During a listening session about the state of diversity and inclusion on the Syracuse University campus, students, staff and faculty members made one thing clear: the university needs to do more to combat institutional bias.

About 150 members of the SU community gathered in Goldstein Auditorium on Monday for a listening session organized by the Chancellor’s Working Group on Diversity and Inclusion. Attendees were asked to share their perspectives on how diversity and inclusion can be improved on campus with the 23-member working group.

Chancellor Kent Syverud announced the formation of the working group on Sept. 28. The group plans to submit recommendations to the chancellor in March 2016.

Specifically, the session attendees suggested to the working group that more money and resources be allocated in the budget for programs that promote diversity and inclusion, funding for POSSE scholarships, a way for tutoring to be free for students, a freshman orientation program that discusses race and a mechanism for students to input their preferred names and pronouns to MySlice.

During the listening session, though, a few attendees took issue with the phrase “diversity and inclusion” and said they wanted the working group to reevaluate its goals.

Valeria Martinez, associate director for mentoring programs and diversity education in the Office of Multicultural Affairs, said having a diverse campus does not go far enough.

“There is diversity on campus; we’re just not inclusive of it,” she said. “We lack the social justice infrastructure to support and embrace the diversity that’s already here.”

A Canadian student said during freshman orientation, international students were encouraged to “get out of their comfort zone” and interact with American students. She said something needs to be done about the double standard that exists between international and American students.

A faculty member in the department of communications and rhetorical studies also said the environment for international students is indicative of deeper institutional problems. She recalled a faculty meeting where international students were “framed as a problem that needed to be solved.”

Many international students and faculty spoke about the importance of diverse hiring. One faculty member suggested search committees be required to have a diverse group of candidates in their final pool.

“There should be no choice,” he said.

Diverse faculty and diversity training, another student said, will give support to students on campus — especially in the classroom — who deal with microaggressions on a regular basis.

The student recalled one of these microaggressions, in which a professor touched her hair without asking, held one of her braids and said, “You don’t even need beads on the end of this.”

In response to many similar experiences of microaggressions shared by attendees, one student said microaggressions do not exist without systemic oppression in the first place.

“We have to look beyond microaggressions,” she said.

After the session, a member of the working group said the group has already had similar discussions and a mechanism that allows students to put their preferred names and pronouns into MySlice is “in the works.”

Published on December 8, 2015 at 12:04 am

Contact Rachel: rsandler@syr.edu