for these academic minors. The committee felt that the Asian Studies and Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender minors should be added to the list of minors to support.

Recommended Action:
1. The committee strongly urges President Leitzel to take more of a leading role with all of the academic minors that deal with issues of diversity. There are other issues to consider aside from funding, such as the need for overall institutional support of these minors and that this is related to recruitment and retention of students.
The best way to support the academic minors that deal with issues of
diversity is to make these courses part of the diversity requirement. The Academic Programs Committee elected Barbara Larson to serve as a liaison with the Faculty Senate to ensure that the concerns of these academic minors are addressed in the early stages of planning around the implementation of a diversity requirement. [It should be noted that the unresolved issue of formalization of the Diversity Requirement as mandated in 1991 has been taken up with the Chair of the Faculty Senate, and supplementary materials concerning that complicated matter have been conveyed to that body. (See Appendix IX and X) We assume that this is one of the issues, which will be considered in the Senate's forthcoming review of General Education.]

The Academic Programs Committee was also concerned about students of color experiences with the academic aspect of their college experience. The committee felt that it was critical to know the importance of academic concerns to the success or retention of students of color. Therefore, the Academic Programs Committee began drafting an Exit Interview/Survey (Appendix VIII) to discover how important academic programs and programming (including diversity programs) are in recruitment and retention of students of color. The aim of the Exit Interview/Survey is to try to tease out the subjective aspects of academic programs from the objective aspect (the actual academic program versus students of color experiences with the program).

In drafting the Exit Interview/Survey, the Academic Programs Committee used as a guide protocol developed by Danielle Masursky which is included in her work entitled, "Attrition of low-income first generation African-American students at a predominately white, urban university." The committee also relied on a standardized survey that was developed by the University of California at Los Angeles's Higher Education Research Institute.

Recommended Action:
1. A committee should be formed to continue working on the idea of institutionalizing a mandatory Exit Interview/Survey for graduating students of color.

2. If a mandatory Exit Interview/Survey is adopted, the committee recommends that it be administered to graduating seniors of color early in the spring semester of their senior year.

3. The President should continue to invite graduating students of color to a celebration dinner where they can informally share their academic program experiences.

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Community Relations Committee:

Committee Members:

Tom Indelicato, C. Jaime James, Jr., Ernest Proper, Melinda Salazar, Bryce Scottron, Jane Stapleton, and Margaret Pobywajlo, chairperson.

Priority Areas:

The Community Relations Committee spent the academic year developing the rationale, outline, and foundation for a resource guide to be used by students, staff, faculty, and community members of color. The guide is meant to be a resource and retention tool for people of color on both the Durham and Manchester campuses. The project is currently in the first stage of development. The committee has researched businesses and services in the Durham and Manchester areas in the following categories: religious/spiritual, support groups, personal care, cultural centers, food/restaurants, health, legal, recreational/entertainment and human services. Several members of the Partnership Council have been asked to review the current document and make suggestions for additional sources. The Manchester guide has already been distributed to students in the summer ESL program. The Commission office will continue to add to the list of resources over the summer and plans to have a draft of the Durham/Seacoast guide available in the fall 1999 semester.

The guides will be in print form as well as incorporated into the Commission's website.

Recommended Action:
1. The committee recommends that funding be made available to print the
initial guides for both Durham and Manchester. The committee also discussed the possibility of working with local businesses to fund subsequent editions of the guides. However, this is an area that needs further exploration and should be considered by next year's Community Relations Committee.

Finally, although the committee has had limited contact with the Partnership Council and its members, we have discussed several projects that have the potential to develop out of the union between the Council and the University. These include a mentor and internship program.

2. The committee recommends that the university play a stronger role in developing relationships with the Partnership Council and its members. This would provide for the opportunity to work more closely with Partnership Council members and demonstrate the University's commitment to the recruitment and retention of faculty students and staff of color.

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Concluding Observations:

1. It is clear from the foregoing and from discussions within and without the Commission that retention in all categories is a primary concern. It is truly a quality of life issue, and although much data is anecdotal, it crosses the boundaries of all four of our committees.

2. Given the current philosophical and legal challenges to affirmative action nationally, it is important for the institution to constantly articulate the philosophical foundations of diversity as being desirable for the educational experience of all. Ultimately, this is as much a responsibility of the trustees as it is of the campus.

3. We must avoid confusion between matters related to people of color at large and those specific to particular groups, especially when utilizing numerical data.

4. The Commission should begin the 1999 ­ 2000 year with a retreat, reviewing its first two years, clarifying its understanding of long-term and short-term goals, and establishing specific aims for the upcoming year.

5. In relation to the preceding point, attention should be given to adjusting and formalizing the bylaws, and utilizing such devices as the prescribed steering committee.