INTRODUCTION
This document describes the actions that will be undertaken during the period 1998–2003 to strengthen Penn State’s efforts to promote diversity as an essential ingredient in its quest for greater excellence. As Penn State positions itself to strengthen its role as an international leader in higher education for the twenty-first century, we must understand the parallel necessity to accelerate the process of self-transformation into a multicultural institution. This is not simply our own self-understanding, rather it is a perspective shared by all of the institutions belonging to the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC). The CIC statement entitled, "Advancing Diversity, Achieving Excellence," issued in May 1996 cogently states the challenge as follows:
"American institutions of higher education . . . face the challenge of preparing students to live and work in an increasingly diverse society in which cultural knowledge and understanding are more important than ever before. To meet this challenge, the universities of the CIC must educate students from all segments of society and must provide those students with a meaningful exposure to cultures other than their own."
The basic thrust of Penn State’s efforts over the next five years will be to increase the synergies between diversity initiatives and the other missions and goals set forth in the University’s strategic planning framework. Penn State’s leadership understands clearly that experiencing diversity is a component of a high quality educational experience for students, and further, that to achieve excellence in research and service it is also imperative to foster a greater diversity of perspectives and backgrounds among students, faculty, and staff. This understanding has been expressed in two important documents. First, the University’s strategic planning framework articulates the goal for Penn State to become "a caring University community that provides leadership for constructive participation in a diverse, multicultural world." Second, and more recently, the University Board of Trustees overwhelmingly reaffirmed its commitment to Penn State’s existing diversity initiatives through the adoption of a formal resolution of support (October 1996).
While Penn State’s commitments reflect internal decisions regarding the requisites for excellence, it is also important to keep in mind that such efforts are legally required. Public institutions within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have a special responsibility in
this regard related to ongoing efforts to comply with desegregation mandates from the U.S. Department of Education. No determination has yet been made as to whether the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has fulfilled the requirements of its previous (1983–88) desegregation plan. A review is currently underway that will likely lead to the development of a new desegregation plan. This plan will mandate expanded efforts on the part of Pennsylvania’s public colleges and universities, including Penn State.
While the imperatives that lead Penn State to enhance its diversity efforts are clear to many, there are, at the same time, increasing political and legal challenges to certain types of programs designed to foster educational equity. Penn State’s response has been to refine and modify its programs to ensure compliance with all legal guidelines. But more important is our internal commitment to institutional and public accountability, which emphasizes efficient use of resources and establishing concrete measures of progress. Evidence of this perspective is provided by our groundbreaking efforts to explore the natural linkages between continuous quality improvement and diversity initiatives. As an illustration, we hosted a conference in fall 1997 entitled, "Best Practices in Diversity," which brought together teams from CIC institutions, private corporations, and the public sector to share information about the most effective strategies to achieve diversity objectives.
In the present contentious climate, the resolution adopted by the University Board of Trustees is especially noteworthy. This resolution reaffirms the collective assessment of this country’s major educational leaders that enhanced diversity initiatives are an absolute necessity for continuing prosperity and social stability. Where will "leadership for constructive participation in a diverse, multicultural world" be cultivated if not in the academy?
Higher education is uniquely challenged by changing national and regional demographics. As student populations become increasingly diverse, colleges and universities are expected to create and maintain a healthy learning environment among students, many of whom have had few opportunities in the past to develop familiarity with other cultures. As a consequence, campuses are facing growing interpersonal and intergroup conflicts that often lead to expressions of intolerance. In Pennsylvania, this phenomenon led to the establishment of the Pennsylvania Task Force on Intergroup Relations in 1991 to explore this problem in depth. The focus in Pennsylvania reflects, in part, the state’s specific demographic characteristics and political culture. Pennsylvania is the least diverse of the six largest states and is, by far, the most rural. It also has more hate groups than any other state.
Despite these barriers relative progress is reflected in Penn State’s enrollment figures. Fall 1997 minority enrollments surpassed 10 percent of the total student population for the first time. Our African American student population of 2,836 and our Hispanic student population of 1,539 represent new records. Our total minority student enrollment of 7,721 is an all-time high.
At the same time there is clearly room for improvement. Among undergraduate degrees conferred in 1995–96 (the most recent data available through the CIC), only 8.7 percent were awarded to minority students, ranking us ninth out of twelve CIC schools. We had greater success at the masters level where we awarded 13 percent of our degrees to minorities, ranking us seventh in the CIC. In awarding masters degrees to African Americans we ranked fifth. At the doctoral level, 15.4 percent of our degrees were earned by minorities (CIC rank: 7).
There are many other measures of success we can point to as outcomes of our efforts to date. We receive annual recognition as one of the top twenty-five producers of graduates from historically underrepresented groups in several fields. A number of our academic support programs are nationally-renowned. We are one of the few institutions of higher education authorized to operate all of the federally-funded programs for disadvantaged students. For nearly twenty-five years, our comprehensive program for veterans has stood as a model for other institutions to emulate. And Penn State provides the greatest institutional support for diverse religious expression of any public institution in the country. However, as noted above, there is substantial room for improvement.
Penn State will be expected to play an even greater role in the Commonwealth’s diversity enhancement efforts as the new system configuration is implemented. Our special role is derivative of both our land-grant mission and our absolute size, which contributes to the fact that Penn State enrolls the largest number of students of color of any institution in the Commonwealth. In addition, potential employers of our students are increasingly challenging us to produce a more diverse group of graduates AND to ensure that ALL students acquire solid cross-cultural communication skills while at Penn State. This will require both refinement of the existing curricula, including the encouragement of course development, certification options, and research projects in emerging fields that have the potential to broaden students’ understanding of diversity.
The action plans presented in this document are designed to build upon our strengths in ways that improve outcomes. We seek improvement not only in areas for which traditional measures of progress are readily available, such as group representation and retention and graduation rates, but also in less quantifiable dimensions of a multicultural environment such as the quality of the climate in which all members of the University community work or pursue their educational goals. This will necessitate increasing the responsibilities of all units to build broader ownership in the multicultural transformation process.
The process that initiated development of this document began in 1994 when each college, administrative unit, and campus was mandated to prepare a diversity strategic plan to promote equity for its faculty, staff, and students. This document addresses continuing challenges that are common to many units and for which the efforts of individual units are insufficient to resolve. The specific challenges discussed herein are: (1) Developing a Shared and Inclusive Understanding of Diversity; (2) Creating a Welcoming Campus Climate; (3) Recruiting and Retaining a Diverse Student Body; (4) Recruiting and Retaining a Diverse Workforce; (5) Developing a Curriculum That Supports the Goals of Our New General Education Plan; (6) Diversifying University Leadership and Management; and (7) Coordinating Organizational Change to Support Our Diversity Goals.
Addressing these challenges effectively requires centralized coordination because, in the end, the creation of a truly diverse and multicultural Penn State will require a collective understanding that the whole is greater than simply the sum of the many parts. To address the "continuing challenges" will require the commitment of the entire University community. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." It is as a community that Penn State must address the challenges of the future, for it is only as a community that we will be able to meet them.