Now Available Vol 107(2) of the AAUP's Academe Magazine and its Vision for an Academic "New Deal"

 

 

Spring 2021 | Vol. 107, No. 2

Times of crisis always seem to bring out that fundamental and powerful human response of looking back toward a golden age, whose re-establishment in contemporary form is thought to be essential for successfully overcoming crisis. The darker the present, the more powerful the urge to look to the past for the ideal that the future is tasked to recapture.

Al societies appear to have a golden age somewhere in their cultural back pocket--and sometimes elements of society, important social actors, have very specific eddies of "gold" that they can mine within these rapidly receding times that look better and better as they move farther and farther from out experiences. 

So it is with the world of the American academic community.  In the face of a crisis, and the likley end of a century of more of less stable ideals of university education, a crisis with respect to which  there is more than enough complicity to go around involving all of the academy's major stakeholders, even the complicit can look back and seek to replicate in modern form the essence of a past age which in retrospect now looks so appealing. 

To that end, the American academy has sought solace in the Great Depression, and in the transformative changes that occurred then (judged in the rear view mirror of time of course) --now transposed in ways that are acceptable to modern sensibilities, to the contemporary age and its contemporary problems.   Thus Academe's marvelously valuable Vol. 107(2).  Whether or not one is open to the vision that its many essays develop, the volume itself serves as an extraordinary testimony not just to the times, but also to the passing of an age.  And it is in the shadow of the hope that these essays advance, that one might see the darker forms of what actually lies ahead for the American academy. Links to the articles follow below.

Leonard M. Baynes: Remembering Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 Librado Romero / New York Times

 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg touched many of our lives.  For some the connection was personal, for others as a consequence of her leadership in the academy and then as a judge and then justice.  Many have written about those connections. I was most touched by that written by my classmate and now dean of the University of Houston Law Center, Leonard M. Baynes.  Professor Ginsburg and Professor Kellis Parker, were and remain, as Dean Baynes notes, godsends for many of us. They remain so.

 With his permission I have re-posted his beautiful tribute and remembrance.

 

Diversity in Silence: A Look Back To Diversity Reform Now Forgotten at Penn State University

I have not commented on the recent, and potentially quite profoundly transformative, movements to center diversity generally, and the African American experience in particular, in the American University. Penn State University, like many other similarly situated university institutions, has now sought to intensely engage with the issues that have become once again passionately current in the United States.  On 10 June 2020, "Penn State President Eric Barron issued a statement . . . outlining steps the university will take to address instances of racism, bias, and religious intolerance within its community." (President Barron Outlines Penn State’s Actions Against Racism, Hate Speech).

Given the nature of events, and the very short time cohorts of students have an intense engagement with the university, for many this may seem new and long overdue.  For faculty, many of whom have been insulated from events increasingly shunted behind the closed doors of "leadership teams" and the closed cultures of emerging university bureaucratic practices, the extent of university efforts to confront issues of inclusion may well seem somewhat removed fro their lives--and certainly from the center of their shared governance experiences.  

For the ever growing administrative superstructure, and its increasingly distinct and remote operational ideologues, the issue of diversity has been treated as one of many on a large platter of issues , the importance of which might have been measured by the risk it poses.  The reason for that, of course, is that at the heart of emerging ideologies of university governance is the framing principle of risk avoidance, implemented through the application of the secondary principles of prevention, mitigation, and remedy. Every challenge to the university (that is to the stability of the governance of the institution, and the avoidance of threats as those are understood by university administrators) is understood only within the parameters of risk, and the riskiness of choices among prevention, mitigation, or remedial measures. Diversity issues--like campus drinking, the registration system, the allocation of student fees, and the smooth running of dormitories, parking spaces, and events--are conceptualized first as a normative challenge (goal) but one that must be assessed for the risk it poses and the value of adopting policies that focus on prevention, rather tan on mitigation and remedy.  It has been, in that sense, nothing special.

And yet, it would be a mistake to believe that there have not been efforts to change the way that senior officials approached the application of these governance parameters, even within the logic of what they perceive their operational function to be. 

