*Editor's Note: This is the first part of a two-part series on recent campus discussions regarding diversity.**##
In response to student concerns regarding faculty and administrator diversity, the College will revive its long-inactive Diversity Council, assemble a diversity action plan to be shared with the Board of Trustees and expand the First Year Student Enrichment Program for next Fall term, College President Jim Yong Kim said in an interview with The Dartmouth Editorial Board.
The Diversity Council, which was established in the early 2000s, has not met in recent years "partly because of all the craziness around budget reductions that we had to go through for two years," Kim said. The Council formed at the same time as the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity, The Dartmouth previously reported.
Council members used to meet with faculty members and campus leaders to discuss relevant issues on an informal basis, according to Giavanna Munafo, a women's and gender studies professor and a diversity and inclusivity educational consultant.
"The point of the Council was to make sure that individuals across the institution who had positions of responsibility could both shape the way that the IDE office was overseeing, managing and supporting diversity and inclusion-related efforts on campus, and also stay informed of activities of the office," Munafo said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Munafo left her position as IDE director of diversity training and educational programs for IDE in Spring 2008 to focus on teaching and community service, she said.
Administrators including deans of the professional schools, College Provost Carol Folt, Executive Vice President Steven Kadish and Institutional and Diversity Equity Vice President Evelynn Ellis will comprise the Council, Kim said.
Kim said the Council would most likely meet early in Spring term to examine the College's current and future diversity plan.
The College is "committed" to creating a "concrete action plan" regarding diversity, Kim said. All divisions of the College have their own plans that have not yet been summarized in a "more focused" single document, Kim said.
An action plan document will be compiled over the next several months, according to Justin Anderson, director of media relations for the College. The Council will present the diversity plan to the Board of Trustees once it is assembled, and the November Board meeting will focus on issues of diversity, Kim said.
David Becker '13, a Student Assembly Committee on Diversity and Community Affairs co-chair, said the administrative proposals demonstrate a "heightened awareness" of student concerns regarding diversity.
Rather than recycling current diversity "jargon," the new plan should include new and innovative ideas, Angelo Carino '11, a member of the Inter-Community Council said.
Students interviewed by The Dartmouth said they noticed that groups concerned with diversity issues had become more vocal in recent weeks.
"I think currently, discussion of diversity is occurring among some groups more than others," Eric Nisenbaum '11 said.
Discussion between different sectors of campus about diversity is limited, according to Mia Winthrop '13.
"I think there's a fair amount of diversity on campus, but it seems like groups don't really mesh and instead stay separate," Winthrop said. "There's not as much interaction between groups as there should be, and people stay in distinct groups."
Faculty and administrator diversity is a student-life issue affecting the accessibility of student resources and the transparency of administrative processes, the other co-chair of the Assembly Committee on Diversity and Community Affairs Amrita Sankar '12 said.
Several students interviewed by The Dartmouth said that the recent resignations of acting Dean of the College Sylvia Spears, Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Students Colleen Larimore '85 and Samantha Ivery, assistant dean of student life, advisor to black students and acting director of the Center for Women and Gender, sparked conversation concerning minority and faculty retention among students.
Uthman Olagoke '11,a member of the search committee for the permanent dean of the College, said it took the resignation of three top-level administrators for students to recognize the effect of diversity on their own student experience.
On Wednesday, the ICC e-mailed a "troubling trends" fact sheet to campus providing information about diversity statistics to help "build awareness" and encourage students to collaborate with administrators to "tackle" issues of diversity. The fact sheet began with information about the recent resignations.
Several students, who spoke on condition of anonymity, disagreed with the concerns of student groups such as the ICC regarding faculty and administrator recruitment. One male member of the Class of 2013 said the College should not attempt to hire faculty on racial considerations while the College is reducing its budget. Another member of the Class of 2013 said the College should never hire on the basis of race.
Former College President James Wright is responsible for much of campus' current diversity makeup, according to Kim.
"I've only been here 18 months," Kim said. "Campus is what it is now because of the great work of the Wright administration."
During Wright's tenure, the College increased the proportion of students of color from 20 percent in 1998 to 30 percent in 2008, according to a College press release issued the day Wright announced his decision to step down as president.
The ongoing process of revising the College's advising system which the College hopes to complete by Fall 2011 is "linked" to issues of diversity, Kim said.
"We want to create an advising system so good that every student who comes here, no matter what their background is, comes to Dartmouth and will reach a level playing ground as quickly as possible," Kim said.
The College plans to expand the First Year Student Enrichment Program a year-long peer mentoring, social and academic enrichment program and make it available to a greater number of students, according to Kim. The College also hosts a five-day pre-Orientation program for first generation students, he said.
At the Faculty of Arts and Sciences general meeting on Monday, Kim said he has been asked to consider Brown University's diversity action plan during recent discussions regarding faculty and administrator diversity.
"It's good, but there's not a lot of specifics," he said. "I believe that we can have even more aggressive goals than Brown has."
Brenda Allen, who currently serves as provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Winston-Salem University, said Brown's plan focused on how diversity influences departmental faculty development, hiring and retention and campus and student life affairs. Allen led the development and implementation of Brown's diversity action plan which was first released in Fall 2006 as the associate provost and director of institutional diversity at Brown at the time.
The document called for periodic reassessments and tracking metrics designed to assess progress and ensure that the plan "was not just written and set on a shelf," according to Allen. The "hands-on" and "personal" nature of recruitment efforts helped both increase both the caliber and diversity of faculty at Brown, she said.
Chris O'Connell '13, a member of the ICC who reviewed Brown's plan, said he was impressed by the plan's specificity. O'Connell said he hopes the College's plan will be specific and include a timeline for the College's goals.
In 2001, Wright created a senior-level administrative position responsible for diversity efforts and in 2007 instituted the vice president for Institutional Diversity and Equity position.
In August 2002, Wright published a strategic plan Dartmouth College: Forever New, A Strategic Vision for Tomorrow in which he outlined efforts to support faculty and enhance student experience.
"A diverse campus is about more than admitting students of color or recruiting a diverse faculty and administration," Wright said in the plan. "It is about creating a climate on campus that is welcoming to all and that encourages our students to respect difference and to learn from each other."
