Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity at WestConn

Recently I had the pleasure of meeting with and listening to a presentation by Bryan Samuel, WestConn's new Director of Multicultural Affairs and Affirmative Action. Mr. Samuel is bright and energetic, and is certainly going to bring his new and positive spirit to WestConn's efforts to promote equal opportunity. He has a lot of new ideas which I applaud.

Nonetheless, his presentation gave me pause to stop and consider the nature of equal opportunity at WestConn. Though WestConn's hiring process probably isn't perfect, I think WestConn does hire a number of very qualified people from all kinds of backgrounds. The real problem at WestConn is not recruitment, but retention. Once here, people whose backgrounds do not fit with the mold of students (due to race, ethnicity, or--most problematically--class status, both in terms of it being too low in relation to students and in terms of it being too high) have trouble with a thousand little acts of microresistance and rejection from students, who may balk at accents which to them are thick, or different teaching styles, especially if they come from a person who does not look familiar.

What does WestConn do about retention? Well, certainly not nothing. There are international education and film weeks and there are various avenues available in terms of support from the affirmative action offices. But what is really needed is a campus discussion on diversity. This discussion has to take diversity in a broad brush. For example, I'd bet my bottom dollar that conservative faculty are more a minority on campus than faculty of color. Is that necessarily a problem? I don't know--but it should be discussed. What does it mean to have a diverse faculty and student body? What would they look like? The discussion of these questions should happen, and it should be initiated in part out of the Multicultural Affairs office.

Instead, ever since I've been here, I've gotten the impression that the Director of Multicultural Affairs sees her or his job as akin to that of Bartleby the Scrivener. That's why we're always told that the main job of the MA/AA office is to ensure that we fill out all the right forms in hiring, and so on, to protect the University from being sued. Of course, that is indeed an important job of affirmative action officers, especially in a campus not too terribly far removed from really serious racial issues. But what message does it send about how serious the university is about creating a diverse culture if the words on the lips of the MA/AA Director are: "fill out this paperwork. We need more paperwork so we don't get sued."

The key is dialogue, not paperwork; inspiration, not process.