Tackling the issues facing campus climate and diversity at UW is a large and complex task ? one that needs specific goals and strategies to succeed. However, Provost Peter Spear’s latest decision to create an associate vice chancellor for diversity and campus climate has potential to be ineffective: It lacks an outline of responsibilities, an allocation of power to develop new strategies to target existing problems and an accountability plan to make sure goals are achieved.
Spear and other administrators need to take a step back and hone the job description of this new associate vice chancellor before hiring or even screening. While no one has all the answers on how to improve diversity at UW, it is clear that without strategies, goals and deadlines in addition to allocating accountability, our goals will never be reached because there is no framework for progress. Without more focus, this new position will be merely adding another person to a project already occupying a large group of administrators and students. If this office must be a reality, campus leadership needs a point man to implement the separate projects and programs, not just another name with a parallel office. If that is the motive for this job, the description needs to outline that authority and accountability to provide the office with mechanisms to get things done.
In addition, we question the university’s decision to not look outside current faculty to fill the post. Spear says the search is only being conducted internally because it will take too long to get an outsider acclimated with the UW System and its climate. This narrow perspective may be precisely the problem; an outsider could bring new ideas and goals that will help breathe new life into the university’s efforts as well as make the job more effective.
Spear needs to include students in this plan. When creating this position, Spear did not consult student groups or ask students if an administrative position would be a helpful tool. Rather, he made assumptions.
The student voice is crucial in determining what steps UW takes to improve climate. Spear needs to form the job description around students’ needs and also remember students when forming the search-and-screen committee for this position. Likewise, students need to step up and tell the administration what needs fixing.
As is, the job description vaguely describes “working with” leaders and includes some measures for oversight and evaluation. The new vice chancellor will need freedom to establish his or her own precedent for policy, but the job should set up a template by which potential policies may and may not be implemented. Without more specific avenues of oversight authority and accountability, the position runs the risk of accomplishing too little or invading too much. We are especially concerned that the position, void of standards, might become that of a sensitivity czar of sorts — poking his or her head into every faculty, staff or student group to make sure no one is offending anybody. In academia, protecting academic freedom and free speech needs to be a top priority; get the wrong person in this position, and debate could end up being stifled rather than encouraged.
For this position to work, the office needs to find a more specific inroad to strategize efforts to improve diversity and campus climate — not merely add more people to a team without a game plan.
