St. Thomas administrators give updates on areas of the action plan they are responsible for. Students, faculty and staff attended USG’s Town Hall event on March 6. (Samantha HoangLong/TommieMedia)
The St. Thomas community gathered to talk with administrators about the university’s action plan to combat racism on March 6 in the Anderson Student Center’s Dorsey Commons.
The Action Plan Town Hall, sponsored by the Undergraduate Student Government and co-facilitated by Student Body President Bisrat Bayou and Vice President of Diversity Malcolm Lawson, allowed a panel of administrators to discuss with students the different steps the university is taking to focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
“I think our university is at a really important moment in time,” President Julie Sullivan said. “Clearly there have been times in our history, as Malcolm pointed out, that we have experienced blatant, blatant racist acts occurring on our campus.”
Sullivan was referring to the recent discovery of blackface photos in St. Thomas archives and the hate crime this past fall.
“Racism still exists on our campus,” she said.
Student Feedback
During the question portion of the event, many students raised complaints about a disconnect between the St. Paul campus and the Dougherty Family College. Located in downtown Minneapolis, DFC is St. Thomas’s two-year program designed for students who ultimately aspire to obtain a four-year degree.
First-year DFC student Daniel Pope expressed that many DFC students do not feel welcome on the St. Paul campus despite the fact that they are constantly told they should consider transferring to the four-year university.
“St. Thomas, the four year, is like the big sister to Dougherty Family Program,” Pope said. “And we shouldn’t have to wait until we’re done with that program to feel like we belong at St. Thomas.”
President Julie Sullivan said the disconnect is something that must be overcome if the university truly wants to make all students feel included.
“In my view, you’re a Tommie,” Sullivan said. “You were a Tommie the day you walked on our campus, and you’ll always be a Tommie for the rest of your life. But we have to do a better job of making you feel that way.”
DFC Student Body President Mesum Haider encouraged the panel of administrators to visit the DFC more.
“We have a very different culture. And studying culture is nice, but experiencing is a whole nother thing,” Haider said, pointing out the fact that the majority of DFC students are people of color.
Students on the St. Paul campus agreed. Senior Amira Warren-Yearby explained that students in St. Paul are unaware of DFC’s schedule and vice versa, making it difficult for DFC students to get involved in on-campus activities.
Warren-Yearby also requested that an allyship program be implemented at the university to allow students the necessary resources to support others.
“We need to take action, but we don’t really know what it means to be a good ally for the different communities that are surrounding St. Thomas,” Warren-Yearby said.
As the president of BESA, she feels like this burden to educate students falls on the diversity clubs.
“There isn’t that platform for white students to know about allyship, like not coming to all of our BESA meetings and taking up half the space,” Warren-Yearby said, “And it doesn’t mean that we don’t want you there or we hate you, it’s just that sometimes we just need spaces for healing.”
Students recognized some of the work being done to educate students on inclusivity, specifically in the College of Arts and Sciences and School of Education, but wondered if anything similar was being done in other schools within the university.
“Full disclosure, those two schools have black deans,” Lawson said, referring to the CAS and School of Education. “What are some of the steps being taken in our other schools, such as our School of Engineering, our business school? Which, if I’m not mistaken, are our two highest number of students in those colleges.”
Vice Provost Rob Riley responded by saying exact plans within the different schools is to be decided but “there are concrete efforts (being made) in each school or college.”
Sophomore Tiaryn Daniels was curious how the university hopes to encourage students, specifically in the Opus College of Business, to take courses focused on diversity and inclusivity that they normally wouldn’t think to take.
Ann Johnson, associate vice provost for faculty advancement, said she knows that OCB staff “are engaged in pretty intense discussions right now with all their faculty, looking at this whole issue of inclusivity, and how can they really infuse it throughout their entire curriculum and in the classroom.”
She encouraged students to try to start a dialogue by asking their professors questions about diversity and inclusivity.
Warren-Yearby and Daniels both asked how the university plans to hold staff accountable beyond the required anti-bias training.
Johnson said in her experience she has yet to run into someone who is “resistant” to the training, but if someone refuses to participate, it will factor into their yearly faculty evaluation.
“In my view, I don’t think we do a good enough job of rewarding faculty who spend time and energy on these kinds of projects,” Johnson said. “And so we need to be reflecting that as a priority by building it into how we evaluate people who are in the classroom everyday.”
An overwhelming theme among students was the desire to be a more inclusive and educated university. They recognize the value in holding peers, professors and administrators accountable for their actions.
