By Camas Frank ~
Cal Poly students started their second week of the winter quarter Jan. 15. So far there haven’t been any of the mass protests that marked the end of 2015.
That doesn’t mean that the issues that raised hackles have gone away.
The Cal Poly administration issued two statements in campus wide email on Jan. 8 addressing what steps they intended to take in promoting a diverse campus culture and academic climate.
Unfortunately, the best that leaders of SLO Solidarity, the student group that issued an itemized list of demands for change, can say about the emails is that they were, “ “vague.”
“The vague wording on some of their action items worries me,” wrote Matt Klepfer a second year Political Science major and president of the campus’ Queer Student Union. “By using vague words like ‘continue,’ ‘consider,’ ‘improve,’ and ‘collaborate,’ the administration is able to decrease responsibility on their end while showing the campus community they are doing something.”
Some of the things the university has listed, as steps in the “right direction” are to place the chief diversity officer directly on University President Jeffery Armstrong’s leadership cabinet, which he said, “will continue when we hire a permanent executive director for the Office of University Diversity and Inclusivity.”
Currently that position is being held in interim by Jean DeCosta; following the departure of Annie Holmes.
While it would seem the planning documents were quickly dated by events on the ground, Holmes’ work still appears in the “Cal Poly Diversity Strategic Framework 2015-2022.” That document was put together based on survey data on the “campus climate” collected in 2014. If the bullet point goals in Armstrong’s latest campus email – diversifying the campus community; supporting and retaining a diverse campus community; enhancing campus climate; and exemplifying inclusive excellence in Learn by Doing, scholarship, teaching and learning – sound vague, that could have a lot to do with the way administrators think. It a contrast to students who came forward with demands they wanted addressed. Even the word diversity, required a definition in the text prepared by the college, “specifically inclusive of, but not limited to, an individual’s race/ethnicity, sex/gender, socioeconomic status, cultural heritage, disability and sexual orientation.”
On some pages of the 15-page document the word is used a dozen times including a graphic which states that one of the “Principles of Diversity, Inclusive Excellence and Campus Climate” is that “Diversity = Recognize, Understand and Value Diversity.”
A draft Diversity and Inclusivity Action Plan, dated Jan. 7, was released separately from 2015-2022 framework. Some of the more concrete action items with “ongoing efforts” include “increasing recruitment efforts of faculty and staff of color“ and “strategic recruitment at community colleges and high schools” to boost diversity along with additional cultural awareness training for employees.
One of the “underway” goals is to create new diversity related curriculum/ requirements.”
One of the most immediate changes in that area may come with the expected approval of a “Queer Studies Minor” under the College of Liberal Arts. Those classes would be open to students from all departments.
Despite that as a step towards victory Klepfer noted that “if SLO Solidarity were to dissolve now,” they would not see the change desired, adding “[W]e have to keep the pressure on. We have to hold our administration accountable to follow through with their action plans and to follow through with their rhetoric of wanting to make Cal Poly a better place for under-represented students.”
