Statement of Philosophy
Diversity is not a luxury or a rallying cry from a disenfranchised few. Instead it is the urgent and imperative call for survival that resounds throughout nations, corporations, municipalities, villages, institutions and families.
Diversity requires reaching out and pulling in. It forces flexibility upon frozen collective muscles. It reveals our fears and mirrors them back to us. It laughs at our denial. It is asking us to be better than we are.
Diversity is about the demand for talent in our schools and workforce and about meeting the needs and wants of a whole new world. US demographics have shifted and as the white majority ages, the next and future generations increasingly are comprised of women, people of color and immigrants whose homelands are far away.
Diversity demands inclusivity and forces us to build supportive, open, and embracing environments. We will end up doing it, not because it is the 'right thing' to do as humans, but because we have an imperative to do so. This imperative demands deliberate efforts to increase inclusion on all levels of education, organization and business and will grow only if nourished with accountability and steadfastness.
Diversity begins with connection and contact and asks us to step into our discomfort zones to learn to make them comfortable. It urges us to take baby steps a dozen times a day so that we can leap in a year. It asks us to keep our eyes on the prize and hold each other accountable. Connection, development and retention are the means to grow our students and retain them.
The goal of diversity must be held greatly by the powerful and the mighty along with the marginalized and the powerless. It will not take one without the other and it must be engrained into our culture. Diversity must become who we are.
Diversity and inclusion are everyone’s responsibilities and must include diversity in all of its forms—race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, age, physical challenges, vision and ideas- and it must always about excellence.
The alchemy created from diverse experiences and points of views will produce the imaginative ideas that our schools need to survive and serve their communities. I believe that as an educator and individual I must work to prepare our students for lives of leadership and service in a pluralistic society and changing world. It is my responsibility to assist in awakening each member of the community to understanding the benefits, discords, controversies, and crossroads that are inherent in diversity.
Ultimately, diversity is a fundamental human value I acquired from my homeland of Trinidad, West Indies. From childhood on, diversity has been the currency of my survival and success.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Graduating Black Undergraduates
I was recently re-reading a piece by Williams & Leonard (1988) on graduating Black undergraduates. It is interesting that we, 21 years on, are still struggling mightily with this issue - whereas some schools like Stanford (84%) and Northwestern (75%) seem to have it all figured out. I’ve chosen those two schools because (a) Northwestern has a comparable percentage, and (b) Stanford has much higher numbers of African American students that we. Harvard’s success rate is in the mid-nineties, but they have such smaller numbers of African American students than we do.
The authors note that “The problem of retention of Blacks seems no longer to be solely a question of retention but, rather, of academic progress toward graduation in their major fields of study.” A review of the most recent data within our System gives signature to this challenge. African American and Latino students are more likely to require remediation in requisite math and courses, and are more likely to be unsuccessful at these remediation efforts (see UW-Oshkosh Equity Scorecard data). On face value the fact that I am citing a twenty-one year old paper and we seem to be stuck in neutral should give us pause. However, know that Williams & Leonard probably did not use our schools as their data profile. Our schools may not, at that time, have moved to the state of acknowledging this as a challenge. Our recognition may be more recent. Our need to recognize may be more recent. In fact, there are many school districts in Wisconsin where there are no African American students. For the vast majority of my academic career, I was the only student of color in my classes. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it.
However, that we are now fully aware and have been for some time, offers three points of review.
1. It is as we would like it to be. We argue, we feign concern, and we do the dance only insomuch as the cameras are on. There is a benefit, to us, in both the dance and the retention of status.
2. If the challenge is truly the gateway courses, as has been suggested for a subset of our population, then a critical review of the need for those “gateway” courses might be in order. If they lend nothing substantial to the degree, other than being a gate, then move the gate. Put a bridge.
3. With a remediation course, you are trying to move a student from point -5 to a point +2, using the former as a point of knowing very little or nothing, and the latter as a point of minimal academic readiness. If we are unsuccessful at moving sufficient numbers of African American and Latino students from point “a” to point “b” (despite non-academic struggles) it suggests that those students have had poor readiness within the K-12 environment.
As a point of discussion, I will reject #1, despite its very realness. Number 1 is very, very real but if we find ourselves in a discussion about #1, we enter into an emotionally laden vortex with very few data points as landmarks to base our argument on. Additionally, we want, at all costs, to avoid arguing. We want to encourage discussion on and of the data. It is hard to pull data on #1, so let’s put that aside for now. However, if another twenty years passes and we are still sitting right here discussing the same issues, checkout #1. Number 1 will be your default position. Know also, that under any discussion around student recruitment, retention, and success lies an analysis of costs and benefits…the costs of doing something/nothing/very little, versus the benefits that may accrue to us for doing nothing/something/very little. I am not denying the moral imperative here. I am simply stating the fact that we have a university to run, a board to appease, and big donors to keep “happy.” So as we present on preparing our students for tomorrow and the diverse world they will have to learn to navigate, never lose sight of the dollars and making some sense of it.
Moving on.
#2: Is there data to suggest that students who succeed at these gateway courses are statistically more likely to continue on to graduation? In essence, is there something about the structure of these courses that offers us insight into the students’ ability to matriculate successfully? Is there a high enough positive correlation between passing these courses and matriculation that we should hold status for everybody, despite field of study? If the answer is an unequivocal “yes”, then let’s hold. If the answer is “maybe”, let’s review. Let’s see if there is another gate that’s possible.
