State Higher-Education Officials Wrestle With Calls for Diversity and Inclusion

The recent police shootings of unarmed black men in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis, among others, are likely to spur student protests against racism when the fall semester begins. And with those protests will come more demands for racial diversity and inclusion on campuses, including calls for recruiting more students and faculty members from minority groups, and for incorporating those issues broadly in the curriculum.

College leaders gathered here for the annual meeting of the State Higher Education Executive Officers widely acknowledge the need for those measures. But even as institutions try to increase their racial and socioeconomic diversity, some people are advising that the goal of such efforts needs to go beyond just bringing more minority and low-income students to a campus with the idea that the college is doing them a favor.

Diversity is largely presented as a positive opportunity for disadvantaged students, and that’s good, said Tim Gallimore, associate vice president for academic planning and state authorization at the University of North Carolina system, who spoke on a panel at the meeting. But another crucial goal of diversity has to be to change the views and perceptions of those in the majority, he said — especially those who control the power structure in higher education.

And to do that, the goals of increasing diversity must become part of the core operating strategies of the institution, said Aaron Thompson, interim president of Kentucky State University, including areas like the development of curriculum and academic programs and tenure and promotion procedures.

“It has to be part of the infrastructure, the DNA,” said Mr. Thompson. “This is the essence of 21st-century learning.”

New Focus on Old Problems

The topic of increasing diversity on campuses isn’t new to higher education, or even to the association, which focused last year’s meeting on the changing demographics of the nation’s college students.

This year’s conference was meant to shine a light on the need for civil discourse and the challenges of supporting free speech on campuses. The growing tide of campus activism, including protests that contributed to the resignation of the president of the University of Missouri system and the chancellor of its flagship campus, have sparked concern at colleges across the nation.

But much of the discussion in sessions at the meeting here centered on how to deal with the underlying problems that students are protesting against: the often overt expressions of racism directed at students and their feelings that colleges are doing too little to support them.

One panel discussed a provocative video made by Patrick Sims, vice provost for diversity and climate at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, reacting to a threatening racist note that a student found under her door this past spring. In the video, titled “Enough Is Enough,” Mr. Sims uses unusually strong language, both in quoting the anonymous note and in vowing to combat racism on the campus.

Speaking to conference attendees, Reginald Stewart, vice president for diversity and inclusion at Iowa State University, said Mr. Sims’s reaction was very visceral and that the situation that prompted it was not unusual for people in positions like his.

“What he felt in that moment is probably four out of five days of the week for me,” Mr. Stewart said.

The pervasive nature of the problem means that administrators have to be conscious of problems of diversity in every area of the institution, even athletics, he said. For example, the Big 12 athletic conference, of which Iowa State is a member, should be thinking about diversity policies as it considers inviting new members, he said.

Groups advocating for the rights of people who identify as lesbian, gay, or another sexual minority have raised questions about whether Brigham Young University’s policies prohibiting same-sex relationships should prevent it from becoming a member of the Big 12.

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“For the new, savvy administrator, this falls into your purview,” Mr. Stewart said. In addition, governing boards and search committees should be asking leadership candidates about their views and plans on improving diversity and inclusion on campus, he said.

Part of the Fabric

Like many other goals in higher education, the real test of whether an institution is truly seeking to improve its climate for underrepresented students is whether it has incorporated such a goal into classrooms and the curriculum, said Debra Humphreys, senior vice president at the Association of American Colleges & Universities.

Just saying you have a goal for diversity and inclusion isn’t enough, she said.

Colleges have gotten pretty good at getting a diverse group of students “in the door,” said Ms. Humphreys, but until inclusion becomes part of the fabric of the institution, underrepresented students will continue to graduate at lower rates than white students from upper-income families.

Similarly, in efforts to diversify the curriculum, requiring a single class on the topic is not sufficient, said Peter H. Garland, executive vice chancellor of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education. Issues of inclusion have to be addressed for every academic program or service.

For example, he said, if there is a class on the writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald, an instructor could examine the what other authors across the country or world were writing about during the same period.

But there are significant challenges to such an approach, Mr. Garland noted. The historical inequities in education are costly to address because disadvantaged students generally require more support to succeed. And some institutions will resist admitting lower-income or minority students because they fear that it will lower their academic standards and reputation.

Another hurdle is the backlash from some state lawmakers who have criticized college diversity efforts and even withheld appropriations.

Mr. Thompson, at Kentucky State, however, pointed out that many of higher education’s processes were developed at a time when the student body looked very different from how it looks now. So, not addressing diversity and inclusion means higher education will remain stuck in the past and unable to adjust to the changing culture, demographics, and job demands, he said.

Even tenure and promotion processes can be revised to promote diversity, Mr. Thompson said, by considering how much a faculty member contributes to an inclusive climate on campus, or recognizing research based on how it advances knowledge in an area rather than the prestige of the journal where it is published.

“It’s not about whether you believe in tenure and promotion,” he said, “but whether you believe in tenure and promotion as it was 30 years ago.”

Eric Kelderman writes about money and accountability in higher education, including such areas as state policy, accreditation, and legal affairs. You can find him on Twitter @etkeld, or email him at eric.kelderman@chronicle.com.