I’m just back from a faculty meeting in which the faculty voted to support the idea of a student teach-in on diversity issues on our campus. I should be elated! Why am I so depressed?
I think it’s because it was so obvious that two-thirds of the people in the room didn’t really understand the urgency behind the students’ request for a teach-in, and didn’t care to understand. They were willing to go along with the idea basically in a spirit of appeasement, and to give the appearance that they were supporting “the minority kids” in a quick, one-day, rather painless way.
I guess I’m feeling jaded and depressed because I’ve been here, done this, before, and seen it lead absolutely nowhere, in terms of lasting institutional change.
At this very same meeting, just before the discussion of the teach-in came up, the chair of the Social Science division, who happens to be a gay woman (a historian who also teaches gender studies courses), passed out a sheet detailing the race/gender composition of the fulltime faculty at Simon’s Rock.
Out of 36 fulltime faculty members in 1997, 11 were women (30.5% of the total) and 5 were minority (13.89% of the total).
In 2005, we had gained six fulltime faculty members, for a total of 39, but there were only 10 fulltime women faculty members (25.6% of the total) and 8 minority faculty members (20.5%). [It should be noted that there is only one African American fulltime faculty member. I don’t know who they’re counting as “minority.”]
Point being that even on this basic level of hiring practices, the college has failed to make any substantial progress in the past eight years.
What does it take to make deep, lasting institutional change? It takes outstanding, committed leaders. It takes funding. It takes the support of a critical mass of the key players (in this case, the faculty)—not just lip service, but a solid dedication to developing and implementing a new vision of how our institution could be.
Yesterday I did something in the vision department, at least. I wrote up a proposal for a series of 2-credit required, sequential courses that would focus on campus-related social issues in a serious, analytical and personal way. Students would be required to take one of these courses every year they’re at Simon’s Rock.
If the institution is serious about changing the culture, it’s gonna take a lot more than a one-day, student-run teach-in. It’s going to take hard work on the part of every constituency in the school.
Are we up for that? Sadly, I doubt it.
# posted by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez @ Wednesday, January 25, 2006