Administration Updates
USG invited specific administrators to attend and give updates on areas of the action plan for which they are responsible for.
President Julie Sullivan talked about the university’s short and long-term budget plan which includes re-allocating department resources to better serve underrepresented students. Examples of this include the opening of the Intercultural Center, the screening of the “American Textures” documentary and the implementation of DEI training first for administrators and department chairs, and eventually all faculty.
A new Associate Vice President for Inclusive Excellence will be hired to facilitate an external assessment to see how the university compares to other universities and organizations with regard to DEI. More resources have been put toward the Excel! Research Scholars program.
The university is also looking at its financial aid policies to see how students are awarded and make sure the newly introduced two-year residency requirement is equally accessible to all students.
Sullivan encouraged students to continue communicating with her and other administrators about changes they want to see on campus.
“I continue to invite you to give us more feedback to how we can better communicate,” Sullivan said. “Because that is always a challenge.”
Amy McDonough, chief of staff to the office of the president, discussed the university’s new anti-bias reporting system to make it easier for students, faculty and staff to report racist acts, should they occur.
There will also be required anti-bias training for first year students, similar to the sexual assault training.
Karen Lange, vice president of Student Affairs, talked about improving trauma resources for students, which includes hiring a multicultural specialist who will be involved in Student Diversity and Inclusion Services and will be available as a counselor in Counseling and Psychological Services.
She also encouraged students to continue spending time in the recently opened intercultural center.
Lange said she hopes this can be “a space for students to be, a space to connect, a space for education, a space for some conversations around identity.”
Aaron Macke, associate dean of students and director of Residence Life, talked about Residence Life’s goals related to the climate within the university’s residence halls. Their approach includes updating the “systems, policies and processes” to make halls more welcoming for all students, places for learning and engaging and where students can have challenging conversations with one another.
“The residence halls are one thing that students look at as they’re selecting an institution so we worked with admissions to integrate language into all acceptance letters about expectations around doing diversity and inclusion work,” Macke said.
Ann Johnson, associate vice provost for faculty advancement, discussed how the university is working toward creating a critical incident toolkit online for faculty.
“By the end of the school year, all full-time faculty will have engaged with an online implicit bias tool to encourage self-awareness about implicit bias,” Johnson said.
She also talked about how the university is exploring ways to hire and retain diverse faculty.
“We’re looking at how can we retain our diverse faculty once they get here and make sure they feel totally welcome and supported as faculty members at St. Thomas,” Johnson said.
Rob Riley, vice provost, spoke about how the university plans to implement the new core curriculum to make diversity and inclusion and social justice flagged courses more accessible for students. On a more personal note, he left students with some encouragement.
“Be your authentic selves,” Riley said. “Build alliances, work hard. There are a lot of people in the world that are here to help you work together and figure out some really tough things.”
Kymm Martinez, vice president of Marketing, Insights and Communication, talked about the university’s intentions toward the anti-hate campaign from the fall. She explained that the university was not saying all problems can be fixed with a campaign, but rather people can show their support and solidarity by taking part.
“We understand that a marketing campaign is not in any way going to help with the full solution of what we need here at St. Thomas,” Martinez said.
They are currently focused on “marketing diversity with integrity.” This includes striving to represent, but not over-represent, the diversity of the university; recognizing that diversity varies throughout different parts of the university including colleges, clubs and teams; being transparent with students, faculty and staff about the planned uses of their image and discussing with people the purpose of their image, allowing them to back away if they want to.
“We are also going to put a button on our page where if you feel like your particular image is being over-represented or you want to give us feedback on any element of our marketing campaign, you can do that,” Martinez said.
Al Cotrone, vice president of enrollment management, spoke about how the university will be increasing the number of Dease Scholarships they will give out to incoming students and have added a sentence in acceptance letters that explicitly states the expectations St. Thomas has of its students regarding acceptance and respect for all people.
He applauded the way students have responded to recent events and communicated with administrators, saying it has given recruiters things they can talk about with people outside St. Thomas.
“We can reference our community and how it reacts, and what it does, and who is not welcome here and what we stand for,” Cotrone said.
Michelle Thom, associate vice president for Human Resources, discussed that the university will be adding information to its job postings regarding the importance of diversity and inclusion and making sure student employment opportunities are equally accessible to all students.
“We knew we needed to make some changes in order to get more of our students into student employee opportunities,” Thom said.
Kat Barrett can be reached at barr1289@stthomas.edu.