College President James Freedman is soliciting input from the community to decide how the College will implement recommendations made by a committee formed to evaluate diversity at Dartmouth.
The Committee on Diversity and Community at Dartmouth, formed by Freedman in the fall of 1992, presented its "Managing Diversity," report to Freedman last week.
College Trustee Stanford Roman chaired the committee.
Freedman will determine where the recommendations will go from here. He met with his advisory group yesterday to talk about how the College will structure community dialogue and response to the report.
The President's advisory group is made up of about 15 top administrators.
"The general feeling was that it was a very good report and the implementation would take a great deal of thought because the recommendations cross so many lines at the College," College spokesman Alex Huppe said. "They are important recommendations that need to be considered fully."
Freedman said he will be asking for responses to the report for the rest of Winter term and will begin acting on the recommendations in the spring.
The committee made numerous recommendations on how to manage diversity at Dartmouth.
Committee members said the most significant recommendation is a senior-level administrator position whose primary responsibility would be to oversee issues of diversity and community across the College.
To increase diversity, the committee recommended continued efforts to recruit and maintain minority faculty and students.
But the committee also stressed that an increasingly diverse population must be managed. It recommended efforts to develop a community more supportive of all its members and the examination of the impact of the College's Greek system on diversity.
The report said a new administrator in either the Provost's Office or the Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Office could coordinate these efforts.
Freedman said a new administrator could be very beneficial for the College.
"It depends on who the person is," he said. "The right person could have a very healthy impact."
Former Provost John Strohbehn said because the Provost's office has "broad responsibilities for both implementations and oversight and is involved with all of the institution," it would be an ideal position for a new administrator.
"I know that all the senior administrators are strongly committed to increasing diversity on the campus," he said.
"However, because of the large set of responsibilities they have, some issues may be neglected. If one person had the responsibility to make sure present efforts were maintained, and to try to anticipate issues that might arise I believe some of the problems that have arisen or been ignored would be dealt with more effectively," he said
Acting Provost Bruce Pipes said a group of about 100 upper-level College officials discussed the report at their meeting last week.
"The sense of the group was that it was not a position that would necessarily have the authority to order changes," he said. "It's someone who would have the time and the mandate to keep track of diversity and community."
Because of budgetary constraints, Pipes said it was more likely that a new official would be the combination of several positions.
In general, Pipes said response to the report was very positive.
The report "gives us a clear picture of where we have been, how far we have come and where we are," he said.
Director of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Mary Childers said affirmative action becomes more meaningful if people talk about issues of diversity, instead of numbers and federal compliance.
Childers said she thought the report had the right tone, and especially agreed with the report's call for more activities, programs and courses that educate the community and promote discussion regarding social issues.
Dean of Faculty James Wright said his office has not yet discussed the report, but said he agreed with the committee's recommendation to continue trying to recruit minority faculty.
"I have regularly affirmed this as a top priority," he said. "It continues to be one, and I welcome the committee's endorsement of this objective as well as several of their specific proposals."
Wright said his office will make specific comments and announcements concerning the report in the near future.
The committee recommended that Dartmouth evaluate new student orientation and also create a first-year experience more supportive of the academic enterprise, that promotes community and that is supportive of all members of the academic community.
Dean of the College Lee Pelton, a member of CDCD, formed a committee at the beginning of this term to evaluate the first-year experience, and CDCD's recommendations are among the charges of Pelton's committee.