One such effort to bring greater focus on diversity started in January 2013  under my leadership of the Penn State University Faculty Senate when at my invitation students addressed the Penn State University Faculty Senate about the issue. (Diversity Awareness Task Force: Statement to the University Faculty Senate January 29, 2013). Following that intervention a Joint Diversity Awareness Task Force was constituted including elements from the major stakeholders of the University. Its charge included:

· Bring a diverse group of administrators, faculty and students together to work collaboratively to engage in dialogue and provide recommendations to the University Faculty Senate and Administration to enhance diversity awareness in the University Community.
· Thoroughly investigate practices that will be most effective to increase diversity understanding among the student body.
· Provide recommendations to the Faculty Senate Committee charged with reforming the general education curriculum as a whole.

This post chronicles both the achievement of that remarkable committee over the course of several years--and the ultimate marginalization of its work--now so long forgotten that it is not even a memory within the administrative organs of the university, much less among its stakeholders. Those efforts are worth remembering if only as a cautionary take for the current group of individuals and institutional representatives now bent on a similar task. The principal lesson was one that I pointed out in 2014, even before the full set of Joint Diversity Awareness Task Force Reports was produced:

This response provides an excellent illustration of the approach to diversity at many institutions--engagement and oblivion.  This is all the more important because of it collateral result--Marginalization.  Even as the University devotes a tremendous amount of resources to its reconstruction of General Education, even as it focuses substantial public time to experiential learning and other important elements of a public education--the education and practice of diversity is buried and marginalized. . . . The expectations appear simple enough--provide a formally responsive forum for meeting, produce a report well received but avoid robust interconnection to the vital life of the university, and then move on with a sense of satisfaction of having engaged with diversity. (Diversity in Silence--The Joint Diversity Task Force Report at Penn State University Becomes Less Visible).

That chronicling was set out in a series of Reports produced by the JDATF over the course of several years.  Now long forgotten (and effectively inaccessible except by university faculty senators "For agendas or records prior to 2016-2017, please contact the Senate office. Faculty Senators may access Agendas and Records through the Senate Archives.") they are reproduced below.

“How to Become a Full Time Law Professor” -- Transcript of Remarks Delivered at the Panel Session, Panel 4G: How to Become a Full-Time Law Professor –A Workshop for Aspirants, 4th National People of Color Scholarship Conference

The 4th National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference took place 21-24 March 2019 in a beautiful setting, at the American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C.,For more information see HERE. Great thanks to American's Dean Camille Nelson for the vision to realize this important gathering.

Among the most important work of the People of Color Scholarship Conferences is their mentoring for people seeking entry into the legal academy, and then mentoring young scholars to enhance the prospects of career success. I was delighted to contribute in some way to that work at a Workshop for Law Teaching Aspirants--"How to Become a Full Time Law Professor"--at the 4th National People of Color Scholarship Conference, joining an impressive group of colleagues--Craig Konnoth (Colorado), Melinda Molina (Capital), Anita Sinha (American), and moderated by the great Alfreda Robinson (George Washington).

This post includes the transcript of my remarks at the panel: How to Become a Full Time Law Professor.  A revised version will be included along with the transcripts of the remarks by our co-panelists to be published in the Journal of Legal Education.  

The PowerPoints referenced in the Remarks and more formation on the panel may be accessed HERE.

From the American Association of University Professors--A Rich Collection of Articles and Reports from its Summer 2019 Bulletin

The Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors is published annually as the summer issue of Academe. This year's Bulletin features academic freedom and tenure investigative reports, college and university governance investigative reports, a report on the assault on gender and gender studies, a statement on dual enrollment, and annual reports and other business documents. Follow the links in this email or read the entire issue at https://www.aaup.org/issue/summer-2019-bulletin.

 

Links follow: 

 

The Great American Cultural Revolution in the University?: Statement by the Indiana University Bloomington Provost on the "Benton Murals"

(Woodburn Hall Indiana University;  Pix Credit)

Every civilization undergoes great periods of cultural revolution at some in point their history. These points of cultural revolution can either destroy or substantially change the civilization within which it is unleashed. In either case, the society--its law, politics, economics, culture and religion--emerges quite different at the end of the period of cultural revolution. Cultural revolution upends structures of privilege (the moral underpinning of the social and cultural order) and its hierarchies (its political manifestation). Cultural revolution transforms the core notions that serve as the glue that holds a civilization together, that provides its coherent netting of premises and outlooks from which its realities are shaped and its decisions are made to seem "right", "moral" "legitimate" and "fair"--all terms that derive their meaning from the core premises that cobble a civilization together as a self referencing and legitimacy enhancing whole.

