RIGS (Race, Indigeneity, Gender, & Sexuality) Proposal CLA Diversity Initiative – Working Draft

December 2014 Authored by: Jigna Desai, Chair of Gender Women and Sexuality Studies Keith Mayes, Chair of African American and African Studies Kevin Murphy, Chair of American Studies Jean O’Brien, Chair of American Indian Studies Lisa S. Park, Director of Asian American Studies Edén Torres, Chair of Chicano and Latino Studies Introduction Diversity is stated as a high priority for CLA in its annual compact with the university and in the CLA 2015 report. Diversity has also been identified as an important component of the strategic plan. However, diversity initiatives in the college and university have often been piecemeal in their attempt to address issues. We offer several recommendations on how to best develop and integrate diversity initiatives at all levels in the college. A vision for diversity should be long­term and go beyond the single hire. It must think broadly from the undergraduate and graduate levels to faculty. Diversity is critical to the college and university as it coincides with and addresses many key goals of the university including building a college that addresses important societal challenges; educates and empowers undergraduate and graduate student leaders to create intellectual and societal transformation; prepares students to live in a global Midwest through a curriculum that exposes them to non­dominant ways of knowing; produces and transfers knowledge for the public good; creates collaborative and cooperative partnerships across units within and outside of college and university; and/or integrates research, teaching, and community engagement. We propose a multi­tiered ambitious initiative, which leverage the knowledge, experience, and infrastructure that already exist on campus, to create an integrated and visionary approach to diversity within CLA. We would like to stress that this is a draft proposal to initiate structural change and is not intended as a finalized plan. And, while this proposal develops collaboration among the departments and programs represented by the authors, we also share the objective of maintaining the intellectual and administrative autonomy of each academic unit. The overall goal is to bolster the tenuous diversity efforts of the college and university through the stabilization and growth of these academic units, which have been working on these issues as their core intellectual mission for years, and for some, decades. We recognize that the scope of this proposal is beyond the current resources of CLA, and thus we call on the President and Provost to also bring resources to realize these initiatives as part of the University’s commitment to realizing the Diversity Framework’s plan for building capacity (see Executive Summary at

https://diversity.umn.edu/sites/default/files/UofM%20E%26D%20Vision%20Framework%20%26%20Implementation%20Update%202012.pdf) We look forward to moving ahead and working with the many faculty, student and staff at the University of Minnesota who are committed to working on these long awaited changes. Initial Recommendations

1. Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, Gender, and Sexuality (RIGS). We request programming funds, staff support, and shared space/offices to highlight and support the important work on diversity, inequality, and social justice currently happening in CLA and the University and to build upon this infrastructure in meaningful and generative ways. Our goal is to establish a recognizable intellectual center that builds upon the interdisciplinary strengths of the individual units ­­ Afro­American and African Studies, American Studies, American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies, Chican@ and Latino@ Studies, and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. We envision a structure in which autonomy within each unit is intact, at the same time that collaboration across units is encouraged. Toward this end, the unique contribution and constituents of each unit require institutional support in order to facilitate open collaboration across these and other units that will enhance visibility of CLA, provide critical interdisciplinary curriculum, promote local community engagement, develop intersectional collaborative projects, and teach different epistemologies that focus on diversity and its accompanying issues of equality and justice. In addition, we propose a web­based RIGS Digest that will translate and disseminate relevant CLA research for diverse public constituents. The RIGS Digest and webpage will provide the press and local communities with updates on research from our faculty and graduate students, as well as respond to local, national, and global events with informed commentary based in scholarship produced in and across our fields.

2. Faculty of Color Cluster Hire. CLA must invest in those areas that value diversity and have best practices for hiring, retaining, and promoting faculty of color. Diverse hiring is more likely to be successful when pursued through institutional intervention strategies created at the college or university level, such as target of opportunity hiring, out­of­cycle hiring, and cluster hiring. It is imperative to grow faculty within African­American and African Studies; American Studies; American Indian Studies; Asian American Studies; Chicano and Latino Studies; and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies­­in conjunction with other disciplines­­to recruit diverse faculty. Research from the past two decades strongly suggests that critical mass matters in terms of retention. Cluster

hiring is of particular importance because it can bring in a cohort, reducing the chance of isolation and overload. Cluster hiring initiatives create intellectual vibrancy, productivity, and community in ways that far exceed what can be achieved by individual hires; the sum is, indeed, greater than its parts. Hiring more diverse faculty from underrepresented groups makes it more likely that undergraduate and graduate students will find support from qualified faculty members.

3. Graduate Students of Color Retention and Recruitment • Additional support for diverse graduate students through fellowship opportunities. Studies continue to show that graduate students of color have difficulty finding faculty mentors or advisers who support their academic interests, particularly when those interests involve issues of power, culture and social identity. The DOVE is one mechanism that facilitates the recruitment of graduate students of color. Additional graduate fellowships be made available that allow graduate students to be affiliated or “in residence” in the RIGS Consortium. • Graduate certificate in Race, Indigeneity, Gender and Sexuality Studies. This certificate would be available to graduate and professional students who are located throughout the University. Training would provide students in professional and academic graduate tracks to benefit from the wealth of cultural, historical, methodological, and theoretical work done in RIGS departments, and provide them with a credential that would make them attractive to future employers within and outside academia.

4. Undergraduate Students of Color Retention and Recruitment • Expand efforts to recruit and retain diverse student population. Expand pipeline programs to bring minority high school students to the University and create links between faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students, and high school students. Through community outreach and an ongoing mentoring program, we hope to increase retention and preparation of students for their undergraduate and graduate educations by working more closely with the Presidential Emerging Scholars program. We can learn from initiatives at other state universities, such as the University of Maryland­B.C. Meyerhoff program. Demographics indicate that the state is changing. People of color constitute 37% and 40% of the populations of Minneapolis and St. Paul respectively. These numbers are increasing. • Implement a First Year Experience course entitled “The 99%,” developed and offered through a collaboration of RIGS units. The course will introduce students to scholarship and publicly engaged knowledge production on difference and inequality in the region and state, as well as in national and international contexts. • Develop an advising model that encourages minors and double majors that promote diversity objectives. This model will provide resources for advisers from large majors (i.e. Psychology, Sociology, Economics, English, Communications,

Journalism) and other colleges (i.e. Carlson, Nursing, CEHD) to encourage students to pursue undergraduate minors and double majors that will prepare them for a diverse and globalized world. This should coincide with an effort by the College to diversify the advising staff.

5. Fully Fund Outreach Coordinator positions. Outreach Coordinators will serve

as liaisons connecting the community to CLA’s teaching, service, and research resources. They will also assist with the recruitment and retention of diverse and excellent undergraduate students to CLA by establishing relationships with schools, workplaces, after school programs, service agencies and local community colleges to increase awareness of the University's Multicultural Excellence Program.