This document is an initial statement of my own views and commitments in the area of diversity and was developed at the suggestion of our Affirmative Action Committee. I hope that it will stimulate discussion of this important issue and result in an even more successful community effort to achieve greater diversity on campus. I welcome comments by anyone who has the opportunity to read this document.

1. Grinnell College's Mission and Diversity

Grinnell College's primary goal is to be a liberal arts college of the first rank. We are an educational community with a historic, and recently reaffirmed, commitment to being a socially responsible institution. Specifically, in the College's discussion of its core values a few years ago, a commitment to diversity emerged as one of our major identifying characteristics within our overall educational mission of excellence and social responsibility. In addition, at a faculty retreat held in the winter before my arrival the faculty endorsed the attainment of greater diversity as one of its highest priorities.

Our desire for diversity is not solely a function of attempting to get something here that we presently lack. Rather, it is that excellence in a liberal arts education and in the workplace are improved and enriched by the existence of a multicultural environment. Students are more likely to learn important lessons about the materials they study or will encounter as graduates if a variety of perspectives are evidenced in the learning process. And students are better prepared to face a multicultural world having lived in a multicultural educational community. There is research which demonstrates that more diverse institutions have generally better educational outcomes.

As our understanding of diversity has expanded so too our focus on the legitimate scope for efforts at re-mediation and improvement has also increased. For instance, many colleges like Grinnell have become concerned that the curriculum reflect the broadest understanding of knowledge and concerns, given that neither time nor budget resources are infinite. A study of our offerings shows how pervasively our courses attempt to reflect this widening conception of knowledge and the increase in relevant perspectives. We also attempt to ensure in our overall programming that our campus climate accommodates a wide array of viewpoints, cultural sensibilities, races, lifestyles, and other variables. Many of you are aware that recent efforts to study campus life here at Grinnell have revealed a significant difference in perceptions of the campus climate along racial and ethnic lines which we need to address.

A search for diversity is hard to quantify and, thus far, Grinnell has wisely avoided such an effort. Whether stated as goals, targets, or quotas, the costs of such fixed levels of aspiration exceed foreseeable benefits. Indeed, the various regions of our country show remarkable differences in the attainment of greater or lesser amounts of racial and other diversity as a function of local and area population concentrations. This makes stated targets difficult or unrealistic to achieve. Therefore, our goal is for increased and improved diversity without fixed allocations or set targets, whether as floors or ceilings.

What exactly is diversity? To examine this concept allows us to reflect a common understanding and to state explicitly why diversity is important at Grinnell, both of which will help us to achieve our goal. The idea of diversity has two major historical origins. Beginning with Brown v. Board of Education, the United States Supreme Court affirmed the importance of equal opportunity in an educational setting under the 13th and 14th Amendments. The Court has reaffirmed the centrality of educational opportunity in a number of cases since Brown which extend Brown beyond purely racial classifications, including Plyler v. Doe involving whether the children of undocumented workers could be prevented by Texas from attending the public schools.

After Brown, the emergence of the Civil Rights movement and the passage of major federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s, advancing beyond the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Freedman's Bureau of one hundred years before, promised progress toward the goal of racial equality in our society. This early legislation led to further legal changes in the passage of the employment and federal assistance titles of the civil rights laws, which apply directly to colleges and universities. This, in turn, led to the adoption of programs in which institutions, not under direct legal compulsion, committed themselves to fair and equal treatment of traditionally under-represented racial minorities and women, like the one upheld by the Supreme Court in Steelworkers v. Weber.

Over time, these programs were expanded to include affirmative efforts, called "affirmative action," in which the achievement of racial diversity and gender equity were given positive consideration and weight in college and university admissions. For example, in Regents of University of California v. Bakke, a majority of the Supreme Court held that race and ethnicity may be considerations in admissions decisions, that is, that educational institutions may use race or ethnicity as a factor in admitting minorities. As in Brown v. Board of Education, Bakke was aimed at "ameliorating, or eliminating where feasible, the disabling effects of identified discrimination." But, of equal importance for educational institutions, as mentioned above, the majority in Bakke recognized that diversity is also important because it enhances the educational experience for everyone. That is, Bakke noted that diversity is critical to promoting "beneficial educational pluralism." In a recent book, The Shape of the River, William G. Bowen and Derek Bok have amassed significant documentation which demonstrates that individuals admitted to elite colleges and universities under diversity impetus do well and fulfill the promise of such programs.

