William B. Harvey was the first person ever appointed to the position of vice president for diversity and equity at the University of Virginia, a job he held from 2005 to 2009. A recognized expert on diversity issues in higher education, Mr. Harvey is also founding president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education.
With more than three decades of higher-education experience, he recently joined North Carolina A&T University, where he serves as dean of the School of Education. In a conversation with The Chronicle, Mr. Harvey spoke about the barriers that still remain, what a chief diversity officer needs to succeed, and who should step up to make a difference.
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Q. How do people look at diversity efforts in higher education differently now than they did in the past?
A. There are more undercurrents of resistance—and some of that has to do with the general political climate. The remedies that we thought were going to bring about greater access and greater diversity—those have now become quietly contentious. No one attacks them directly. There’s just an undertone that maybe we’ve done enough to become diverse, maybe we should just step back. The old arguments of meritocracy have resurfaced.
Q. It seems as if more and more colleges are hiring chief diversity officers. Is that a good thing?
A. I think it can be a good thing. But it can also be a bad thing, because it provides an opportunity for institutions who want to be disingenuous to say, “We’ve hired someone and this person will fix everything. Despite our history, this person will make everything right.” And then if they don’t, the institution can put the blame on them.
Q. What are the challenges of being the first chief diversity officer that an institution has ever had?
A. As the first person, you’re treading ground that hasn’t been walked on before. You don’t know where the minefields are. You don’t know where the quicksand is. It’s incredibly important to get a sense of how an institution works. You have to learn the traditions and the culture.
Q. Who are the best internal allies for a chief diversity officer to have?
A. Having a variety of supporters would be ideal. You want support from the CEO, the president. That support has to be more than just rhetorical. That person has to throw their full weight behind what the CDO is trying to do. But you want to have a level of support above that as well. You want board-level support for what you’re doing because that, in turn, reinforces the significance of your work to the CEO.
I’ve found, in my experience, that it helps to build an alumni network. There’s no president who is not going to take a call from a significant alumnus. So if that alumnus calls and says, “I’m really pleased that you’re moving forward on the diversity front,” that’s yet another level of support you have that comes from a very powerful constituency.
What I call “down and in” is where you have to reach next. You have to get the buy-in and participation of the deans and senior faculty as well.
Q. How did you get that support from faculty when you were at the University of Virginia?
A. At UVA I went straight to the Faculty Senate meeting. I said, “In the meetings that I’m in, I can advocate for myself. But I need you to advocate for me in meetings where I’m not present. I need for you to be an advocate at senate meetings, on the golf course, at lunch with your colleagues. ... The ones who take this to heart become ambassadors, not so much for you, but for your work. You can’t do this job by yourself. It’s too big and it’s too overpowering.
Q. Can you do a good job without outside support?
A. No, one of the best things to do is network. Have conversations and contact with people who are going through the same thing on their campuses. There’s no guide that says, “If this happens, then do this.” So the benefit of being engaged with people on a regular basis is when something comes up, you can ask if anybody else has encountered it. One of the really significant, unexpected occurrences that has come out of Nadohe [the diversity officers’ association] is that people are recognizing the value of the informal communication and networking that happens among fellow diversity officers.
Q. What major issue stands in the way of higher education making more progress on the diversity front?
A. The dedicated folks are those people that are on the periphery of the institution. We have to try to shift ownership of this issue from that group of people to the people who have power and status in the institution. You have to get them to step forward and take some ownership of this. They have to see that we have to do some things differently, that this is about more than diversifying undergraduate education. When we look at the relatively small change that has happened across the board, change has been very minuscule. When it comes to diversifying top positions, we have to be more intentional. We have to measure our success in the way that we would do anything else and stop saying, “We’re trying.”
Q. On what areas do you think most CDO’s and their institutions should focus?
A. We can’t underestimate the significance of having people in the CEO position. In most cases the people who are presidents have been provosts. Expanding that pool and identifying potential candidates for the presidency is incredibly important if we’re going to have diversity in the presidency at the nation’s top research institutions.
In the senior faculty, full-professor ranks, the representation of people of color is abysmal. Even though we’re producing people who have the appropriate credentials, when they’re hired, they’re not moving up.
There’s also the curriculum itself. We’re still locked into a curriculum which, whether we care to acknowledge it or not, celebrates a Western European ethos. A Western European framework obviously completely ignores the contributions of people of color. In a society that is becoming increasingly one of people of color, how can we endorse courses that scrub free the contributions of people of color?
We have to be honest and insightful about what still needs to happen even as we recognize and celebrate the progress and changes that have taken place.
