Posted on 09/06/2005 4:39:28 AM PDT by Archidamus
Vice provost's new job includes shaking up the student body, and its perceptions
AUSTIN - Gregory Vincent started over again last month, with a temporary office, shared secretary and pressing assignment: to help the University of Texas at Austin define and achieve diversity.
It is no small task, but Vincent has faced it before.
The new vice provost for inclusion and cross-cultural effectiveness filled similar positions at other predominantly white institutions, Louisiana State University and the University of Oregon. None of the universities had a high-ranking administrator to stand watch over matters of race, culture and ethnicity before hiring the former civil rights attorney.
It is a role that an increasing number of colleges and universities nationwide are trying to fill during a time of changing demographics. Texas A&M University added an administrator focused on diversity issues nearly two years ago as part of an effort to increase minority enrollment, and Harvard University hired its first senior vice provost for faculty development and diversity last month.
"If diversity is a compelling state interest," Vincent said, referring to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's majority opinion in favor of affirmative action in 2003, "then we need someone thinking about it all the time."
President Larry Faulkner hired Vincent, 43, in response to the university's Task Force on Racial Respect and Fairness, which recommended the creation of the position last year after a series of racially charged incidents. In one case, vandals threw eggs at a statue of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on campus.
Known as intelligent and analytical, Vincent studied and practiced law in part because of his admiration for the late Justice Thurgood Marshall. After nearly a decade as a lawyer, Vincent switched careers and returned to campus.
"In this day and age, law seemed reactionary," said Vincent, who also earned a doctorate in education. "It's important to correct harm once it's happened. But what about stopping it before it happens? That is what put me on this end."
Vincent, whose annual salary is $175,000, will assist in recruiting and retaining students and faculty members. But he will not review faculty appointments or advise the provost and president on matters of tenure.
Vincent started his new job by meeting with academic deans and reading several reports related to research ambitions and race relations at UT-Austin. It may be too early to set goals, but he has thought about some changes.
He would like to see the university "recruit top students like we recruit top athletes." And he would like to tweak the state law that guarantees admission at any Texas public university to those high school graduates who finish the top 10 percent of their class. With about 70 percent of its freshmen entering this fall under the law, it limits UT-Austin's ability to admit students for reasons beyond grade-point average, Vincent said.
Big budget, big task The university will provide his office with $500,000 over three years for new diversity-related programs. At Oregon, he had an annual budget of $40,000.
While the money helped entice Vincent, so did the size of the task. UT-Austin is one of the nation's largest universities and about 60 percent of the students and 80 percent of the faculty members are white. The demographics of Texas, meanwhile, are shifting; Hispanics were estimated as making up at least half the state's population in 2003.
"Our size is a challenge," said Norma Cantú, professor of law and education at UT-Austin. "We have a community of communities. But I don't see a challenge that Gregory Vincent can't meet."
Before leaving Oregon, Vincent invited Cantú, the assistant secretary of education for civil rights in the Clinton administration, to speak about how the Austin campus had addressed diversity issues. Cantú said such talks tend to attract only students, but Vincent persuaded several university leaders to attend.
"He was able to motivate his colleagues to share his enthusiasm for inclusion," she said. "We've got someone with a track record."
Measuring success Even with the ranks of diversity czars on campus growing, it isn't clear how to judge their effectiveness. There is little agreement about how to define diversity or how to measure it.
Some Oregon professors balked at a proposed five-year diversity plan, which Vincent helped to draft, because tenure and post-tenure reviews would include assessments of professors' "cultural competency." In a letter to Vincent and the university's president, the faculty senate demanded definitions for diversity and cultural competency.
At LSU, Vincent confronted preconceptions among prospective black students about a university with a segregationist past. He formed an advisory committee that included a prominent local black pastor and opened an outreach center in a predominantly black Baton Rouge neighborhood.
The number of black undergraduates and faculty members remained flat during Vincent's tenure, but he said the environment, something less tangible, changed. Students seemed to talk more with classmates from other ethnic groups, he said.
David Williams II, vice chancellor for student life and university affairs at Vanderbilt University and one of Vincent's mentors, said universities must find a way to measure diversity, whether it's enrollment or something broader.
"It's a hard thing to do," Williams said, "but it's a necessary thing to do."
There also is concern that the presence of one administrator focused on diversity lets others off the hook. It is one reason why the UT System will not require all of its campuses to follow the Austin campus' lead in hiring Vincent, despite the request of student leaders.
"A position like vice president or vice provost says we're serious about this," said Basheer Benhalim, student body president at UT-Dallas, which is considering the creation of one.
They could start by hiring more conservative professors.
The only group UT discriminates against are conservatives.
"In one case, vandals threw eggs at a statue of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on campus."
So now 40,000 students have to undergo even more intensive brain washing. I am sure that will not lead to any resentment among students who are able to see through the lies.
What an unspeakably stupid and counterproductive waste of taxpayers' dollars and students' tuition.
such diversity directors are essentially "reverse discrimination directors."
"Vincent, whose annual salary is $175,000, will assist in recruiting and retaining students and faculty members."
Good pay, no wonder he switched from being a lawyer. All he has to do is mouth the typical cliches when cued and he is home free and clear.
Unfortunately, Sandra Day O'Conner, as usual, was wrong. Diversity is not a compelling state interest, it is an artificial concept based on a misunderstanding of basic human nature and nature in general. Birds of a feather...
Re: entire article...
::gag::
And double ::gag:: that they are paying this clown $175k to spout nonsense.
"Hispanics were estimated as making up at least half the state's population in 2003."
So why then did they hire a black guy?
Kinda tough to enroll them in college when they don't finish high school. While they are so concerned about diversity, perhaps UT will worry about hiring one or two conservative professors for a divergent view of the world in that snake pit of liberalism....nah.
"The number of black undergraduates and faculty members remained flat during Vincent's tenure, but he said the environment, something less tangible, changed."
LOL!!
A,
Just stop admitting white applicants.
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