Mid-Year Address: Diversity Plan Roll-Out

Promises to Remember

Spring Address, February 1, 2011

Good afternoon and thank you for coming.

Today’s gathering has two purposes to it. First, it is an occasion for a mid-year report on University matters and a formal way to start the spring semester. In addition to my usual written communications on such things about this time of the year, I intend to initiate with this event an annual, short mid-year convocation, too.

Second, this occasion affords the opportunity to provide an annual report on diversity issues as I have promised I would do and as is called for in our new Diversity Action Plan. This first annual report will be on the plan itself, and I will get to that in just a few minutes.

First, though, let me talk about the governor’s budget message.

As I am sure most of you know by now, amidst all the scolding within it about wasteful spending, out-of-control entitlements, and poor accountability, this budget represents a very disheartening perspective on public higher education in our state. It is a perspective that lacks both historical understanding and good sense.

It ignores the critical role that higher education has played in our state for over 150 years as California has invented and reinvented itself. As higher education has provided the key to hope and recovery, to high expectations and needed corrections. As California has survived crisis after crisis because, heretofore, it did not lose sight that having a smart, innovative population has enabled this state to deal with its challenges.

Moreover, in a time of expanded demand and need for higher education – as an engine of economic recovery and growth, as an instrument for improving the quality of life and strengthening the social fabric in this state, as an agent for a cleaner environment, a healthier population, a more engaged citizenry, a stronger democracy, and social justice – the governor proposes to cut higher education by $1.4 billion. $500 million in the CSU alone.

Such an 18% reduction would bring the level of state support for the CSU to less than $2.3 billion, the lowest it’s been since 1999, when we enrolled about 70,000 less students than we do today.

Here are a few all too familiar slides on our situation:

1. CSU State Allocation, 1999/2000-2011/2012 (the budget for prison guards, by the way, was increased $400 million in the governor’s budget ensuring that state

1 support for corrections will exceed that for all of public higher education combined) 2. State Allocation and Enrollment, 1999/2000-2011-2012 3. State Support & Student Fees, 1998/99-2011-2012

With this picture in mind, we have a budget message very long on pain, but worse, I think, extremely short on vision.

The pain, we are told, is essentially because the entire state had it coming because of its profligate ways and lack of fiscal discipline.

Make no mistake about it, I do not think that higher education can be, or should be, immune from sharing some of the pain in the hard work ahead to get our state to live within its means. But, if anyone has noticed, this has not exactly been an era of prosperity for higher education, as the triple whammy of a declining share of State General Fund support, dramatic increases in student fees, and strained access for college seekers over the past decade can attest.

We need – we deserve – to be guided by more than a scorched earth approach, one that threatens to destroy the seed corn and the hopes that go with it. We have to be guided by more than an earnest effort to balance the budget; for a budget is not an end it itself, but a means to accomplish something. And we need to know what the vision is for this budget, what motives underscore its assumptions, what rationale informs its proposals, beyond hostile judgments, universal suffering, and a stern reprimand to live more responsibly.

To say the least, this is a sobering, discouraging picture. All the more so because we have seen some modest improvement in our campus budget situation this year compared to the last several [slide showing this]. In no small part, this happened because our faculty, staff, students, and alumni, our friends and supporters, parents and trustees, individually and collectively, rallied successfully last year to make the case for our campus and the CSU with state leaders. Sadly, what we now face is filled with great uncertainty and the frustration that understandably accompanies a condition where so many of its elements are beyond our control.

But we have been down this road before. And like before, like always, we will rally around the things we know – the stories that shape and inspire us – and the things that we can control, in particular, attitude and effort, and a strong sense of shared purpose.

Evidence abounds how these factors connect, but consider these few recent examples that reveal how, in so many powerful ways and on so many levels, we are the stories we tell and hear about ourselves and that others hear and tell about us.

Forbes Magazine recently ranked Chico State among the top twenty colleges and universities in the country for the environment of success we have created for minority students in the so-called STEM fields – science, technology, engineering and

2 mathematics. No other CSU or UC campus – not Cal Poly, not Pomona, not Berkeley, no one – is ranked higher.

