Students expressed feelings of distrust and frustration with the University’s handling of diversity issues in an informal discussion Monday between students and the president of Western Michigan University.
Students filled the Multicultural Center to talk with WMU President Elson Floyd about problems they have with matters of diversity on campus. Floyd was invited by University President Dave Frohnmayer and Provost John Moseley to make recommendations to the administration on ways to improve diversity.
“There is not a university in this country that is doing good work in this regard,” Floyd said. “It is important to address these issues.”
Floyd had already visited the University in the summer, but came back while classes were in session to talk to more students on matters involving race and issues of diversity, he said.
“I wanted a chance to hear your perspective before I go back to the administration with my recommendations,” he said.
One perspective the audience gave him was the lack of trust and response students get from the University when dealing with diversity issues. Audience members said the administration is not listening to them and voiced their frustration in dealing with them on these matters.
“There is no sense of general listening of the student community,” MCC director Steve Morozumi said. “When meeting with the provost and other administrators, they actually said dealing with diversity is boring.”
ASUO Multicultural Advocate Mario Sifuentez said there are two problems when dealing with diversity on campus: students “pay for everything” and students “sit on everything.”
“A reason we sit on everything, in part, is we don’t trust who the University is going to hire,” he said. “Part of the reason we pay for everything is so we can get an input.”
Sifuentez used the MCC director’s position as an example. Students sat on the hiring committee, fought for its creation and the incidental fee pays for the position. Students wrote the contract and then the University “went behind students’ backs” and added a clause that they had hiring and firing power, he said.
“We don’t trust them,” Sifuentez said. “It’s frustrating.”
Morozumi said he feels the University is 20 or more years behind other universities when it comes to diversity. He said the University’s excuses for this are Oregon is a “white state” and teachers’ salaries aren’t as high as other universities to attract a more diverse population. Morozumi does not think these are good excuses.
Sifuentez agreed, adding Oregon State University is “light years ahead” of the University in matters of diversity, and he attributes this to their president.
“We’ve lost students to OSU,” he said. “Not to say they are doing a great job, just better.”
Floyd believes an answer to students’ concerns would be to hire someone that holds a senior position that deals with matters of diversity. He said a problem is there are a lot of units on campus focusing on different aspects in the diversity issue, but they aren’t integrated. Creating this position would fill in this gap, he said.
“Students work closely together, but administrators don’t,” Floyd said. “There must be someone in (Johnson Hall) to work on it.”
He added there needs to be someone to serve as the “champion” who will always keep diversity initiatives at the forefront. He said a student serving as the “champion” works in the short run, but not in the long run. This is because students eventually graduate, and there needs to be someone to keep the initiatives going, he said.
“Your student body is very unique,” Floyd said. “Unlike so many student bodies, this student body will have an initiative, a focus and is willing to produce the funds to back it up.”