Affirmative action produced improvements in diversity but also led to legal resistance. As a consequence, even proponents of affirmative action efforts have changed their articulation of the goal to one of "diversity." This means that institutions should affirmatively seek a representation of races, points-of-views, genders, economic positions, and cultural backgrounds. This broader notion, "diversity," has led to changes in the administration of some affirmative action plans designed to meet the challenges presented after the holding of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Hopwood v. State of Texas and the adoption of an anti-affirmative action proposition by the voters in California.

The foregoing changes in the substance of what we now call diversity obviously also reflect the second strand in the historical background for this social and legal movement, namely older notions of the importance of free and open political, religious, and social expression. That is, in addition to the 13th and 14th Amendment roots of diversity, there is also our longstanding commitment to political, religious, and expressive pluralism as indicated by the 1st Amendment. For example, the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Romer v. Evans striking down a Colorado ballot initiative that prevented gay and lesbian people from securing legal protection against invidious treatment based on sexual preference came not as a matter of traditional suspect classification analysis under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment but was based on the offensiveness of limiting one and only one social group in the legal protections that they might obtain by legitimate political means.

The newer idea of diversity has obviously not been fully fleshed out and needs continuing thought and development. Does an emphasis on general diversity mean less emphasis on positive efforts for traditionally under-represented minority groups, specifically African-Americans? Does an emphasis on diversity mean that members of groups which are not well represented in college and university faculties and are not seen to be advantaged are also entitled to some affirmative weight? Does the notion of positive hiring weight for diversity extend to seeking to learn an individual"s sexual preference in order to ensure representational fairness to gay and lesbian people? These are all tough questions that do not need immediate answers but require thought and careful consideration in light of our overall commitment to diversity.

To return to our particular situation at Grinnell, we remain committed to attracting through our admissions and hiring decisions those people who have been traditionally underrepresented in American institutions, including women and members of racial minorities. In addition to this, we wish to have and to foster a climate in which individuals of many different sensibilities, cultural backgrounds, economic situations, nationalities, religions, sexual preferences, and political views can interact with good will in ways that will deepen their understanding of knowledge and human affairs. Such dialogue is a central feature of a college whose primary goal is to be a liberal arts college that educates students for a lifelong experience in learning and social commitment.

Gathered together at the end of this document are selected data, presented graphically and drawn from the reports of our Affirmative Action Officer, IPEDS, and the Associated Colleges of the Midwest over the last ten years. The data are worth careful study but should not surprise anyone. I see the following in looking at our Grinnell data alone: 1) We have increased the number of Hispanic students significantly but all other targeted student categories have increased or decreased modestly. 2) We have increased the number of faculty who are from traditionally underrepresented minority groups but the overall numbers are lower than we might hope. 3) The number of women and minorities in high level administrative posts has ebbed and flowed and is currently lower than it has been. 4) Our faculty data show that women are being promoted through faculty ranks but that there has been a decrease in the number of women in the assistant professor rank over the ten-year period.

A careful study of the available data from our peer schools over the last ten years with respect to student diversity is also instructive and some of it is presented graphically at the end of this document. I will compare the final data from 1990 and the preliminary fall, 1999 data, both of which classify students into seven categories: Foreign, Black, American Indian, Asian, Hispanic, White, and Unknown. In 1990, all non-white categories excluding foreign students accounted for 10% of Grinnell's student body; Swarthmore was at 17.5%; Oberlin was at 19.8%; Carleton was at 12.7%. In 1999, all non-white categories excluding foreign students accounted for 12.3 % of Grinnell's student body; Swarthmore was at 32%; Oberlin was at 18.4%; and Carleton was at 15.6%.

These comparative student data indicate that Grinnell has increased overall student diversity, counting foreign students as an element of diversity, in a fashion similar to our peers. That said, some peer institutions such as Swarthmore, Amherst, and Williams tend to enroll significantly more U.S. students of color than Grinnell, while Washington & Lee, for example, enrolls significantly fewer. In fact, these data, excluding the category "unknown," demonstrates that we have had a statistically significant decrease in the percentage of African-American students, a larger percentage than some peers, but a number of schools have also experienced the same decline. We could and should be doing better in enrolling African-American students and we have targeted this in our various initiatives from the Fund for Excellence. Regarding foreign students, Grinnell and Macalester both in 1990 and 1999 enrolled a significantly larger number and percentage of foreign students than any of our peers. We benefit from our large foreign student enrollment and think it adds several elements of diversity to the campus, including racial, cultural, and an overall international focus.