Cultural Revolution tends to be marked by a trigger event. In the case of the Christianification of Rome (and its transition from ancient and pagan to medieval and Abrahamic) it might have been the suppression of paganism in the reign of Theodosius. The Protestant Reformation was another, as was the Iconoclasm of early Byzantium.  In each of those case, and there are others, art expressed the material incarnation of the transformation, and it was to the destruction or reshaping of art, and its meaning, that substantial attention was devoted by a society in the midst of often violent morphing (e.g., here, and here). These are cultural revolutions that are profound and that leave lasting marks on societies that cannot thereafter return to the status quo ante. They are to be distinguished from important but essentially political factional contests (no less violent in the short run) with no lasting effect.  Thus, for example, it is still too early to tell whether the so called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (c. 1966-76) in China constituted a period of profound and permanent change or merely marked a period of intense and violent factional fighting around ideological markers.

Now appears to be a time of cultural revolution in the United States at least a century or more in the amking. Its symptoms tend to center on images as well--from the logos of athletic teams, to statues, to works of art. Every society tends to see itself in its symbolic (especially plastic) expression and it is in times of change that work that was "invisible" becomes increasingly intolerable to a society whose image of itself is in transition. Where that transition is hotly challenged, the direction and permanence of shifting approaches to specific symbolic expression can be quite volatile and sometimes violent. 

It is with this brief context in mind that one might appreciate the difficulties and context of a statement recently released by Lauren Robel, Executive Vice President and Provost and Val Nolan Professor of Law at the Indiana University-- Bloomington campus with reference to a mural painted by Thomas Hart Benton in 1933, the realities of which have now been subsumed by the great cultural and societal shifts (including shifts in the interpretation of meaning) in contemporary society.

 

That this had been a long time in coming does not change the importance of the tipping point that this year appears to portend.  The Provost's well crafted statement evidences the difficulties for institutions where the societies they serve are in transition (even if only partially and uncertainly so).  Those transitions, when expressed in engagement with symbolic expression--especially the arts--produce a communicative challenge as the cultural markers of meaning making in one age give way to anther set that invariably produces a different context within which the construction of meaning can be undertaken.  That conundrum is well evidenced in the  statement, as is its fragile solution. But more importantly, it acknowledges the strength and ultimately the legitimacy of that great cultural revolution and the passing of the prior stage of cultural meaning.  What is left, then, is little more than the preservation of artifacts that can be understood only by specialists--the specialty of museums and the university. In these circumstances, the preservation of the art (or other plastic expression) of a prior age in the face of the structures of meaning making (and cultural significance) in the next may prove an increasingly delicate task.


The statement is reproduced below without further comment. 

Presentation: "Diversity in Legal Education: Considering the Hollow Spaces Between Speech and Action"

It was my great pleasure to participate on a great panel at Penn State Law recently. The panel, All in at Penn State Law: Addressing Diversity & Implicit Bias considered issues of diversity from a variety of distinct perspectives. It was organized by the Penn State Law Diversity Committee on March 16, 2017. The program was covered by Penn State's student newspaper, Daily Collegian (Katie Johnston, "Penn State Law hosts panel on diversity in legal education," The Daily Collegian March 16, 2017).

I spoke to issues of institutional implementation and accountability of diversity projects for law schools specifically and large research universities more generally. I started with a consideration of the 2010 ABA Report “Diversity in the Legal Profession: The Next Steps” especially as they relate to “Recommendations to Law Schools and the Academy (pp.17-25). This was used as a baseline for analysis. I then reflected on their consequences for Law Schools in light of the work of Penn State's Joint Diversity Awareness Task Force and their Reports of 2016 adopted by the Penn State University Faculty Senate in 2016.

The presentation PowerPoints may be accessed HERE.

The video of the presentation may be accessed HERE.

A summary of the presentation follows and may be downloaded HERE.

The University and Immigration Policy--The Word from the AAU and Full Text of the Presidential Executive Order--“Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States.”

