Diversity: it has been the buzzword at the University for the greater part of this semester in the aftermath of recent racially-charged events, including the "blackface" incident in the fall and the February assault on Student Council President-elect Daisy Lundy, then a candidate for office.
University administrators and students have been wrestling with racial issues since last semester, when three people with their faces painted black attended a Halloween fraternity party co-sponsored by Kappa Alpha and Zeta Psi fraternities. The incident caused the national fraternities to temporarily suspend the charters of the University chapters while under investigation. Ultimately the suspensions were dropped.
Racial problems escalated to the point of violence when an attacker allegedly used a racial slur while assaulting Lundy during Council runoff elections, igniting a newfound discussion of the merits of diversity programs.
After the incidents, existing student organizations began to reevaluate their efforts at multiculturalism and interracial understanding.
"I think that a lot of student organizations for the last couple of months have looked at the composition of their organization and have wondered, 'Is our group diverse?'" said Tim Lovelace, fourth-year College student and former student member of the Board of Visitors.
Groups and individuals alike have made efforts to encourage relationship building across traditional dividing lines, Dean of Students Penny Rue said.
Multiculturalism and diversity in faculty hiring and curriculum are among the issues currently on the table for discussion, Rue added.
The Teaching Resource Center recently developed its Excellence in Diversity Fellowships pilot program for the upcoming school year, intended to promote the retention of minority faculty members.
"The program will specifically target women faculty, international faculty and faculty of color," said Marva Barnett, director of the Teaching Resource Center.
The Center conceived the idea two years ago and has since been working to gain administrative support and funding, Barnett said.
While the program comes at an integral time for addressing minority concerns, it would have been an important step to take two years ago or at any time, she added.
Program founders addressed various problems that cause minority faculty members to leave the University, said Environmental Science Prof. Jose Fuentes, a program co-founder.
"We wanted to develop a program that would alleviate those problems," Fuentes said. "One of the issues is the perception that the University is not a friendly environment for minority professors."
The racial incidents may have perpetuated such perceptions.
"Those incidents helped the stereotypes materialize," Fuentes said. "A lot of us feel very unhappy and insulted because these things should not happen at institutions like the University."
The program will work to foster relationships and interaction between minority professors and more established colleagues through a series of activities to engage the two groups, such as a retreat in the fall and various workshops, Fuentes said.
Existing student groups with a focus on diversity and minority affairs also found heightened attention to their causes from the University community.
"What the events did was make explicit the implicit," Sustained Dialogue Chair Priya Parker said. "For some people, what was obvious became more obvious and for others who didn't think there is problem, they began to realize there is one."
Parker said she founded Sustained Dialogue two years ago during her first year as a result of her frustration with the state of race relations at the University.
"There were people who were frustrated or angry or who just didn't have a clue, and they were engaging in discussions with people who already agree with them," she said. "That doesn't set up grounds for change."
Currently, Sustained Dialogue consists of seven groups of 12 to 14 students who meet biweekly for two hours and engage in discussions incorporating different perspectives of the University community. Although the group is only in its second year, Parker said she already expects over 300 members in the fall.
"Because of the recent events, over the past year people were becoming more interested in creating action, and especially long-term action," Parker said. "Sustained Dialogue provides a space for this to take place."
The Coalition, a group composed of representatives from the five largest minority advocacy groups, recently began promoting a new diversity initiative called F.O.R.C.E.
Currently one of the Coalition's biggest campaigns, F.O.R.C.E stands for Funding, Office of Diversity, Recruitment and Retention, Climate and Education.
Although research for the F.O.R.C.E initiative began prior to the Lundy assault, it has gained increased recognition since then, Coalition Chair Ryan McCarthy said.
Many students also have been organizing leadership and diversity events, both in response to the recent incidents and as a part of independent agendas.
Ed Hallen, Council racial and ethnic affairs committee chair and John Rodney, student member of the Board of Visitors, helped organize the first of intended biweekly gatherings Thursday, April 17 in an effort to unite student leaders from various organizations.
Student leaders and faculty members gathered at a barbecue Thursday evening to form social bonds in an attempt to unite diverse organizations.
"The purpose was to get people together on a social level and create bonds between people that will extend between their organizations," Hallen said.
Though not a direct result of the recent racial incidents, the event has the potential to be a catalyst for positive change, Rodney said.
"Those kinds of [racial] incidents just catalyze the realization of how much the barbecue would benefit increasing awareness of diversity issues among groups," Rodney said. "It's just bringing people together so they can learn about each other and so they aren't restricted to their traditional roles as groups."
First-year College student Matthew Mariner is among those students taking an initiative to change the University's racial environment. Mariner is in the process of founding a new organization called the Social Diversity Council, informally called the Mix.
"I want people to be able to relate to someone different from them," Mariner said. "Hopefully it will shift differences from 'he's black, he's Asian, he's Latino' to something more personal."
The Mix will pair up organizations that are different from each other, including fraternities and other Greek organizations, to cosponsor events.
Mariner did not draw the idea directly from the "blackface" incident or Lundy's assault, but the Mix will be another avenue to promote diversity.
"It's one of the best ways to address those kinds of issues," he said. "It puts things into a different perspective."
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