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Administrative Musical Chairs
The Committee on Institutional Diversity and Equity, once known as the World Cultures Initiative Committee before a typical power-grab, released its report "suggest[ing] actions that Dartmouth could take to become a more inclusive, pluralistic and interactive learning community" (see page 9). Unsurprisingly, Dartmouth President James Wright announced just several weeks later in mid-July that the College will "immediately implement" three of the report’s "major initiatives" (what happened to "suggestions"?). Wright said that he and the College’s Trustees would evaluate Dartmouth’s mission statement "to assure that it fully reflects our [diversity] goals." The College’s mission statement has included for several years "A commitment to enriching the Dartmouth educational and social experience by attracting and retaining gifted and talented students, faculty, and staff of diverse backgrounds, experiences, races, and economic circumstances." The CIDE report takes the current mission statement to task for implying "a laissez-faire institutional view about what should happen" after such a community has been recruited. "The communal participation and well-being of all members," the report continues, "cannot simply be taken for granted." Under the aegis of diversity, then, the Trustees have been charged to alter the College’s mission statement to permit further-still meddling in student life. Ozzie Harris, now Director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, will soon be known as the Special Assistant to the President for Institutional Diversity and Equity. Harris’s old office will be renamed the Office for Institutional Diversity and Equity in what barely amounts to a game of bureaucratic musical chairs. The College will create a Council on Diversity, to be composed of administrators, faculty, and students, which Harris, in his new capacity, will chair. The committee will "set goals, develop strategies, and guide and coordinate institutional progress." Finally, the College will undertake a number of the report’s smaller initiatives. Dean of Faculty Jamshed Barucha has been charged to review minority faculty hiring practices and prompt faculty to discuss "ways diversity can be more fully integrated into the curriculum." The College will explore diversity and "cross-cultural interaction" in dorms, these programs to be the jurisdiction of a new Associate Dean for Student Life. Also, Dartmouth will once again review its financial aid policies. Harris’s repositioning and the creation of yet another committee appear to be empty gestures, though both will surely yield more committees and subcommittees and reports and guilt-ridden Daily Dartmouth editorials from those who will chair and sit on these committees. Yet, that action that appears farthest removed from campus activities, the reworking of the College’s mission statement, is quite insidious in light of the Trustees’ and the administration’s well-known paternalistic tendencies. The College may finally give itself proper charge for all of its tinkering with student extracurricular life. While the honesty of such an act could be refreshing, the effect on already-harassed students would not. We may soon reach the time when a student alone in his room reading or studying risks being labeled a racist for declining to participate in coerced "cross-cultural interaction." Good...But Great?Dean of the College Jim Larimore awarded the Milton Sims Kramer Group Award to MOSAIC, "the student organization for biracial, bicultural, multiracial, and multicultural individuals." The award is given annually to the student group that has made the greatest contribution to the College and includes a $750 prize. Yet, the group’s events have been lightly publicized and attended but for a discussion last year on multicultural dating that was well received. The group’s other activities have included movie nights ("Jungle Fever" and "The Joy Luck Club") and a "Minority Coalition Building BBQ." MOSAIC meetings attract "30 or more students" according to the College’s announcement of the award. While not insignificant and certainly valued by their attendees, MOSAIC’s activities pale in comparison to those of the Dartmouth Outing Club and the Campus Crusade for Christ, just to name two, both of which involve more students, sponsor more events and meetings, and thus likely contribute more to the College as a whole, by means of freshman trips, trail maintenance, and outdoor sports education by the DOC and religious and moral education by the CCC. Per usual, then, "greatest contribution" is to the College’s image. The Office of Public Affairs announced the award in a press release titled "MULTIRACIAL STUDENT GROUP WINS KRAMER PRIZE FOR BEST CONTRIBUTION TO COLLEGE." Congratulations, MOSAIC, on becoming one more tool of the College’s PR campaign to overcome its racial insecurities.
— Andrew Grossman |
