Hampshire College

MEMORANDUM
 
 
 
DATE: May 19, 2007
 
TO: Hampshire Community
 
FROM: Ralph J. Hexter
 
SUBJECT: Building a More Diverse and Inclusive Campus
 
Almost exactly two months ago, after an intense and informative discussion with students, faculty and staff, I asked Interim Associate Dean for Multicultural Education Jaime Dávila to assist me in developing an action plan that would lead to a more diverse and inclusive campus. Dean Dávila worked closely with many members of the community, and earlier this week he and Dean Flavio Risech, recently returned from his duties in Cuba, forwarded to me the fruits of these consultations in the form of a series of recommendations. At intervals during the intervening weeks I, too, participated in discussions about some of these difficult issues with students, faculty, and staff. I thank all those involved in this organic process, as well as others who have, directly or indirectly, kept questions of diversity and privilege before our eyes. They have enriched our campus and helped me see both the complex challenges and opportunities before us “warm-heartedly,” if I might echo a word we heard last week from the Dalai Lama when he visited Hampshire and Smith Colleges.
 
One of the things that attracted me to Hampshire was its openness to inclusion. Another was its readiness to ask hard questions, of itself as an institution, and certainly of each one of us as members of a self-critical community. It seems clear from our history as an institution that we have often expressed the desire to be a more diverse community, but that our desires, however sincere, are very imperfectly realized. The question before us now is: are we prepared as a community to take responsibility for real change? Change will require us all – and I do not except myself – to acknowledge limits and gaps in our own understanding of issues of race, diversity, and privilege. On the one hand, such acknowledgment is difficult; on the other hand, I would like to think that it is the easier for our belonging to a learning community, where authentic learning and growth begins from a certain kind of intellectual modesty.
 
The history of Hampshire also teaches us that in order to attain our goals and truly to make Hampshire the institution we want it to be, grand gestures and rhetoric are far less helpful than steady effort on multiple levels. I want our college’s commitment to diversity and inclusiveness to be woven in to the very fabric of our daily lives here. Specifically, I will expect this commitment, and steady work to turn such a commitment into reality, at every level of the institution, including the board, the senior leadership of the college, the faculty and the staff. It is we who set the example for students, and it is we who create the environment in which a diverse student body can thrive. In sum, it is the students who inspire me to make this substantial personal and institutional investment for a stronger and more intellectually vibrant – and honest -- Hampshire.
 
Diversity is, after all, not something that is simply achieved, but rather an active and continuous process of engagement with difference. Diversity and true inclusiveness need ultimately to be reflected at many levels, from recruitment practices to community life to pedagogical strategies. Achieving diversity at Hampshire will be a journey. I strongly suspect that along the way there will be discoveries of other areas and processes on which we need to focus, and realizations that we may need to focus on certain problems in different ways. What I propose here are just some of the first steps, a starting point, for which the date of this memorandum is eloquently suggestive: Commencement Day. To assure our forward movement in this process of change, I am committing us to the systematic and regular evaluation of our progress.
 
To be precise:
 
1. This summer we will develop a survey instrument for use with all members of the Hampshire community (faculty, staff, students, administrators, and trustees) to help us identify specific impediments to building a more inclusive and richly diverse community and to identify those existing features of our community that foster these goals. These evaluations will be ongoing, and will allow us to both measure our progress and to design effective and appropriate future steps.
 
2. All orientation leaders in 2007 and thereafter will receive substantial training on the issues of diversity, privilege and inclusion. Orientation will include multiple means -- speakers, entertainers, and small group activities—to engage new students in learning about our expectations for the whole community. Campus-wide activities throughout the academic year will reinforce the material introduced during orientation.
 
3. This fall faculty will engage in conversations about race and the classroom. Invited speakers will help us identify and recognize how racial dynamics manifest themselves in classes, both at the individual and the group levels. We expect new practices to be identified and integrated into our classroom activities from these on-going conversations. We will develop the format and schedule for the conversations this summer so that they may begin promptly in September.
 
4. Also starting in the fall, we will undertake a study of the ways in which faculty and Division II students are engaging with and evaluating the multiple cultural perspectives requirement. Let me address the important area of recruitment. I know that for several years the college has been working to establish protocols aimed at making our hiring process more effective in bringing a more diverse faculty to campus. I will ask Vice President and Dean of Faculty Aaron Berman, in cooperation with Maddie Marquez and the Affirmative Action Committee, to review our progress in all areas, from the advertising of positions through selection to recruitment; to recommend ways in which these practices can be further strengthened; and to establish a plan for monitoring our progress in this area with an eye to continuous improvement.
 
I have also asked Dean Berman to work with the office of admissions to implement strategies to increase the diversity of our applicant pool, and with both that office and the office of financial aid to maximize our success in recruiting and retaining a diverse student body. This process has already begun, and to offer an example of but one element of our strategy, we are working with more than one community college to develop articulation agreements that will encourage community college students to transfer to Hampshire. I should point out that raising monies for financial aid is just one of the areas in which I will look to the Office of Institutional Advancement to work in support of our campus-wide commitment. Fundraising to strengthen the James Baldwin Scholars program, for example, is already well underway.
 
Over the summer I will meet with the Associate Director of Human Resources and direct her and her staff to develop not only a more aggressive recruitment plan for staff of color but also a program of consistent and continuous training for all staff that allows for thoughtful consideration of issues that arise within a diverse workplace. Ultimately, this will become the responsibility of the incoming vice president of finance and administration, but these efforts are too important to be delayed until his/her arrival on campus.
 
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I will be elevating the position of the Associate Dean for Multicultural Education, currently reporting to the Dean of the Faculty, to Special Presidential Assistant for Diversity and Multicultural Education, effective July 1, 2007. This will involve a broadening of purview such that the Special Assistant, reporting directly to me, will be able to coordinate efforts in support of diversity across the entire campus. Among his or her first duties, the Special Assistant, to be named shortly, will assist me in devising the appropriate charge and composition of a committee or task force I will appoint; its members, drawn from all sectors of the campus, will further assist us both, and thus the entire campus, in realizing our goals. In order to facilitate the transformation of this position and to support its ongoing work, I am allocating funds for the creation of a summer intern position to work with the Special Assistant in the design, planning and implementation of all items identified in this document. (In a separate communication we will be announcing a job description for this internship and inviting immediate applications.)
 
I trust this memorandum communicates how important matters of race and diversity are for me and how important I believe they are for this institution. If Hampshire is to lead in liberal education in the twenty-first century, it must respond creatively and sincerely to the challenges presented by an ever more diverse and interconnected society and world. In that spirit, I welcome all comments regarding these matters, and look forward to a continuing process of growth and deeper engagement for myself as well as the whole community.