Military Times magazine, the major publication in the country covering military issues and veterans’ affairs, has ranked us among the top 100 “Best for Vets” campuses in the US.

We have been ranked by an expert in assistive communication and information technology accessibility at the University of Illinois in the top ten of higher education institutions in the nation for the quality of our services to visually impaired students.

Our computer science team of two men and two women qualified to compete in the World Finals of the Intercollegiate Programming Contest. All they did to get there was unseat defending champion Stanford in the regional championships by nailing a final correct answer with 30 seconds to go in that event.

[As I am sure you know, the World Finals have been scheduled to take place in Egypt in about a month. Whether that occurs there, or anywhere, at this point is hard to say. But how the unfolding events in Egypt affect a program at Chico State is just another reminder of how fragile and interconnected our world is.]

Our partner high schools in the Coachella Valley, schools whose students are overwhelmingly Hispanic and poor, students who live in third-world conditions in trailer parks just beyond the gated walls of the luxury compounds and resorts of the Palm Springs area, will send us 65 applications this year. They do so because they trust our partnership with them and the success their students have realized with us. Many have done so in the STEM disciplines.

I mention these few items as segue to what I most want to talk about this afternoon. And that is our Diversity Action Plan – what it is, what it represents, and why it is so important to our story. Especially to a story which enables our best intentions, honest efforts, and an affirming attitude to form – as the report is entitled – “a more inclusive learning community.” That is, to help form a place that makes excellence inclusive, a place that is ever more vital and effective as a result.

First, though, let me acknowledge a number of our colleagues who have brought this plan to its present form.

[DAP, Diversity Scorecard, Diversity Summit, et al. Many of these folks are noted and acknowledged in the handout summarizing the Diversity Action Plan which you received this afternoon.]

And to so many more – students, faculty, staff, advisory board members, alumni, community members – who responded to the invitation for feedback on the plan, who participated in forums and retreats and discussions about it, thank you. This plan has

3 substance and promise and buy-in because of those contributions and the deep personal commitments underscoring them.

There are two keys to this plan: First, a definition of diversity that recognizes a notion of inclusiveness considerably broader than it was a generation ago; and, second, a fundamental appreciation of the nature of a university, especially, a public university, one both American and Californian.

Both keys are vital to understanding what this plan is, and what it is not.

In brief, it is about quality, not quotas. It is about responsibilities, not preferences. It is about the narratives that describe us, not just the numbers that count us. It is about ensuring a climate of inclusion and achievement, not just issuing a statement of values and principles.

It is about being a place of people and ideas, where the timing and location of our efforts, and the social, cultural, and intellectual diversity of our community, add vibrancy to our campus and urgency to our mission.

What I want to emphasize today is the context and content of this plan so we are clear on why I commissioned it and why I have accepted it.

It is a plan organized around four broad categories and eight priorities. [refer to handout summary].

Each of its elements are set within a framework of our mission (campus and CSU system), strategic plans for the campus and the CSU, the WASC re-accreditation review, and other guiding documents, including a plan to strengthen Chicano/Latino student success written by Susan Green and Vincent Ornelos a few years ago, the Minority Retention Task Force report on mentoring, the Diversity Scorecard framework, the Building Bridges program, and the CFA Statement of Principles for “Quality Higher Education in the 21st Century.”

This plan, most importantly, as thoughtful and prescriptive as it is, will always be a work in progress. So, I will not be spending time today speaking to each of its elements and measures. Rather, I want to affirm the rich conversations on diversity on this campus, and beyond, which inform the plan, and which must be ongoing in order to ensure that this plan – this action plan – has traction and consequence. In short, this is part of my own participation in these conversations in which all are invited, and encouraged, to join.

Let me state, first of all, something which I firmly and unequivocally believe: Diversity – social, cultural, intellectual – is at the heart of what it means to be an American public university, no matter in what state of the Union it is located.

