February
27 ,
2004
Presidential
Commission on Diverse Community Established
The College recently established a Presidential
Commission on Diverse Community, made up of
faculty, students, and staff, to address how to engage diversity
more fruitfully for all students and how to respond to the conditions
that inhibit or prevent MHC students from achieving their full
academic potential.
“The commission is charged with assessing and enhancing the role diversity
plays in our work environment, our community, and especially in the curricular
and cocurricular dimensions of our students’ education,” President
Joanne V. Creighton said. “Higher education has a responsibility to educate
students from diverse backgrounds. A diversified student body not only enhances
the education of all students and helps prepare them to live in a multicultural
world, but also helps build a more equitable society. Implicitly or explicitly,
educational institutions must always consider not just how and what we teach,
but whom we teach and why.”
The formation of the commission, according to dean of the College Lee Bowie,
is “in response to a confluence of three immediate issues.” The first,
spelled out in The Plan for Mount Holyoke 2010, is to implement the recommendations
of Beverly Tatum’s Mellon-funded 2001 study, “Creating a Climate
of Achievement for All Students.” The second is the opportunity to build
on the work of the Consortium for High Achievement and Success (CHAS), a group
of 35 top colleges and universities that have joined together in an effort to
create more supportive climates for achievement on their campuses. The third
is the wish to respond to a number of concerns raised by ALANA students in conversations
last fall with Creighton, Bowie, and Liz Braun, acting associate dean of the
College/dean of students.
Students voiced concern that the recent departures of several top-level women
of color, including dean of the College Beverly Tatum, assistant dean of the
College Sherry Turner, and assistant to the president and secretary of the College
Stephanie Hull, may impact the College’s commitment to diversity. “ALANA
students often feel overlooked or marginalized,” commission member Robin
Johnson ’04 said. “The commission’s existence is a real testament
to the College’s commitment to maintaining a diverse community where all
students can succeed.”
The commission, which will report jointly to the president and the Multicultural
Community and College Life Committee, held its first meeting January 27 and will
make recommendations by May 2005. To develop a plan of action, the commission
will review material that includes internal data regarding student satisfaction
and achievement, as well as CHAS and COFHE studies; the success of achievement
programs at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, the University of Southern
California, and the University of Maryland Baltimore County; and empirical work
of Claude Steele at Stanford, Geoffrey Cohen at Yale, Josh Aronson at New York
University, and others.
“There is a body of empirical work that will help us to understand better
how the campus works, and doesn’t work, for ALANA students,” Bowie
said. “We can use this research as a framework for making concrete changes
in how we construct the educational environment at Mount Holyoke.”
Commission members include Creighton, Bowie, dean of faculty Don O’Shea,
associate director of the Weissman Center Susan Pliner, acting codirector of
residential life/ALANA adviser Rene Davis, executive director of the Alumnae
Association Rochelle Calhoun,
associate professor of English Lois Brown, associate professor and chair of chemistry
Sean Decatur, professor of biological sciences Rachel Fink, professor of anthropology
Lynn Morgan, Naema Hernandez ’06, Devi Yalamanchili ’06, and Robin
Johnson ’04.
“The commission is working together to make diverse community a reality
on campus,” Yalamanchili said “We hope to improve not only students’ academic
lives, but also to improve the social and cultural aspects.”
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