In an effort to develop a more diverse community on the Gonzaga campus, Interim President Thayne McCulloh has appointed a University Committee on Diversity.
According to an e-mail sent out to students and staff, the committee will be responsible for assessing the institution’s current efforts with respect to diversity in view of the school’s Strategic Plan.
Gonzaga’s Strategic Plan: Vision 2012 says “the word diversity affirms our faith-inspired commitment to an inclusive community where human differences thrive within a campus community of equality, solidarity and common human nature. We seek to nourish difference in an environment characterized by mutual respect and the sustainable creation of a campus climate that attracts and retains community members from diverse backgrounds.”
To make this vision a reality, Dr. Raymond Reyes, associate AVP and chief diversity officer, believes the university needs “a consultative and advisory body comprised of all the primary constituency groups of our community, including trustees, regents, faculty, students, staff and administrators to set priorities, determine tactical direction to walk the talk of our strategic plan, evaluate outcomes and hold the university accountable for desired results.”
The University Committee on Diversity will do just that.
“I want them to not only evaluate the status of the goal for the strategic plan, but think deeply about what the word diversity means at Gonzaga,” Reyes said. “ ... Jesuit work has always been about the intercultural encounter. This runs deep with the Jesuits, this is part of their ethos, this is the soul of the Jesuits.”
Many students see the need for an evaluation of the University’s goals.
“Diversity for me focuses on the unique differences that we have to offer each other and really appreciating them,” said Monica Garcia, president of La Raza Latina club. “Unfortunately I don’t feel we can fully do that here at Gonzaga.”
The University mission statement says that “knowledge of traditions and cultures different from our own draws us closer to the human family which we are a part and makes us more aware of both the possibilities and limitations of our own heritage. Therefore, in addition to our primary emphasis on Western culture, we seek to provide for our students some opportunity to become familiar with a variety of human cultures.”
“We need to give the students what we profess that we offer here,” Reyes said. “Students pay a lot of money to receive a Jesuit education at Gonzaga. This committee will assure a good return on that investment as it pertains to what I consider to be at the heart of the Ignation pedagogy, a faith-inspired liberal arts education within the context of a multicultural world.”
Over the years, Gonzaga has created several programs to support creating and sustaining a more culturally diverse student body, including the establishment of Unity House, the Multicultural Education Center (UMEC) in 1997. Gonzaga was also the first to establish the position of “Associate Vice President for Diversity” in 1998.
“I’ve been at Gonzaga for 22 years and when I first started working here, our culturally diverse undergraduate student population was around 5 percent,” Reyes said. “This semester our incoming freshmen class was just a little under 20 percent culturally diverse. Our efforts have shown to be successful in creating a more culturally diverse student body.”
In his e-mail to students and staff, McCulloh said, “we can — and, as a Jesuit, Catholic university, must — continue to do more.”
J Vargas, senior and member of La Raza Latina reflects on his experience at Gonzaga. “I’ve never experienced anything this extreme. I don’t come from a very diverse community in the first place, but it was diverse enough to notice a huge difference when I first came here.”
Vargas participated in the BRIDGE program, a pre-orientation program for culturally diverse freshmen on personal leadership skills related to retention, resilience and success at a predominately white institution. Although this helped him with the transition, he still felt a little out of place.
“It emphasizes the fact that you are a minority and the message is, you’re different and we have to prepare you for that,” Vargas said.
He has however, noticed a change on Gonzaga’s campus within the past few years.
“I feel like there has been change since I first got here. Now it’s to the point where there’s at least enough diversity that I don’t know every minority on campus,” he said.
Reyes believes that Gonzaga not only needs a more diverse student body, but a diverse faculty as well.
“In particular, faculty remained relatively the same over the last five to six years,” Vargas said. “Our student body has become increasingly more diverse.”
“However, our faculty remains predominantly white and male. On the average, for the past six years, we have had 11 percent culturally diverse faculty and 34 percent female,” Vargas said.
“A diverse student body and faculty is important because we are living in a global society with dramatically shifting demographics in America,” said Tracy Ellis-Ward, director of the Unity Multicultural Education Center. “Research tells us that the generational composition of our country will no longer be dominated by what has been the traditional majority population for centuries. These cultural shifts in race, ethnicity, language and so forth, are compelling realities that make it all the more important for Gonzaga to prepare and support efforts to ensure that our students, staff and faculty are culturally competent.”
“It’s one thing to do a status report, to assess what is,” Reyes said. “I want that committee to set the conditions, to create the change that we desire.”
“When recruiting students to develop a more diverse community here, we want to help them find a home here,” Garcia said. “Once you get them here, ask what you are going to do to make them want to stay. I’m so thankful for Thayne. Gonzaga needed change and I feel like he’s aware of just what diversity is.”
Students interested in becoming a member of the committee should email McCulloh at president@gonzaga.edu, and submit a self-nomination stating their reasons for wanting to participate no later than Nov. 20.
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