Social justice is hot. Colleges pledge their commitment to it. Graduate programs claim to ground their curricula in it. Professors affirm it to be the foundation of their teaching and scholarship.
Read all about it — over and over and over again.
But stale social-justice statements do little to change failing practices and unfair policies. I don’t want to read another institutional statement on diversity. If you’re hungry, a statement reminding you of the importance of eating well only taunts you. If you’re ignored, oppressed, or harassed, a statement decrying obliviousness, oppression, and harassment only insults you.
So if you can’t tell through its words whether a college is committed to social justice, where should you look? At its budget.
Before becoming a professor of higher education, I spent 10 years at several institutions as a student-affairs administrator working in campus activities, fraternity and sorority life, residential life, orientation, and cultural centers. I saw the differences in allocations to those various departments. Some have a large staff, while others might be a one-person operation. Some have large budgets and can afford overnight staff retreats or promotional items to help get the department’s message out. Others can barely afford shoestring versions of their core programs.
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When interviewing for a student-affairs position, I learned to ask to see the budget. Job negotiation wasn’t limited to my salary, relocation, and benefits. Particularly at the director level, I had to push for office budget increases, new staff or graduate-assistant positions, and facility enhancements. Despite strong institutional written commitments to diversity, multicultural-affairs departments and cultural centers are often notoriously underfunded. I grew tired of listening to the grand expectations of campus leaders without mention of the grand resources necessary to achieve them. Set lofty goals without funding them, and you’re setting your staff up to fail.
Budgets are moral documents that reflect institutional priorities. On many campuses, multicultural affairs isn’t expected to be as large, to do as much, or to be as integral to a campus as an office like student activities. Student activities is often viewed as a large operation that serves the entire campus, while multicultural affairs is seen as serving a smaller population of marginalized students.
Don’t get me wrong. I love student-activities programs. That’s why I hold them up as role models for the support necessary for cultural centers and diversity efforts. Inclusion and engagement programs, just like any other, require sufficient staffing, facilities, catering, and retreats. They don’t just serve marginalized students; they serve all students by creating a culturally rich environment that educates, stimulates, and entertains.
While I directed the Paul Robeson Cultural Center at Penn State, our World Cultural Festival brought more than 1,500 students, faculty, and staff together each year. Our weeklong social-justice program drew some 2,000 students. The line for tickets rivaled those for artists like Kanye West.
The vice president at the time began open budget hearings for student-affairs directors. I had mixed feelings about the concept but was won over because it allowed my colleagues to see how underfunded my department was. I had negotiated a small budget increase as part of my job offer, and I spent an exhausting amount of time raising funds for ambitious programs.
Set lofty goals without funding them, and you’re setting your staff up to fail.
What’s the problem with that, you ask? In an era of shrinking budgets, what’s wrong with fund raising? A lot. Do you see student-activities directors begging hat in hand for money toward first-year orientation or bonding activities? Why should cultural-center directors have to do so? Colleges say exposing students to different viewpoints and cultures is a crucial part of their educational mission. If so, then why is a reading by a prominent author, a performance by an ethnic dance troupe, or a regional food festival any less essential than transportation and guides for the incoming students’ canoe or hiking trip?
I am often called to conduct comprehensive reviews of cultural centers and multicultural-affairs departments. But while colleges will pay for consultants, they don’t respond to consultants’ recommendations with the increased support necessary to remedy the shortcomings that have been found. Money is available to diagnose the problem but not to fix it. To draw a stark analogy: I’m a breast-cancer survivor. How horrible would it have been if I had only enough money to find out that I had cancer but not enough to afford surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation? When you don’t act on a program review, you kill the commitment to diversity through inaction.
I love music, and discussions of mission versus budget make me think of a classic rhythm-and-blues song by Gwen Guthrie, “Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On but the Rent.” “Nothin’ in life is free,” she sings. “That’s why I’m asking you what you can do for me. I’ve got responsibilities.”
Polish those mission statements, my friends in the executive suites, but if you really care about social justice, culture, and inclusion, and if you really want to attract the personnel to make them central to campus life, then heed Guthrie’s timeless advice:
“No romance without finance.”
Toby S. Jenkins is an assistant professor of higher education at Georgia Southern University. She is the author of My Culture, My Color, My Self: Heritage, Resilience, and Community in the Lives of Young Adults (Temple University Press, 2013), and Family, Community, & Higher Education (Routledge Press, 2012).
