Lack of funding slows progress for diversity initiative

The group has hosted dialogues to promote awareness of diversity.

By Kaylen Ralph

Published May 7, 2010

Since its inception five years ago, the Chancellor's Diversity Initiative has made grassroots efforts to increase diversity at MU. But with minimal funds, expired grants, a small staff and few concrete numbers with which to gauge success rates, the initiative's effectiveness has yet to be determined.

The Chancellor's Diversity Initiative was created in December 2004, but CDI Office Director Noor Azizan-Gardner said it was not until 2007 that the office created by the initiative started functioning effectively.

Azizan-Gardner oversees the programming and professional development sector of the initiative and works on an almost non-existent budget. She runs the department herself with the help of two graduate students.

"In terms of programming and professional development, we were able to deliver a lot with very little money," Azizan-Gardner said. "Soon we will have to grow because of the demand, and I'm one person with two graduate students working with me to deliver programs and training. It is apparent to us, that with the increasing demand, that in the years to come we will have to hire more people."

In regard to programming, the CDI sponsors two main series: You in Mizzou, which is facilitated and shaped by students, and Difficult Dialogues, a faculty development program aimed at increasing diversity in the classroom. Additionally, Azizan-Gardner's office gives free diversity training seminars to various campus groups as well as $250 or $500 to various entities on campus that want to sponsor a speaker or program regarding diversity. Noor said about 15 such donations have been made to different groups.

You in Mizzou was started by Azizan-Gardner in 2006 and is an off-shoot of the City of Columbia dialogue programs. Azizan-Gardner and her two graduate assistants train MU students to become facilitators of discussion topics such as women in politics and same-sex marriage in Missouri. Azizan-Gardner said students suggest the topics, and the promise of free pizza and soda has increased attendance over the past two years.

The money spent on the pizza and soda is the only cost Azizan-Gardner's sector incurs. A grant from the Ford Foundation funds the Difficult Dialogues programs. MU faculty members apply to be trained as fellows of the Difficult Dialogues program. The grant also funds similar goals in other MU programs in addition to the diversity initiative. According to past Maneater articles, fellows are reimbursed with a one-time $500 stipend for the time spent going through the semester of training programs.

Azizan-Gardner said to become fellows in the faculty development program, faculty must develop their curriculum to show they will institute modules in their respective syllabi regarding diversity and how they're going to actually institute this in their respective classrooms.

MU originally received the grant as a one-time $100,000 amount, but then applied for and received an additional $100,000 the following year. Azizan-Gardner said it was a prestigious honor for MU to receive a Ford Foundation grant.

"It's a very tedious process, finding grant funders," Azizan-Gardner said. "This was a very competitive competition universities applied to and only 27 universities got it in the first round. The second time around, there were only 16. It was a very successful program."

Azizan-Gardner said the office would have to seek new grants to continue with faculty development programs in the future. To date, 68 fellows have been trained at MU, according to the CDI website. Deputy Chancellor Michael Middleton said those faculty who have applied and trained to become fellows are ones who were already looking to implement diversity into their departments and classes.

"People who understand the value of diversity, who have been exposed to diversity, are looking for ways to satisfy their own desire to do something," Middleton said. "The Diversity Initiative gave them a community of like-minded people."

Middleton said with the budget situation, the thought of expanding in any area of the initiative is not possible.

"The budget situation is affecting everything we do," Middleton said. "I'd love to grow the staff and have one resource for programming, but that just can't be done. The idea of expanding anything at this point is ridiculous. The budget is cutting everything. It's not having a direct effect yet, in that we have not had to cut the initiative, but we have certainly not been able to expand it as planned as it was in the early days of the initiative."

Middleton has been around since the inception of the initiative, and said there haven't been many changes on campus he's seen except for the attitudes of those faculty who have participated in Difficult Dialogues. He also said the recent cotton ball incident outside the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center could be interpreted in terms of stagnancy as well as improvement in campus climate.

"It will be a long time before we can say that we've fully diversified our campus, both in student and faculty, in numbers, the demographics and in the attitudes of people," Middleton said. "The recent cotton ball incident is evidence it's not working, but I think our reaction to that incident is evidence the Diversity Initiative is working. People said it was unacceptable."

Middleton said he speculates that instances such as the cotton ball incident could be a potential backlash of the Chancellor's Diversity Initiative.

"Perhaps it was a way to heighten awareness," he said. "We've drawn out the bad actors. The more you talk about and promote diversity, the more you give those opposed to those concepts a target for expressing the opposing view. I worry that there's a backlash."

Despite this concern, Middleton said enrollment of minority students at MU has been increasing for several years. According to the Office of the Registrar, there has been a 21.1 percent increase in undergraduate minority enrollment over the past three years.

But Vice Provost for Enrollment Management Ann Korschgen said in an e-mail minority student enrollment figures have been increasing since before the inception of the CDI.

"We have had significant growth in our underrepresented minority student enrollment since 2002, which predates the Chancellor's Diversity Initiative," she said. "However, I would assume that the attention paid to diversity as a result of the initiative has had a positive impact upon the perceptions that minority students have toward MU and thus could have a positive impact upon their deciding to enroll here."

Korschgen also said the amount of scholarship dollars reserved for minority students has not changed since the scholarships were first adjusted in 1994, when the minority enrollment population was first starting to decline. There has been no research conducted regarding what effect the CDI has had on enrollment, Korschgen said.

Middleton agreed the increased minority enrollment figures were more appropriately attributed to the Diversity of Enrollment Management, not the CDI, but that the initiative has worked hard to improve the environment for students.

"It gives the message to students and parents that we're taking these issues seriously and working on them," he said. "I think the campus as a whole has done a good job of recruiting students of color. We need to do more with retention and success rates, and as we do that, we'll see even greater enrollment. I think the student piece is going along quite well."

Another aim of the initiative is to increase incentives for minority hires. According to a report by the Chronicle of Higher Education tracking the employment rates of minority faculty members, there was a 1 percent increase in the number of minorities employed from 2007 to 2009. Middleton said increasing minority faculty numbers at MU is a difficult process.

"It's a competitive world out there, we're losing as many as we're hiring, often other universities in a better financial situation are able to attract superstars away from us," he said. "I think we're going to see some success next year, so it may be that we've turned corner on that, but we'll have to wait and see."

The Chancellor's Diversity Initiative website lists several student organizations as resources. One of these is the Jewish Student Organization. Freshman and newly elected Jewish Student Organization President Sherman Fabes said based on what he has construed from his year on campus, diversity is not where it should be, but that it's improving.

"I can bring in a quota of certain people of certain racial groups and different ethnicities, but that doesn't mean anything if the conversation isn't there," he said. "The biggest thing is funding the conversation."