To be sure, one of our goals should be to increase the diversity of our staff. The annual reports of our Affirmative Action Officer which contain large amounts of specific data with respect to our progress toward diversity in the staff, show that our staff largely reflects the demographics of our local community. This is not to say that we are not committed to making efforts to add diversity to our staff. In fact, we have had success in doing so in our Offices of Admission and Financial Aid and also in the Office of Student Affairs.

The achievement of a successfully diverse environment is obviously a long-term proposition. It also has significant adventitious elements like geography, resources, and effective leadership. In my eighteen months here, I am aware that many before me have cared deeply about this matter, including my predecessor Pam Ferguson and many of our faculty, staff, alumni, and students. So, our efforts build on the commitment and hard work of the past.

Enhancement of diversity is obviously something that has a place within our base budget as well as under the Fund for Excellence. Included in our base budget are staff members who are doing an excellent job running programs in areas relevant to diversity. In what follows, I attempt to set out what we have done and plan to do through our regular processes, funded by the base budget and/or the Fund for Excellence.

First, we have the upcoming 30th Anniversary of our Black Cultural Center. This facility has been successful and we have completed this year significant building improvements and renovations to allow it to continue to serve its purposes. We have also committed to funding a symposium and celebration this spring to mark the actual 30th anniversary.

Second, our Affirmative Action Advisory Committee and the Faculty Executive Council have talked about ways to increase our success in recruiting multicultural faculty. The Affirmative Action Advisory Committee made some suggestions for revising our affirmative action procedures that have already been implemented. The Executive Council has held a preliminary discussion of multicultural recruitment and intends to hold a longer discussion in the spring term. Last year, the Executive Council recommended and I approved a pre-fill of certain positions with new faculty who added diversity.

While 1998-99 did not see a dramatic increase in faculty diversity, we made incremental progress. We appointed two women and four men to tenure-track positions; only one of these new faculty members is a person of color. Of the 19 faculty members (not including the postdoctoral fellows) appointed to term positions, ten are women and nine are men; this group includes one Native American , two Asian-Americans, and one African-American.

Third, Professor Roberta Atwell has served as Affirmative Action Officer during her years on senior faculty status and has been diligent and dedicated. Faculty, staff, and students have appreciated her efforts and her clear sense of the importance of diversity at the College. As described below, I have thought about this current staff position and about what we could and should do to enhance our success in this area.

The Fund for Excellence has provided support for initiatives in the area of diversity with the advice and assistance of the Diversity Steering Committee including Tinker Powell, Associate Professor of Economics. I do not intend to cover everything that the Fund has done but will focus on three initiatives.

First, we have funded several initiatives in our Offices of Admission and Financial Aid to attract multicultural students to Grinnell and, in turn, increase student diversity. We restored our Chicago recruiter position and this position is occupied by a professional admissions officer who is African-American. We increased the available financial aid for international students. Finally, we have experimented with the packaging of our financial aid for multicultural students and others with special admissions appeal.

Second, we have funded several efforts to address in constructive and useful ways the issue of our campus climate. For example, the Fund for Excellence supported the ACE Fellowship which Professor Powell won to study issues of multiculturalism at peer schools, including Macalester and Scripps Colleges. We had a national expert on multiculturalism visit to discuss with all students how to address issues of campus climate. Finally, we are reviewing our student orientation activities insofar as they raise issues of multicultural sensitivity.

Third, two of our students, Carlos Macias and Warren Morrow, sought and received significant funding from the Fund for Excellence to initiate a community project in Des Moines, called the Latino Leadership Project. The idea was to create a web of activities that would draw in Latino teenagers and help them to become leaders. As an added benefit, the project has involved Grinnell students besides Carlos and Warren as mentors and leaders. This project is intended as a national pilot and Carlos and Warren hope ultimately to expand it well beyond Des Moines with foundation and other community funding.

This report and the foregoing discussion show that we have ambitious aspirations and that we have made modest progress. During the last few weeks I have discussed with various individuals the announced resignation of Roberta Atwell, the College's Affirmative Action Officer. A number of viewpoints have been expressed as to the future of this position, the primary one being that we should experiment with a full time position committed to the achievement of faculty/staff diversity, reporting to the President, as is currently the case, and including other job duties depending on our needs and the interests of the successful candidate. I have decided to implement this recommendation and am developing a flexible job description for this new staff member, to be funded by the Fund for Excellence and entitled the College's Diversity Officer.

