IU increases administrative diversity

IU is responding to concerns expressed by many faculty, parents and students last year about the lack of emphasis on diversity at IU by creating three new administrative positions and revamping other administrative positions devoted to increasing diversity.  

The IU student body consists of 4 percent African-American students, 4.2 percent Latino students and 4 percent Asian-American students, according to the fall 2013-14 enrollment report.

“Things are being done. These sensitive matters and issues are being talked about,” IUSA Chief of Diversity, Inclusion and Advocacy Leighton Johnson said. ‘“I’m satisfied with the progress.”

Johnson was one of the student leaders who started the rally last year to call for more underrepresented minorities and fix understaffed and underfunded programs, such as
Groups and the Hudson and Holland Scholarship program, which were intended to recruit and assist minority students.

He said these new administrative positions “speak volumes to the University’s character” and focus on diversity issues.

One of the biggest administrative changes, Johnson said, was the selection of James Wimbush as the new vice president of Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Affairs, who brings “new energy” to the push for more diversity at IU.

The three new administrative positions include Vice-Provost and Associate Vice President of DEMA Educational Inclusion and Diversity, Vice President of the IU Foundation and Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity.

History professor Claude Clegg will fill the Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Development and Diversity position July  2014.

The goal of this position, Clegg said, will be to recruit and retain faculty from underrepresented minority groups.

“The big thing is that the University’s diversity mission will need to be absorbed by the roots of all of its departments, schools and other units, not just some of them,” Clegg said.

“It’s a cultural shift that will require the buy-in of various faculty colleagues and administrators, a shift that I hope to help advance by working corroboratively with units and people across IUB.”

One of the issues brought up last year was the discontinuation of the Hudson and Holland Scholars incentive scholarships for current students due to a lack of funds.
This program is an incentive for academically gifted minority students to attend IU, Johnson said.

However, with the new emphasis on diversity, the incentive program has been
reinstated.

Program director Marsha McGriff said the program is going in a positive direction and this temporary discontinuation was necessary to maintain the integrity of the scholarship fund.

“I think it was a good thing to just kind of stop for a moment, to relaunch the funding and then start again,” McGriff said.

Currently, the Hudson Holland scholarship program is funding 914 minority students, with almost 1,000 in the group total, McGriff said.

“We have the stats to support that it is successful,” McGriff said. “The students are phenomenal.”

Johnson said he is satisfied with the reimplementation and focus on diversity programs and IU’s general willingness to address such a touchy subject by getting more involvement in diversity at the administration level.  

“There were diversity issues last year, and there still are,” Johnson said. “But is today better than yesterday? Yes.”

Follow reporter Dani Castonzo on Twitter @Dani_Castonzo.