Diversity panel gives findings to Southeast

About 18 months ago, Southeast Missouri State University formed a task force to assess diversity issues and propose ways to bridge divides between groups and people at the university.

That would have been a hefty undertaking in itself, but as the events of the past 1 1/2 years have unfolded, it seems the task force hardly could have picked a more relevant time to work.

Americans have watched the Black Lives Matter movement spur civil-rights dialogue on a national scale, the growth of immigration anxieties compounded by a Syrian refugee crisis and the U.S. Supreme Court's recognition of the right to marry for same-sex couples.

The task force is ready to present its findings and begin implementing measures it believes will help provide a university environment where diversity enriches the daily lives of students and faculty.

The 32-person task force was conceived in response to student-led protests after the announcement in November 2014 that Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson, who is white, would not be indicted for the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown earlier that summer.

The events in Ferguson made it a delicate time for university administrators, because more than 300 Southeast students are from that area. During unrest immediately after Brown's shooting, those students were invited to move back to campus early.

While those students, mostly African-American, found a safer environment at Southeast, it wasn't an environment without discrimination. When some of the black students staged a protest on campus in solidarity with Ferguson protesters, they were met with racist comments expressed anonymously online.

Southeast president Carlos Vargas-Aburto said that was one of the big reasons for the task force's formation by his predecessor, Kenneth Dobbins.

"[Dobbins] was concerned about the developments in Ferguson and making sure we had at the university an opportunity to really have the conversations that we needed to have," he said. "[Southeast has] been a diverse learning environment for a long time intentionally, and the reaching-out is often led by students."

The task force has identified nine key objectives designed to make Southeast "a more diverse, more welcoming, more respectful and more culturally responsive institution," the report stated.

First among the objectives is the commitment of administrators and campus leaders to furthering inclusivity, respect and safety.

The next two steps would articulate that commitment by drafting a Campus Diversity Statement that establishes "cultural competency as an institutional priority" and developing a strategy dedicated to equity and inclusion in the university's existing annual planning.

In prioritizing diversity, the university aims to create an environment that will facilitate meaningful conversation better and mitigate intolerance, fear or bullying that may interfere with students' education.

Task force co-chair Debbie Below said embracing diversity shouldn't be seen only as overcoming narrow-mindedness or confronting bigotry.

She said there are plenty of instances in which discomfort or fear of causing offense stifles discourse.

"If students aren't used to discussing diversity, they might shy away from [that type of encounter]," she said.

Below said without a proactive environment providing a framework to communicate, students may exclude each other and miss out on a potentially illuminating experience.

But open-mindedness is messy. Discussions can be awkward and uncomfortable before people find common ground. That is the biggest hurdle between where the university is and where it hopes to be in the future, Below said.

But to overcome the discomfort, respect is key, she said.

"In our very first meeting, Dr. Jenkins ... said, 'I'm going to say things that make you uncomfortable. I'm going to say things you don't like,'" Below recalled of Morris Jenkins, dean of the College of Health and Human Services.

"It really set the tone that it's OK to speak your mind, as long as you're respectful."

Objectives four through six take diversity into the classrooms. Steps include accountability and oversight measures, training and professional development for faculty and staff and curriculum review.

"People say, 'How do you use physics to talk about diversity?'" Vargas said, but he said courses can be developed that are complete from a physics perspective and, as an example, highlight the contributions of African-American scientists or Indian mathematicians.

"You can be having these conversations at the same time," he said.

The final three objectives include an evaluation of the student experience and leadership programs, alumni engagement and a study of the historical participation of minority students at Southeast.

A culturally diverse background becomes an invaluable tool in the workplace, Vargas said.

"This is one of the ways that the university is really well-suited to help," he said. "It provides students with a competitive edge."

African-American students made up 8.5 percent of Southeast's student body last fall, and international students made up 9.4 percent, which Vargas said provides opportunity for the types of discussions the task force has prescribed.

The task force will present its findings in two open-forum meetings Jan. 27.

One will be at noon in Academic Hall, and the other will be at 5:30 p.m. in Glenn Auditorium.

The changes are expected to be implemented as soon as the spring semester, but Vargas stressed the importance of approaching change the right way.

"It's not something that we can say, 'OK, now we're done. Now we can forget about it,'" Vargas said. "We know that this will be a progressive cumulative effort over time. ... For us, this is something that really has no end to it."

tgraef@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3627

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Document

The 28-page *"President*'s Task Force on Diversity Education*" report for Southeast Missouri State University may be read at semo.edu/pdf/SE_DiversityReport-WEB.pdf.