I envision that our Diversity Officer would participate in the following: 1) work with faculty and departments to develop information about candidates and methodologies for searching that will help us to diversify the faculty, 2) work with the Director of Human Resources and relevant departments and officers on the staff side to the same end, 3) help us to "yield"diverse faculty and staff offerees, and 4) assume additional responsibilities that we may include as part of the job after discussing this widely on campus and with attractive applicants.

I hope that we can move forward on two other fronts. We currently have one affirmative action committee and also a diversity steering committee, the latter operates within the Fund for Excellence. I propose that these two current committees be replaced by two new committees: a faculty diversity hiring committee and a campus-wide diversity committee. Within the province of faculty hiring, I recommend that the Faculty select its own diversity hiring committee, to be assisted by our new Diversity Officer, and that this committee work with the Officer and academic departments to maximize our chances of improving faculty diversity in areas in which it is needed. The data in this report show that we have achieved steady and significant success in the hiring, promotion, and retention of women but have not achieved such success for most multicultural groups. It is my hope that the faculty committee will focus on this area. Obviously, our faculty and the Executive Council will need to discuss, develop, and act on this suggestion before it could be implemented.

At a college with many committees and an overall sense of committee overload, why should we form another committee? During the past ten years, we have had committed leadership from our Affirmative Action Officer and others but our success at achieving a more diverse faculty has been modest. I believe that if significant progress is to be made on the faculty side the leadership will need to come from the faculty, hence a faculty committee. I also do not think that our modest progress is a function of not having enough faculty positions available. We have appointed many faculty in the past ten years. That is, our problem has not been a function of running too few searches while a young faculty ages, as has been the case at some colleges and universities.

I also recommend that we constitute at this time a campus-wide diversity committee that would consider all issues other than achieving greater diversity of the faculty. I am open to suggestions about how such a committee should be composed but I believe that we need a broadly diverse committee that will see improved diversity as a College-wide imperative and can provide thoughtful guidance to me, the Dean, the faculty, and SGA, on diversity issues. I think this committee should be appointed by the President and should include students, faculty and staff.

Finally and very tentatively, I would like to suggest that it might be worthwhile for the Faculty and its Executive Council to consider a further change. Several years ago, the personnel functions of the Executive Council as they relate to tenure, review, and promotion were transferred from the Executive Council to the Faculty Personnel Committee. This left the approval of the recommendation of new appointments in the hands of the Executive Council, although, as we all know, the process of making new appointments is largely handled at the departmental level with a final recommendation to the Dean and President. To be sure, there also exists Executive Council consideration based on the participation of two members of the Executive Council in the interviewing process. In fact, the Executive Council and I have recently asked that each departmental recommendation be sent out in a memorandum so that we can consider the merits of the recommendation as it is submitted for approval.

I wonder whether it would now be appropriate to concentrate all specific faculty personnel matters, including new appointments, in the hands of the Faculty Personnel Committee whose mandate specifically be stated to include attention to increasing diversity. Even if all new hiring decisions were to be committed to the Faculty Personnel Committee, I believe that the Executive Council should remain the body to consider and make recommendations to me with respect to whether to retain or re-deploy existing positions, or create new positions in our faculty ranks. The Executive Council is meant to be the executive (and long range planning) committee of the entire faculty and these core resource decisions are appropriately left in the hands of the Executive Council.

I recognize that this is a matter in the province of the faculty and that it would require thought as to the relative burdens on these two important committees. I believe that after we have resolved any issues of committee structure we should also review our current Affirmative Action Policies. I think overall it is a solid document but I hope that it will be re-titled our Diversity Policy and that careful thought might be given to the changes being made in similar policies at our peer schools. There is considerable ferment in this area elsewhere right now and we might benefit from reviewing our procedures in light of what other schools are doing. The data from our peer schools suggests, at a minimum, that a few others have achieved more and we should attempt to see if there are procedural mechanisms that have assisted them to do this or whether their success reflects other factors, like geography, that are extrinsic to their efforts.

Achieving diversity is not something that can be done without a clear sense of what we are and what we seek to be. Studies done for the College suggest that multicultural students wish to be at schools that prize diversity and achievement. They wish to be at colleges that welcome them and that will help them to succeed in life. So, we can not disjoin our dual ambitions to be a liberal arts college of the first rank and to be a successful, diverse educational community. And conversely, we can not isolate a search for excellence from a heartfelt and serious commitment to diversity.

Russell K. Osgood

January 21, 2000