Hey dr. flora here i want to give you another personal story about some of the
readings that you'll be doing this week as it relates to diversity equity access
and inclusion and keep in mind that dr. Noland and dr. Rhoda I truly esteem
their ability to articulate at the National landscape in the state level
landscape kind of the very high policy goals and overarching theoretical
frameworks that you'll be using in this class the the tiny piece that I feel
like I can contribute to this class is my local or institutional level policy
experience and so I've recorded another introduction here just to tell you a few
stories about my interactions at a local institutional level policy kind of
helping to create policy and being part of policy development at the local level
in response to some pretty public diversity crises at the time so when I
came on board in the Provost office we had just come off of an embroidered
board of visitors who it was faction actually we had hired a senior
administrator who had a female partner and the very normal practice of hiring
and creating partner business partner benefit plan where we would dual-career
higher that partner into a faculty role or or sometimes an administrative roller
wherever their skillset lie but it had been a pretty uncomfortable public
dilemma because some of the board members did not like that and so that
was one thing that was happening the second thing that had happened was that
an african-american faculty member who was very well-loved was not tenured on
the campus
the third thing that had happened before I came on board was that female faculty
particularly junior female faculty and some of the engineering departments were
leaving and they were be read they were being recruited elsewhere and and their
exit interviews they were siting in civility in civility really but in
general it was that the climate and the culture of those departments were not
warm and welcoming to females particularly females with children and
they felt the expectation set before them were just untenable and could not
be they cannot be successful and have children in that department and then
sort of the fourth thing that was going on was that the institution had added an
optional in the keyword is optional reporting category in the pretender and
promotion dossier called contributions to diversity it was completely optional
and I want you to familiarize yourself with what we call the diversity tax in
tenure and promotion because you'll understand as you read about the
diversity tax and committee service why the institution would advance an
optional reporting category we really wanted to make it a place where
individuals who are engaged in committee service or mentoring components or other
areas could have a a place to report that work and be recognized for that
work in their tenure and promotion process however there were some faculty
who really upset that we had added that optional reporting category on the
tenure and promotion dashi dossier so the Provost had arrived from California
and and he was seeing this happening under his watch and he was quite
appalled to be honest with you
so one of the first things he did was to create a campus diversity task force and
out of the recommendations of that task force is where I'm transitioning you
into some of the reading for this area that i have uploaded one of the
recommendations is that yes we can have human resource sponsored programs those
mandated training programs but typically those mandated training programs do not
get at the campus-wide system and cultural infusion that we hope when it
comes to working with academics and we all know how academics thinking work so
one of the recommendations was that there would be an academic conference
related to diversity and inclusion which was very successful and it was during
one of those academic conferences that i was able to go meet here dr. Damon
Williams speak of inclusive excellence i would have to say his inclusive
excellence framework really changed my thinking around diversity and access
from a pull out and support mentality to and
include the entire institution mentality and so the readings that you're reading
this week and next week related to diversity access inclusion specifically
the Williams burger and McClendon inclusive excellence article contains a
framework that many universities during that time and cents have used in their
strategic planning the framework truly shifted my thinking around this area of
access and inclusion and creating a warm and welcoming campus climate for all a
few other policy institutional local level policy changes that came out of
that diversity task force was that we hired a senior diversity officer whose
style and mannerism and approach made it very safe to be politically incorrect
and to talk about race, and that was one of the things we learned that if we're
also afraid to talk and we can't help challenge each other's assumptions and
opinions in a safe manner and especially at the academic administrator level it
has to be safe behind closed doors to be able to have those conversations and so
this senior diversity officer who by the way has since just been hired at
missouri in the state of Missouri for their post crisis intervention was the
kind of personality that the institution needed to have those conversations
the university also applied for and received a major NSF grants to help
advance women instant STEM fields and so we put more focus and effort on the
campus climate environment for women specifically women and young women with
children we created a stop the tenure clock policy that would go for both men
and women who had either adopted or had a child so another policy lever that we
felt like would help make the campus more inclusive warm and welcoming
we also held local childcare provider slots in order to recruit and attract
people to our campus and so if we had an all-star who was visiting and you know
people with children care about where their kids will go to daycare we could
say with assurance that we had held some slots and that if they chose to come to
our university or institution that we could we could help them get their kids
and then
excellent place of childcare and I know that that these are some considerations
that we may not think about at local level policy discussions but all of
these things kind of come together to build a support system for your campus
climate and to help support the faculty and the staff who are working on your
college campuses
lastly the senior administrator who had taken so much upon hire was given
monies to really build what I would call a land mark building and it wasn't so
explicit as it was implicitly supporting the fact that she had chosen to come
amidst all of the embattlement that had happened and the landmark building also
was very explicitly in support of all students and creating a safe warm
welcoming environment and so those are the kinds of local level policy
responses to access inclusion diversity and creating a warm and welcoming campus
environment. I have to say that was a long time ago really in the in the
higher education world that was back in 2007 and we've all evolved in our
thinking related to diversity and access but we do have a long way to go and so
as we get together and as we read these very practical articles related to have
senior leaders can respond to diversity access inclusion and campus crises as
well as leading that charge being a leader who espouses appreciation for all
walks of life espouses a deep respect for different ways of thinking I
believe that sharing these personal experiences will only help us get better
together so I look forward to hearing your thoughts your reactions to some of
these policies in our weekend seminar sessions and then truly in the community
college system here in Tennessee there's a rich opportunity for you all to
cross-pollinate some of these local level policies that you're trying out
your campuses in order to share what's working and what's not
not working with each other so that's all I have to add here i want to thank
you for listening and I look forward to seeing you soon, take care.