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President Norton's Letter to Campus

Dear Campus Community,

More than 400 faculty, staff and students participated in focus groups and task forces fall semester to begin shaping a campus-wide diversity initiative. As the focus groups discussed perceptions about diversity on our campus, two questions emerged repeatedly. “Why are we doing this?” and “Will this really make a difference?” I’d like to share my thoughts on those two questions.

Foremost, the diversity initiative is about fostering a campus climate that is inclusive and welcoming of all students, faculty and staff. Many of us are committed to having this kind of climate at the University of Northern Colorado, and the diversity initiative offers a way to combine our efforts. Not only do we have an obligation to prepare students with the skills and experience they need to live and work in a diverse and global society; we also have the potential to be a national model for diversity in higher education.

As we’ve heard in Charting the Future discussions, subsequent self-study reports and the recent focus groups, we face some challenges regarding diversity. For example, we aren’t retaining or graduating students at the rates we would like to be. We also know that as a university, we’re not immune to the tensions in our community related to diversity and ethnicity.

I am committed to making the diversity initiative an organic and evolving process. In fact, I believe that learning and adjusting as we go is crucial to its success. We’ve already begun to use some of what we learned from the fall focus groups. Faculty and staff have even greater expertise and willingness to lend it to the initiative than we initially realized. So this semester, we’ll be tapping into faculty expertise rather than relying on outside consultants. Kim Black will also be “on loan” from the Provost’s Office to manage the initiative.

Several activities will help build on the work that faculty, staff and students are already doing. We will administer a campus climate survey to help us better understand the extent to which there is bias on our campus. The Provost will also be issuing a request for proposals on diversity related research about pedagogy, student learning and learning outcomes. During Academic Excellence Week, we will showcase the wealth of activities already underway at a Diversity Symposium.

We’ve created a website with information about the diversity initiative at http://www.unco.edu/diversity. I hope you will be part of the conversation this semester.

Sincerely,
Kay Norton