Harry Targ
The
Office of the Provost [of Purdue University] recently established the Diversity
Transformation Award, which challenges faculty to create research projects that
improve recruitment, retention and overall success among underrepresented
minority students and faculty, such as African-Americans, Hispanics, or people
with disabilities. (Taya Flores, “Purdue Invests $1M into Diversity,” Journal and Courier, August 29, 2015).
The newspaper article
cited above did not indicate whether or not the current administration was aware of the efforts at
Purdue that had been carried out in the past to address issues of recruitment
and retention of faculty and students of color. In addition, the article did
not refer to the extensive published research literature that has investigated
strengths and weaknesses of policies many universities and colleges have adopted
in the past. The subsequent posting on a Purdue website provided a more
detailed and nuanced description of the research and programs that may be
funded including brief mention of extending or adapting current programs of research
and action.
However, there is no
mention of the many efforts that have been taken at Purdue University in the
past to increase recruitment and retention of students, faculty of color, and
staff nor does the article allude to prior extensive experiments and research
at universities comparable to Purdue University. The Diversity Transformation
Award Program (DTAP) might revisit and assess prior policy and research
programs as part of the University’s commitment to diversifying the academic
community. Selected examples are described below.
In the late 1980s, then
Vice-President of Purdue University and Dean of the Graduate School Robert
Ringel assembled a group of some forty faculty members from various colleges
and programs in the university to address recruitment and retention of African
American graduate and undergraduate students. These faculty members reflected
the same lack of diversity that existed among the student body, undergraduate
and graduate, in the university at-large. However, for all their limitations
they were chosen by Vice-President Ringel because of their interest in
promoting diversity. Those who participated enthusiastically endorsed the
effort.
The faculty committee
decided to create sub-committees to address recruitment and retention. Each sub-committee
surveyed existing research, interviewed students, and developed a series of
recommendations for the Vice-President to consider. Prior to this mobilization
of faculty, Ringel had already established a program that invited college
seniors from historically Black colleges to visit campus to consider pursuing
graduate work at Purdue University. The projects initiated by Vice-President
Ringel motivated faculty to give their time and expertise to making Purdue
University, a public institution, as diverse a campus community as existed in
the state of Indiana.
Several years later, Judith
Gappa, University Vice-President for Human Relations, distributed a report authored
with Myra D. Mason, Director of the Diversity Resource Office, entitled “From
Barriers to Bridges: The Purdue University Plan for Enhancing Diversity.” The
report was based on student surveys and focus-groups as well as data gathered about
existing programs of action concerning recruitment and retention around the
campus. The report listed a variety of successes in the pursuit of diversifying
the student body and educational programs.
It also referred to
shortcomings such as inadequate funding for programs addressing diversity.
Perhaps the most serious remaining issue cited was that of the 647 students
surveyed: “…most do not believe the West Lafayette campus has yet achieved a
positive climate for diversity. Black students experience a predominantly white
campus differently from other groups; many minority students often feel
isolated in the community. There is a need to recruit and hire larger numbers
of minority faculty and staff” (Purdue News, “Purdue Diversity Report
Completed,” September 8, 1997).
In 1997, Janice Eddy, an
expert on creating environments in organizations that are sensitive to diverse
work force populations, was hired to inform faculty, staff, and students about
issues of racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination. She organized multicultural
forums that were held across the campus, but primarily in the Colleges of
Engineering, Science, and Agriculture, involving faculty, students, and staff.
The goals of the two-day forums were to develop “cultural competence” and to create
an environment of “inclusion and diversity.” The project was based on the assumption
that preparing faculty and staff to engage in a more culturally diverse world
was a necessary first step in providing for a tolerant and welcoming campus
atmosphere for students.
Eddy in collaboration
with Barbara Benedict Bunker studied the impacts of the Purdue program,
reporting on their results in “Innovations in Inclusion: The Purdue Faculty and
Staff Diversity Story, 1997-2008” (Purdue Press, 2009). The publication chronicles
the efforts to implement multicultural forums around campus and provides some
assessments of successes and failures.
In 2009, the Black
Cultural Center presented the first showing of an hour-long documentary “Black
Purdue.” The first half-hour documented institutionalized racism at Purdue
University from its foundation in 1869 until the late 1960s. It highlighted the
1969 Black student protests that demanded respect, a Black Cultural Center, and
an education for the entire campus that reflected the history, values, and
culture of the diverse population of the country. The second half of the video
described various mentoring programs and student success stories of graduates
in engineering, science, business, and liberal arts (You Tube, Black Purdue Documentary Film).
Purdue’s struggles with
its racist past, student protest, and efforts to develop programs to increase
recruitment and retention of faculty and students were paralleled by similar
experiences at colleges and universities everywhere. Research based articles in
education, the social sciences, and the teaching of science and engineering,
suggest the enormous efforts that educational institutions have engaged in to overcome
the history of racism in America.
Caroline Sotello
Viernes Turner, Juan Carlos Gonzalez, and J. Luke Wood published an article
“Faculty of Color in Academe: What 20 Years of Literature Tells Us,” Journal of Diversity in Higher Education,
2008, Vol. 1, No. 3. In it, the authors summarized results of 252 research-based
publications by 300 authors that studied the causes and possible remedies for the
under-representation (just 17 percent of full-time faculty) of minority
faculty. The authors pointed out that “from 1988 to 2007 there was a continued
rise in publications addressing the issue of the low representation of faculty
of color.” The survey “documents supports, challenges, and recommendations to
address barriers and build on successes.” It was designed to review many years of
scholarship to inform “researchers and practitioners” who were interested in
better understanding recruiting and retaining faculty of color and developing
policies to achieve these goals.
The documentary film
referred to above, various protests, and anecdotal evidence from racial incidents
over the years suggest that racism has been and is a problem on the campus of
Purdue University. Data indicates that faculty, staff, and students of color
remain below the proportions of people of color in the state of Indiana. In the
society at large, income and wealth inequality disproportionately disadvantages
African-Americans and Latinos.
Given the record of
programs and studies of recruitment and retention of African Americans at
Purdue University and the knowledge that is available from studies of programs
at comparable universities, new ones will be enriched by building on knowledge
of past research and action; not entirely starting over.
Also, new programs at
Purdue might draw upon the experiences and wisdom of minority students already
at Purdue. The video, “Black Purdue,” made it clear that much of the positive
change that has occurred on the campus since the 1960s has resulted from the
passionate, articulate, and courageous protests of students of that generation.
In sum, participants in
the Diversity Transformation Award Program (DTAP) at Purdue University should
reflect on the history of racism on the campus and the many efforts, some
mentioned above, that were pursued to address it. The DTAP briefly mentioned
consulting existing literature and studying programs of action carried out
elsewhere. These efforts should be prioritized. In addition, Diversity and
Inclusion administrators might compare historic efforts at Purdue University
and elsewhere to recruit and retain women faculty and students to develop
programs of action in reference to under-represented minorities.
In the end deliberations
might lead to the conclusion that putting resources in the hands of those who
need it, prospective students and faculty, might be a more effective first step
in creating a more representative campus community. New programs and research
projects may then usefully follow commitments of support to Indiana students
and new faculty.