4 This awareness compels us to acknowledge our historical roles, to recognize the world around us, and to accept our responsibility to be – as higher education in our country has always aimed to be – a vehicle of American democracy and an agent of the American dream.

Both tasks are unfinished and continuous. Yet, the extent to which we can remove the barriers and offer true opportunity for all of our fellow citizens to partake of the socio- economic and cultural benefits of American society is the extent to which our success will be measured as much by the discoveries in our laboratories and the research in our libraries as our contributions to the public economy through the growth of knowledge and the increased numbers of those who possess it.

This view affirms that public universities do not exist outside of the nature and needs of the society around them. For we do not just observe society. As worthy as it is for the academy to promote intellectual inquiry for its own sake, we are neither detached from the larger society, nor immune from its worldly views. Rather, we act within and upon that larger context, and part of our responsibility as a place of understanding and action is to be aware, and to assess, how what we do affects the larger world, especially that of our service area and state.

The issue is not whether we should concern ourselves with society’s problems and challenges; it is whether we are discharging this responsibility as well as we can.

These activities and responsibilities presume diversity as a necessary condition of their fulfillment. For to fail to ensure social, cultural, and intellectual diversity at the university is to fail to realize our mission of fostering learning and serving society in a most fundamental way.

Let me say that again a little differently because this is the heart of the matter and it should be absolutely clear. Our campus, our society, our democracy are interconnected. Yes, on one hand, we want our campus to function well in a pluralistic society – one that encompasses a multiplicity of cultures and identities and viewpoints. Yet, on the other, we recognize and accept a certain level of responsibility to affect that society, to promote a just and truly multi-cultural democracy through the example we provide, through creating a pluralistic community of our own that works.

If diversity, then, should characterize us, then student learning and success must compel us. And our effectiveness must be measured in significant part by the extent to which we achieve excellence in the academic performance and educational outcomes of all of our students, regardless of their backgrounds and demographic characteristics (for example, their parent’s education history, socio-economic status, gender, ethnicity, physical disabilities etc.). This does not mean that everyone attains the same level of achievement as everyone else; it means that everyone has authentic opportunity to reach their own highest level of achievement, consistent with their own abilities and efforts.

5 I strongly believe – and this conviction underscores the Diversity Action Plan – that students are both recipients and providers of the learning that takes place in a university. Consequently, universities have a vital interest in what students bring to the task of educating each other.

Students from diverse backgrounds, taught by faculty of varied backgrounds, served by staff of different backgrounds, will have richer and deeper experiences than not. Diversity helps students confront perspectives other than their own and thus to think more vigorously and imaginatively; it helps students learn to relate better to persons from different backgrounds; it helps students prepare to function effectively in a multicultural workforce and other environments; it helps students become better citizens.

The quality of the conversations and exchanges that our students will have here depends not just on their intelligence and talents. It also rests on the experiences and values which they bring to the table and which they find at the table. Access to a diversity of experiences and stories expands our view of the world and our capacity to improve it. Uniformity and homogeneity, on the other hand, tend to perpetuate unchallenged assumptions and foster blandness – the very antithesis of what a university stands for. For, after all, we are a place of people and ideas and we depend upon the former to be interesting and the latter to be stimulating.

To be sure, and as this plan makes clear, as important as access and inclusion are, as worthy as the goals of respect and civility are, we are committed to more. We need to focus on the results of our efforts, the consequences of our understandings. Particularly with respect to students, we need to focus on closing achievement gaps and attaining greater equity in educational outcomes between historically under-represented student groups in higher education and those which are not; and for groups with special needs and challenges, like veterans, older students, place-bound learners, and the physically disabled. As I mentioned earlier in these remarks, we have already earned high marks for our support of veterans, women and minority students in STEM fields, and the visually impaired. Our goal is to earn high marks for every student we serve.

As we succeed, our story of success, told by us and our students – as is the case with those students from the Coachella Valley – will attract more students of color and other expressions of diversity to our University.

As we succeed, our story, our institutional narrative, will become stronger and better. We will be known by what we are doing and accomplishing, not just how we stand against a set of numbers.