#3: This is about us putting pressure on, not just complaining about or just having meetings with, our K-12 feeders. If we are their outlets of prestige, then we must take more control in product development. There are three ways to take control of product development. The first would be our participating in the schools (see PEOPLE program; see Posse program; see Information Technology Academy). These programs need to be cleaned-up but that is the general idea. The second is to start a charter school. We compete directly with the school district. Let them complain if they want. We make our own feeder school. After much complaining and chagrin, I promise they will magically begin to produce better products. Works every time. Even just the threat works. The third is to search for schools, within and without our district which focuses on an area of technology or business that we want to promote ourselves in. For example, if Whitewater focuses on business, and Stout focuses on fabric and design, then we locate schools that teach with those as central themes. There may be a school in Florida, or North Carolina. We make those schools our little sisters.
Moving on #3 does a lot for us. It actually affects #2 also. It saves us investment while putting pressure on our current providers. It markets us to a wider audience and moves us as the school-of-choice for business or technology or whatever we choose to focus on. This way, we can choose diversity as a starting point, or develop diversity as the relationship develops. We also move our graduation rates without all the drama we’re dealing with right now.
The authors note that “The problem of retention of Blacks seems no longer to be solely a question of retention but, rather, of academic progress toward graduation in their major fields of study.” A review of the most recent data within our System gives signature to this challenge. African American and Latino students are more likely to require remediation in requisite math and courses, and are more likely to be unsuccessful at these remediation efforts (see UW-Oshkosh Equity Scorecard data). On face value the fact that I am citing a twenty-one year old paper and we seem to be stuck in neutral should give us pause. However, know that Williams & Leonard probably did not use our schools as their data profile. Our schools may not, at that time, have moved to the state of acknowledging this as a challenge. Our recognition may be more recent. Our need to recognize may be more recent. In fact, there are many school districts in Wisconsin where there are no African American students. For the vast majority of my academic career, I was the only student of color in my classes. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it.
However, that we are now fully aware and have been for some time, offers three points of review.
1. It is as we would like it to be. We argue, we feign concern, and we do the dance only insomuch as the cameras are on. There is a benefit, to us, in both the dance and the retention of status.
2. If the challenge is truly the gateway courses, as has been suggested for a subset of our population, then a critical review of the need for those “gateway” courses might be in order. If they lend nothing substantial to the degree, other than being a gate, then move the gate. Put a bridge.
3. With a remediation course, you are trying to move a student from point -5 to a point +2, using the former as a point of knowing very little or nothing, and the latter as a point of minimal academic readiness. If we are unsuccessful at moving sufficient numbers of African American and Latino students from point “a” to point “b” (despite non-academic struggles) it suggests that those students have had poor readiness within the K-12 environment.
As a point of discussion, I will reject #1, despite its very realness. Number 1 is very, very real but if we find ourselves in a discussion about #1, we enter into an emotionally laden vortex with very few data points as landmarks to base our argument on. Additionally, we want, at all costs, to avoid arguing. We want to encourage discussion on and of the data. It is hard to pull data on #1, so let’s put that aside for now. However, if another twenty years passes and we are still sitting right here discussing the same issues, checkout #1. Number 1 will be your default position. Know also, that under any discussion around student recruitment, retention, and success lies an analysis of costs and benefits…the costs of doing something/nothing/very little, versus the benefits that may accrue to us for doing nothing/something/very little. I am not denying the moral imperative here. I am simply stating the fact that we have a university to run, a board to appease, and big donors to keep “happy.” So as we present on preparing our students for tomorrow and the diverse world they will have to learn to navigate, never lose sight of the dollars and making some sense of it.
Moving on.
#2: Is there data to suggest that students who succeed at these gateway courses are statistically more likely to continue on to graduation? In essence, is there something about the structure of these courses that offers us insight into the students’ ability to matriculate successfully? Is there a high enough positive correlation between passing these courses and matriculation that we should hold status for everybody, despite field of study? If the answer is an unequivocal “yes”, then let’s hold. If the answer is “maybe”, let’s review. Let’s see if there is another gate that’s possible.
#3: This is about us putting pressure on, not just complaining about or just having meetings with, our K-12 feeders. If we are their outlets of prestige, then we must take more control in product development. There are three ways to take control of product development. The first would be our participating in the schools (see PEOPLE program; see Posse program; see Information Technology Academy). These programs need to be cleaned-up but that is the general idea. The second is to start a charter school. We compete directly with the school district. Let them complain if they want. We make our own feeder school. After much complaining and chagrin, I promise they will magically begin to produce better products. Works every time. Even just the threat works. The third is to search for schools, within and without our district which focuses on an area of technology or business that we want to promote ourselves in. For example, if Whitewater focuses on business, and Stout focuses on fabric and design, then we locate schools that teach with those as central themes. There may be a school in Florida, or North Carolina. We make those schools our little sisters.
Moving on #3 does a lot for us. It actually affects #2 also. It saves us investment while putting pressure on our current providers. It markets us to a wider audience and moves us as the school-of-choice for business or technology or whatever we choose to focus on. This way, we can choose diversity as a starting point, or develop diversity as the relationship develops. We also move our graduation rates without all the drama we’re dealing with right now.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)