In addition to the CBB Diversity Conference, a variety of events and initiatives sponsored by students and faculty this year addressed diversity issues. Among them:
• Volunteer faculty mentors will work with students of color to help ensure their success at Colby. The program was formed in response to a feeling among some faculty that there's a gap between recruiting students of color and providing sufficient support once they're on campus, Professor Julie de Sherbinin said.
• A Peer Mentors program run by the Dean of Students Office assigns interested first-year students of all races an upperclass advisor to help them navigate academic and social life.
• A proposal to revamp the academic diversity requirement has been sent to the Academic Affairs Committee for consideration.
• A group of students calling itself the Coalition for Equality met with President Adams through the year to seek additional support that members had found lacking for students of color.
• A petition was circulated among students, and the Student Government Association President's Council passed a motion, urging adoption of a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered studies program, known in academe as "queer studies."
• On May 2 Dinesh D'Souza gave a lecture titled "Racism Is Not the Problem." The talk by the controversial conservative pundit was sponsored by the Colby Republicans and the Cultural Events Committee, and students who disagreed with D'Souza's views organized a teach-in.
• Concerned male students started a group called M*A*S*H, an acronym for Males Against Sexism and Homophobia.
• In the residence hall reading seminars, professors chose books dealing with issues of diversity, among them Losing Matt Shepard by Beth Loffreda, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris.
• Students and faculty want to develop and strengthen a gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgendered network of alumni, students and faculty so that, for example, a student might contact an alumnus or alumna to find out if a company provides a workplace where it is safe to be openly homosexual, according to Professor Margaret McFadden.
• Project Ally, which provides support to gay, lesbian and bisexual students, entered its third year.
• The Student Government Association passed a resolution to end the annual "Screw Your Roommate" dance, which had been identified as offensive to gay and lesbian students and to women.
• The College's Multicultural Affairs Committee held four public forums to discuss issues of gender, social class, sexual orientation and religious differences.
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In April, following meetings with a group of professors and administrators, President Adams shared a plan to broaden diversity at Colby and to improve the institutional culture on campus to better support diversity. The plan contained three principal goals and objectives: "First, we must improve substantially the campus climate for all underrepresented groups and assist every member of the community in appreciating the value and challenges of an increasingly diverse community." "Second, we must enhance the vigor, consistency and effectiveness of Colby's recruitment and retention policies and practices (for students, faculty and staff) in light of our diversity goals. "Third, we must revise Colby's institutional policies and practices in ways that will support these goals." Adams's initial plan contains 16 specific initiatives as well as the promise for an annual report on diversity. The memo containing the plan is online. |
