The College bureaucrats are at it again -- spending our money on programs that have nothing to do with our education. And what's more troubling is that, as students, we weren't even invited to participate in the latest diversity-related program to be unveiled.
According to the Vox (Aug. 17-30, 1997), beginning this fall, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action and the Bildner Endowment for Human and Intergroup Relations will be sponsoring a diversity reading group program for all Dartmouth employees including faculty, administration, staff and service personnel. As part of the program College employees will meet in small groups to read and discuss books that raise issues of race, gender and other differences that they frequently encounter in the working environment. Some of the works include Talking From 9 to 5: How Women's and Men's Conversational Styles Affect Who Gets Heard, Who Gets Credit, and What Gets Done at Work, by Deborah Tannen and The Displaced Person by Flannery O'Connor. Over the summer, the Diversity Reading Group Steering Committee, made up of five women, mailed out letters to all Dartmouth employees, inviting them to participate in the program.
Now you may be wondering, what is so terrible about a program that will not only provide participants with free books and refreshments, but which will also allow them to sit around and chat about sensitive topics such as gender differences and cultural diversity?
Besides the blatant lack of diversity in the five-woman Steering Committee which makes one wonder how truly diverse the program is, ask yourself the following question: Why should Dartmouth students have to pay for employees to receive free books on diversity, while in addition to the $23,012 tuition and "required fees" that we are paying for the 1997-98 school year, we must also spend a College-estimated $585 on our own books?
The Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action is likely to respond that our tuition is not being "directly" used to purchase books for employees or to fund these reading groups in any way.
However, part of our tuition and "required fees" is used to cover administrative costs which include the salaries of all the college bureaucrats as well as the programming budgets of these administrative offices. According to Mary Childers, Director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, the funding for the diversity reading program comes from the EOAA Office programming budget. In other words, straight out of our pockets. Not only are we paying more money each year because new and unnecessary administrative positions are created, but behind closed doors these bureaucrats are spending our money in all sorts of mindless ways that are unrelated to our education.
The Diversity Reading Group Steering Committee will respond that in addition to the financial support from the EOAA Office, the program is receiving generous support from the Bildner Endowment for Human and Intergroup Relations which is funded strictly by private donors.
I think it is wonderful that the College has established this endowment fund "for the central purpose of building a culture at Dartmouth in which human and intergroup differences are respected, studied, and valued and in which bigotry and discrimination are reduced, thereby contributing to the quality of campus life."
However, a closer look at the stated goals of the Bildner Endowment according to the announcement posted on Dartmouth's web-page reveals that even if the reading program was funded strictly by the endowment, it would not meet the requirement that students, in addition to staff and faculty, partake in the "culture building" and "study of human and intergroup relations" at Dartmouth.
Several examples of the ways in which the Bildner Endowment may achieve its central purpose are "the development of new undergraduate or graduate courses" and the "support and encouragement for student leaders and the student majority who seek to share responsibility for the human condition." Furthermore, it is envisioned that "with faculty and staff advisors, students can develop programs for other students on such topics as diversity in relationship to unity and the ways in which separatism can sustain or isolate communities." What part of "students" and "undergraduates" don't the administers of the Endowment understand?
The Diversity Reading Group Steering Committee apparently has some serious problems to address. My suggestions for reform: diversify your diversity committee, reject funding from the EOAA Office, and adhere to the intended goals of the Bildner Endowment and invite students to participate in your diversity reading groups.