As we succeed, we will bring into sharper focus our values and goals, our history and hopes.

As we succeed, we will affirm the powerful role that the university plays to expand our view of the world and our great capacity to improve it.

6 The Diversity Action Plan is a plan for success.

Yet, we need to be well organized in order to realize this success. Like many campuses, we have many programs, centers, retreats, conversations, and academic expressions that examine and support diversity. The new and very promising Pathways element of our new General Education program, for example, which has earned kudos and cash from the Keck Foundation, is among these. Better than many campuses, these efforts and activities connect and reinforce each other and do not exist as separate silos.

But we can do better, and we must do better if we are to achieve the ambitious goals set forth in this plan within its five-year timeframe. And if we are to meet WASC’s high and well-placed expectations for us as an exemplary institution where the whole of our diversity efforts is greater than the sum of its parts, and where we bring greater intentionality and strategy to the management of our efforts and commitments.

Accordingly, I have accepted several key recommendations within the Diversity Action Plan to accomplish its agenda.

First, the plan calls for the appointment of a Chief Diversity Officer to provide campus- wide coordination for the development and implementation of the plan.

Like the plan itself, the exact activities and emphases for this person will evolve as the plan does. But, clearly, promoting campus-wide understanding, support, and engagement of efforts to achieve a more inclusive learning community and helping to set goals and measure progress to this end will be among them.

This position requires someone who is widely respected and deeply engaged in diversity issues and activities on our campus and, who, especially, has both the academic credibility and the personal qualities to undertake a role that will require a lot of patience and flexibility – and strength – at the outset.

I am pleased to announce that Dr. Tracy Butts, Professor of English and head of our Multicultural and Gender Studies program, has accepted my invitation to take on this role initially and I am confident that she will provide the guidance that this effort needs, especially in its early stages.

I am particularly confident that Tracy will succeed because she will be working very closely with a Diversity Council, also called for in the plan, and whose campus and community membership will shortly be appointed, and one person, in particular – Tray Robinson. And one office, in particular – the Cross-Cultural Leadership Center.

As our director of campus diversity programs, Tray has worked tirelessly and effectively in leading, guiding, and coordinating diversity efforts on our campus.

The CCLC, headed by CC Carter, is an extraordinary University resource that champions the richness and understanding that diversity brings.

7 Although hardly on their own, Tray’s work and commitment, and the CCLC’s energy and advocacy, in many respects, and with so many of you in this room today, have set the stage for the ambitious agenda of our Diversity Action Plan. I want to acknowledge Tray’s and the CCLC’s service to our University and underscore how fortunate we are to have such trusted and respected colleagues and programs at the forefront of the work ahead of us.

To signal the importance of this work further, the Chief Diversity Officer will report directly to me and also serve as a member of my extended cabinet.

I am optimistic about the work ahead, not just because Tracy and Tray are in their leadership positions, but also because I feel that there is deep will on our campus to address the issues we must in order to build a stronger and more inclusive service and learning community. And to do so boldly within a fleeting window of opportunity.

Our strategic plan clearly states that fostering diversity is one of our core values. Moreover, it defines the purpose of this pursuit as both embracing an idea, and forming a community.

So, to return full circle to where these remarks began. We are a place of people and ideas.

We foster a sense of place – our campus, our location, our role here and in the larger society. We embrace a world of ideas – openness, curiosity, imagination, creativity; all shared within a climate that champions reason, respect and civility. We form a community – united in a strong sense of purpose, guided by an achievable and compelling vision, and focused on an active, integrative teaching and learning environment.

To paraphrase the Chinese saying about living in interesting times, may we also live in an interesting place – provocative, engaging, exciting, pleasing, supportive, vital in our plurality as well as our unity.

This is the promise of diversity – the kind of promise, to quote Bruce Springsteen, “we swore we’d always remember; no retreat, baby, no surrender.”

So onward.

Thank you for your attention and, always, your support. Let’s have a successful spring semester and a strong support on this plan.

2/1/11