Almost four months after the Diversity Task Force delivered a 90-page report to President Robert Caret, University officials have started to address its recommendations.
Open forums, admissions initiatives and the creation of a Diversity Coordinating Council are among the efforts Towson is undertaking this fall to address diversity issues.
The 13-member committee formed in March to review campus diversity efforts.
In June they offered 27 recommendations grouped into four broad areas: institutional transformation, representation, campus climate and intergroup relations, and education and scholarship.
Task force member Dan Ashlock, director for student activities, said the group synthesized information from forums and surveys to develop the conclusions.
“From our very first meeting, we created a list of ideal recommendations we would like to make, and as the semester continued we chipped away at it,” Ashlock said. “We made some of them more concrete, took some of them off the list and…determined what the priorities of the University should be.”
Debbie Seeberger, special assistant to the president for diversity and equal opportunity, said the recommendations provide guidance for the University’s leadership.
“We’re going to be looking at this report very closely,” Seeberger said. “It’s not something that’s going to sit down on the shelf.”
Seeberger is scheduling open forums on diversity and campus climate for the faculty of each college, to be held in October and November. Some of the colleges are developing specific diversity plans.
Meanwhile, Barry Evans, acting assistant vice president for diversity resources, is scheduling similar meetings for students. He hopes to use the task force report as a “starting point” to discuss opportunities for long-term change on campus.
“There’s no magic diversity wand,” Evans joked.
Towson’s new vice president for student affairs, Debra Moriarty, says diversity is one of her highest priorities.
“I’m a person who believes the diversity of the campus should reflect the diversity of the state of Maryland,” Moriarty said. “I think everyone knows that we fall short of that.”
The task force report notes that in Fall 2003, African Americans comprised 11.1 percent of Towson’s enrollment, while the state of Maryland’s average was 27.9 percent. 1.9 percent of Towson students are Hispanic or Latino, compared to 4.3 percent across the state.
During the task force’s open forums and meetings last spring, several attendees referred to the school’s new motto of Maryland’s Metropolitan University.
“We do not look like the metropolitan university that we say we are,” one faculty member said, according to notes from a meeting on April 27. Another person said that Towson needed to become a “leader in [the] diversity arena” to live up to the slogan.
Increasing the number of minority students on campus has become a focus for academic leaders and admissions officials.
Louise Shulack, director for undergraduate admissions, said the Provost’s office is considering some enrollment initiatives related to the goal of a diverse campus.
“We would like to improve the diversity efforts, and we do that through our recruitment efforts,” she said.
Provost Brennan's office is also considering policies that would affect the top ten percent of prospective students, and others that could link merit-based scholarships to the honors college.
The task force report suggests opportunities for “targeted student recruiting” of minorities. This fall, the University is planning to focus on high schools in Baltimore City and Baltimore County during the admissions process. And Spanish-language interpreters will be present at one of the open houses for prospective students this fall, Evans said.
“Our school is a skip and a jump away from Baltimore” and its African American population, Evans pointed out. “Our numbers [of black students] have always been in the realm of 10 percent. We need to do something about that.”
One of the key recommendations in the task force report relates to a “balance of centralization and decentralization” in diversity efforts.
The task force concluded that responsibility for implementing the “diversity agenda” should be shared by all faculty, staff, and administrators, while specific functions related to ensuring campus diversity should be assigned to individual offices. As recommended by the task force, A Diversity Coordinating Council, to include Towson’s provost, vice president for administration and finance, and vice president for student affairs, will begin meeting next month to oversee this effort.
Seeberger said she expects the council to begin its work by defining diversity, determining the rationale for addressing the issue, and drafting a vision statement for the University’s approach.
“You need those basic pieces to then move forward,” she said.
Evans said he wants to encourage all students, including the “silent majority,” to contemplate their own diversity and recognize their full identity.
“Just because you belong to a group doesn’t mean you’re just like the other people in that group,” Evans said.
University officials have stressed that the effort will take time, and that the results will not be measurable immediately. Diversity initiatives will require considerable financial support, at a time when budgets are tight. But Seeberger, and other leaders of the effort, seems optimistic.
“I think the difference now is that we have a president who is vocal about the importance of diversity,” she said, “and this effort is going to be a top-down one. … We have the support.”
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