With the Oct. 21 adoption of a new diversity policy, the School of Journalism and Communication has pre-empted the University administration’s failed attempt to draft an overarching plan. The school’s plan also provides the University with an excellent template for future planning attempts.
The school’s plan differs in tone and scope from the rejected Five Year Diversity Plan draft, while still borrowing that plan’s objectives. Instead of characterizing diversity issues as a problem that can be rooted out in half a decade, the school of journalism has set small goals. These small steps are reasonable, rational, and although maybe immediately attainable, they are feasible.
Although admirable and groundbreaking in many respects, the drafted Five Year Diversity Plan failed to clearly and concisely define what diversity is or why it is important. The SOJC plan, however, states that peoples’ “communication styles and viewpoints” are molded by the history and culture of the communities in which they live. Thus, diversity is extremely important in the field of journalism because journalists must be able to convey information to people who see the same events differently.
The SOJC plan rightly broadens the concept of diversity to include “social, political, cultural, economic and intellectual diversity.” We are pleased to see “diversity” defined more broadly than the constricting concepts of race and ethnicity; this definition helps the policy avoid “tokenizing” certain minority groups, or trying to recruit people to fill a certain number of minority positions.
The school’s policy could benefit from more specifics in some areas. Designating certain people or committees to facilitate aspects of the plan, for example, might help the school build momentum for change.
Yet rather than having the University try to engineer a massive, micro-managed restructuring, departments should be supplied with a broad diversity plan framework onto which they build their own individual policies. Many parts of the Five Year Diversity Plan could be adapted to provide this broad framework.
Departments should be encouraged to focus on explaining and promoting diversity in ways that students with interests in specific subject areas can understand and apply to their academic and professional careers. Diversity should be important to all students, but it can be more understandable when put into a specific context.
Departments can better attract instructors and students from diverse backgrounds by targeting those with specific academic interests. Further, department-specific programs such as the
Summer Journalism Workshop for Minority High School Students can help bolster diversity for both departments and the University.
Still, most students don’t come to college with a clear idea of which department they will receive a degree from, so creating a supportive, diverse campus environment is extremely important. The University’s general diversity plan addressed six areas of improvement, but giving some responsibility to the departments would allow it to focus on topics most pertinent to the general community.
Splitting up the role of increasing diversity between the University and its departments will help put diversity in context. Some departments would likely need prodding and outside consultation, but the Office of Institutional Equity & Diversity should provide this leadership.
Changes must be made, but we’d rather start making small steps tomorrow on a departmental level than wait another year to start making big, infeasible plans.