Dear FAC Members and Senate Exec:

I thought you might be interested in this informal message that I just sent to the interns who worked so hard last summer on issues of diversity and community.

Best regards, Dave

Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 17:36:29 -0700
From: pres@oregon.uoregon.edu
Subject: update on diversity initiatives

April 20, 2000

Dear Diversity Interns,

Almost a year has passed since I met in the lobby of Johnson Hall with a group of students who were deeply concerned about an act of intolerance and racism on our campus. We agreed that we, as a University, needed to sharpen our focus on our agenda to diversify our institution, and we established the framework for the important work for which you provided leadership throughout last summer.

Because many of you have graduated and gone on to other pursuits, I want to take this opportunity to update you on our progress and to identify further challenges for our work together. Increased diversity and tolerance on our campus continues to be a central agenda for us. This centrality is underscored by the articulate vision of speakers such as Edward Olmos, Bobby Seal, Tim Wise, and Frances Fox Piven that our institution invited here this spring.

In the past eleven months we have been working hard. This work began with the productive ten weeks that you labored on our behalf and has continued as the agenda permeates our University. I would like to list some of the areas of success and then convey some of my sense of "next steps."

 
• * In the fall we reintroduced and opened a search for the position of "Chief Student Affairs Officer" and selected Dr. Anne Leavitt to head our efforts in that area.
• * In the fall, the Steering Committee for Diversity continued to meet and reviewed the report you provided, and we assigned implementation of tasks to appropriate offices and units.
• * Our three-day fall orientation program for new faculty included sessions each day on supporting campus diversity designed by Carla Gary and others.
• * In October we sent a team of administrators (Dave Hubin, Anne Leavitt and Carla Gary) and students (Hong Tran and Mitra Anoushiravani) to the ACE conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on "Educating All of One Nation." There these leaders gathered insights and perspectives on directions that other campuses have been pursuing. We then established the Administrative Team for Diversity led jointly by continuing student interns, MCC and ASUO student leaders, and by Carla Gary, Anne Leavitt, and Dave Hubin.
• * We continued the position of Coordinating Intern in order to give focus to your work and in December hired Jay Breslow to fill that position. Jay then joined the Administrative Team for Diversity.
• * We used the videotape that you, with leadership from Nathan Batchelder, produced. In fact, in September, Carla Gary showed the videotape to all deans and department heads in an afternoon retreat devoted to diversity on our campus. We have shown the tape and conducted discussions in many departments and can thank the work of John Riordan for focusing us on awareness-building opportunities for our faculty and staff.
• * We strengthened our emphasis on diversity and tolerance themes within our plans for new faculty and our new student orientation programs for 2000-2001. Here we can point to the work of Huy Ong who set in place the foundations for that improvement.
• * We have launched the Bias Response team that Jessie Wolfsy so effectively researched and then proposed. With Anne Leavitt's leadership and Gwen Tistadt's coordination, we now have that team in place.
• * The ASUO has funded a position for full-time director of the Multicultural Center, as recommended by Jessica Billingslea. We are currently engaged in a broad regional search to fill the position.
• * The University Senate and the ASUO Senate have both recommended to me the introduction of a policy stating the University of Oregon Affirmation of Community Values. This policy is modeled after the language proposed for a pledge of respect. I officially approved this last week, immediately after the University Senate meeting, and it is being promulgated to all department heads and units this week.
• * We continued the work of Jason Mak by hiring him as an intern in our Office of Student Academic Affairs. From that position, Jason has developed -- almost singlehandedly -- our new diversity website. I encourage you to look at it now and regularly in the future to keep up to date on our progress. Jason's work will be continued with a new position in our Office of Multicultural Affairs as that unit takes leadership on diversity matters.
• * We have had a very good year in recruiting new students of color. Here, too, Jason's work during the summer and his continuing work with Jim Buch have been pivotal. Most recent reports are that applications and acceptances for all groups of students of color are running at about 150% of last year's figures.
• * We have also had a productive year in recruiting faculty of color. Provost John Moseley has reported to the President's Council on Race (that now meets twice a term) that we have four offers accepted.
• * Our faculty leadership in the Faculty Advisory Council has continued its focus on diversity and community. In fact, with the leadership of David Frank, we have hired two interns to work specifically on the development of a diversity institute. For bringing this possibility into focus during last summer, we owe gratitude to Spencer Hamlin.
• * In early June, Executive Assistant President Dave Hubin will join a group of students (including Jay Breslow, Mario Sifuentez and Jason Mak) leading a session at the National Convention on Race and Ethnicity to report nationally on our progress. I might add that the University is sending a remarkably strong team of eight administrators and three students to this important national meeting. In addition, the student leadership itself, your descendents in this work, is arranging to send perhaps another eight to ten students. It will not surprise me if we have one of the largest delegations at this meeting.
• * We have reinstituted regular meetings of the President's Council on Race and have hopes that this group will be a renewed resource for our administration in issues of race and ethnicity.

In June, we close the year with Marian Wright Edelman as our commencement speaker and as the recipient of our fourth honorary doctorate in the last fifty years. Ms. Edelman's civil rights work and her leadership of the Children's Defense Fund make her an ideal recipient and a wonderful focus of our commencement gathering.

In late June, the Office of Multicultural Affairs will move to new space on the first floor of Oregon Hall, resulting in greater visibility and outreach from this office for all students learning about and supporting diversity and multiculturalism.

I am proud of the work that you did and the follow-up that we have put in place. I am simultaneously reminded of how far we have to go. As Christopher Edley stated in his remarks to the American Council on Education last November, "Working on diversity is not rocket science.....it is much harder." It is, indeed, hard work because it involves social change, but together we are making progress; therefore, I thank you.

Please feel free to contact me directly at any time to keep in touch with our continuing work. I wish each of you individually -- in whatever pursuits you are now engaged -- the very best.

Sincerely, Dave Frohnmayer President University of Oregon (541) 346-3036 FAX (541) 346-3017 pres@oregon.uoregon.edu