University President Teresa Sullivan issued a letter Monday in response to the Black Student Alliance’s recently released proposal “Towards a Better University,” outlining an approach to promoting diversity on Grounds and improving the overall experience of minority students.
Sullivan said she plans to meet with BSA leaders in the near future to discuss the proposal, but she also said that the University has already begun to address many of its most prominent concerns and has made significant progress.
Sullivan outlined current efforts “to enhance the recruitment and retention of a diverse faculty” in her letter to BSA.
Such efforts include subcommittees formed in the College, the Engineering School and other schools to assess the need for and provide recommendations toward faculty diversity, hiring committees which also collaborate closely with UVa CHARGE — a program designed to increase faculty diversity in the sciences by training search committees and evaluators to more fairly evaluate job candidates — and resource groups created to support minority faculty once hired.
BSA Leadership Development Chair Bryanna Miller, a first-year College student, said she appreciates the initiatives detailed in Sullivan’s response, but insists that it falls short of what BSA asked. She said Sullivan has not acted on BSA’s first request, which in part calls on her to “deliver statements promoting acceptance and acknowledging the University’s deeply troubled history.”
“Additionally, she failed to address the other requests directed to her, including changes to fall orientation and the ordering of an ‘immediate and recurring in-depth study of the condition of Black people at the University of Virginia,’” Miller said in an email.
Sullivan also said University students, faculty, and leaders are coming together to organize “a large Diversity Forum for Fall 2015 to focus on faculty diversity and curriculum planning.”
Despite these efforts, Miller questioned the current retention rate of African-American faculty members.
“Why has the University’s population of African American faculty decreased by 29 members since 2009 when nearly all other demographics have increased?” Miller asked.
With this statistic in mind, BSA proposed the University conduct exit surveys for minority faculty to better understand their reasons for leaving, a recommendation which Miller said Sullivan did not address.
Another central focus of Sullivan’s response was the University’s effort to increase black student enrollment.
Sullivan said that the University has currently received 1,851 applications from African-American students for the 2015-2016 school year — the second most of all time — and has offered admission to 645 of these applicants. She claimed these numbers are also under-representative because they do not include applicants of mixed races.
However, Miller said a current enrollment rate of 8.2 percent neither reflects the diversity of the state of Virginia nor compares to high levels of African-American enrollment in the 1990s.
“President Sullivan largely ignores the data displayed on the University’s Diversity Dashboard which clearly indicates that African American enrollment has decreased since 2009,” Miller said.
To better connect with potential minority applicants, Sullivan said the University has sought to obtain feedback from students who both accepted and denied their offer of admission.
“I have also written to about 80 principals of Virginia high schools that have high percentages of under-served students to let those principals know about U.Va. scholarship opportunities for their students and travel funds to allow prospective students to visit,” the letter read.
Within the University, Sullivan said administrators and faculty members are currently working to infuse minority perspectives into the curriculum. These changes will hopefully be implemented by the fall semester.
“The Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences has charged a Curriculum Planning Committee to revise UVa’s general education curriculum,” the letter read. “Inclusion of minority perspectives in the curriculum will be one of the committee’s considerations.”
Sullivan also said the University is considering giving the Carter G. Woodson Institute departmental status and The President’s Commission on Slavery and the University is collaborating with Advancement Office on the possibility of a memorial for enslaved laborers on Grounds.
Ultimately, Sullivan said she understands much work remains to be done and hopes talks with BSA leadership “will lead to agreement on priorities of mutual interest and a set of well-defined goals for the coming year.”
Miller said overall, BSA appreciates Sullivan’s swift response and looks forward to further discussing these issues.
“Her willingness to address us and to begin speaking publicly about these issues represents a meaningful step forward,” Miller said. “We will watch closely for any other signs of change and will commit ourselves to working in tandem with her office to make these recommendations, realities.”
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