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Home -Campus and Local
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| The Office of the President sponsored the Educational
Diversity and Excellence at Brown University retreat that took place
in the Faculty Club on the weekend of April 12-13. The retreat began
on Friday with a speech by Emory Elliot, a professor from the University
of California-Riverside, and continued with three student, faculty
and staff panels on Saturday. Most students had positive things to say about the conference, though many added that the conference was heavy on moralistic talk about the need for diversity and short on concrete plans. “People were just reaffirming ‘diversity’ by and large,” Prashant Yarrimalli ‘04 said, characterizing an abstract tone of the retreat. Kezia Ellison ‘05 was mostly pleased with the conference. “It was a wonderful opportunity to hear faculty and staff perspectives on diversity.” Ellison thought that the conference provoked good discussion and was particularly happy that the issue of minorities in the sciences was raised. Justin Smith ‘02 added that he was also pleased that minorities and science was discussed and said that discrimination in the sciences is widespread. “You come into the classroom and they assume you can’t do it,” said Smith discussing science professors’ reaction to black students in class. Both Ellison and Smith agreed that this sentiment was “pervasive” in the sciences. Michael Chen-Illamos ‘05, who sat on a student panel, said that a department’s reaction to minority students was very uneven. “There are differences and inconsistencies in departments,” said Chen-Illamos. “Progressive departments will be aggressive in their recruitment strategies, while others are not,” he added. One panel focused on diversity and recruitment in admissions. “I really liked the recruitment panel,” said Michael Littenberg-Brown ‘04. He said that he would like to see more “commitment to diversity issues on the high school level,” referring to the common criticism that Brown does not recruit effectively in high schools. Others pointed out that racial relations on campus are going to affect whether or not students want to come to Brown. “Every spring there is a racial issue on campus,” pointed out Yerramalli. “That is going to affect the yield [of minority students].” According to retreat participants, the issue of campus safety and security was not discussed at all despite the recent racial profiling incident of March 8 and the fact that police officers tell TWTP students that “90 percent of the crimes are committed by black and Latino males.” In her final speech at the retreat, President Ruth Simmons argued that Brown is “doing well” as far as diversity is concerned, but she also said that there is room for improvement. She offered several ideas for improving diversity on campus such as an office of diversity and the development of a more multicultural curriculum. President Simmons said that she has talked to people around the country who are impressed with Brown’s diversity and that those who do not think the university is doing well should “engage in discussion with people across the country.” Simmons defended the need for affirmative action, stating that the university needs to be “less ambiguous about the importance of diversity.” Simmons did say that diversity takes “institutional commitment and a plan.” However, some participants thought that the university was short on specific plans. “The way that conversations went was very bureaucratic,” said Tiffany Joseph ‘04. Joseph seemed disturbed that questions about specific university policies seemed to be ignored in panel discussion. “One person asked about Ethnic Studies and that question went unanswered, so I’m waiting to see what actually gets done.” Back to top |
