University Diversity Task Force Finalizes Report

Recommendations made on how to make Santa Clara’s campus more inclusiveKimi AndrewThe Santa ClaraOctober 19, 2017A university commission came up with 37 ways to foster diversity and inclusion on campus in a report released in March. The proposals included enhancing diversity in the curriculum, becoming a need-blind institution and expanding training opportunities on culturally-inclusive teaching. Recently, a follow-up task force issued another report that clarifies and prioritizes the earlier recommendations. “Discussions are taking place within the administration about how to generate the necessary resources to fund some of the more expensive, longer-term recommendations,” said Elsa Chen, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, who led the Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion. “I hope that people and groups throughout the SCU community will think about how they can contribute to progress on the recommendations,” Chen said. After reviewing the recommendations of the earlier Blue Ribbon Commission for Diversity and Inclusion, the task force prioritized them into high, medium and low priority areas. For example, finding money to “strategically hire scholars committed to diversity and inclusion” and “set measurable student representational diversity goals to reflect the demographics of the state of California” were considered high priority. Meanwhile, providing “training on culturally responsive academic advising” and “establish and strengthen intentional partnerships with employers” were relegated as low priorities. Along with discussion regarding how to integrate the recommendations into campus life, the task force is getting student feedback on the goals they have set. Throughout the quarter, members of the task force will go to Associated Student Government (ASG) meetings for student comments. They are also in the process of putting together a Campus Climate survey, which will ask students about their perspective on the university’s diversity and what suggestions they have on improving inclusion throughout campus. The survey will be sent to the entire student body during winter quarter. “One thing that is important to us is to make sure that we really hear everybody’s voices,” Chen said. “A group of faculty or administrators sitting in a room does not necessarily have a sense of the broad sentiment among the students.” Chen encourages everybody to participate in the survey, especially students who feel as though their voices aren’t being heard throughout this process. Contact Kimi Andrew at kandrew@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4852.