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2017)

Universities have increasingly relied on foreign students.  There are a number of reasons beyond the obvious and important reason of financial need. Besides providing a substantial and sometimes premium priced income flow to universities, foreign students (and faculty) serve to more deeply connect the university to knowledge dissemination and production flows globally and to network  opportunity for students on a global basis.  In many ways, foreign students now serve as a key element in enhancing the competitiveness of American labor and its industry.  That competitiveness is not enhanced merely by the possibilities of creaming inherent in the current system encouraging mutually advantageous cross border educational opportunities, though these can be substantial.  More importantly is the way in which the presence of such foreign students and faculty substantially enhance the breadth of education for U.S: students. And, equally important, the presence of robust populations of foreign students and scholars  provides the United States an unparalleled opportunity to enhance its own image globally, to develop friends (many of whom may some day ascend to positions of power in their respective nations), and to develop global empathy for American culture and values--social, political, religious and economic. Foreign students and scholars can have a similar effect on American students, broadening their understanding of the world and making them better able to appreciate and navigate it many complexities. In all these respects, the encouragement of foreign students and scholars sits near the center of the teaching and research mission of mo0st universities.  

It is thus with great interest, and some dismay, that universities have been following the recently announced Executive Order issued by the 45th President on January 27, 2017. Entitled  “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States” it has not yet been posted to the White House website but is available through many national news outlets (here, here, here, and here). The Executive Order (unnumbered yet) may be downloaded here. A critical annotation may be accessed HERE and another HERE.

The text of the Executive Order is long and its scope is quite broad and potentially far reaching.  It appears, beyond its most inflammatory provisions, to set the stage for substantial modification of the U.S. immigration laws--loosely understood as all of the administrative and legal apparatus managing the entry and exit of foreign nationals within the territory of the Republic for such purposes (including but not limited to immigration) as the Republic finds useful to itself. This in itself will be a contentious and potentially destabilizing conversation.

It is not directly focused on foreign students and scholars, though its breadth assures that all of them will be affected directly or indirectly.  It has proven controversial and generated substantial popular agitation and response. See here, here, here and here.  One court has sought to issue a nationwide ban on part of its enforcement(see here)--something may may prove harder to enforce than to declare (see here). What is clear is that the Executive Order has brought the issue of immigration generally and the governmental approaches to its management, already quite contentious, very much into the open--though it is unlikely to result either in consensus or stable resolution in the near term. See here, here, here and here.

Universities have responded as well.  See here, here, here here, here, and here. Some remain silent (see, e.g., here). And indeed, the Executive Order has begun to cause some disruption in the stable and growing relationships between universities, its students and scholars from abroad. See here, here, here, here here, and here. The Association of American Universities (AAU), a powerful university organization has also issued a statement, to which universities as a group are likely to adhere. In all cases, the response has been temperate--a recognition of the possibility that changes in entry policy might be negotiated as well as the recognition that the value of appropriately open borders is essential for the national self interest in its political, economic, social and educational projects.

The full text of the Executive Order follows, along with the Statement of the Association of American Universities (AAU).

On Being Student Centered--More than the Periodic Aspirational Message is Needed

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2016)

X's mom died of heart disease when she was 16, her father is disabled, and she is his custodian. X cares for her sister's kids when she needs to make extra money to put food on the table. Z's mother died in a car accident when he was 12, with no life insurance, his sister is disabled and he is her care giver in their small apartment. This is all they can afford; to make ends meet and because of the medical equipment required for care, he sleeps on the couch......Today is a bad day; no transportation.  X is lucky.  She managed to borrow a car, no insurance though. X is picking up Z, her study buddy Z so they can both get to class. Without their mutual support, they would be unable to survive the stress of their personal and academic lives. Both X and Z look to their faculty for support but expect nothing from those who run the institution. If our administration had half of the chutzpah of these students...... I am lost here....

These are the circumstances of a significant enough portion of the students who seek the fulfillment of the hope that is at the very center of the promise of post secondary education in contemporary American colleges. How does an academic institution practice being the sort of student centered place that the typical institution trumpets  from the lofty speeches of its administrators to the pages of its social media products? The answer, increasingly is that they may not.

This post considers the problem of being student centered for the contemporary American university and the growing chasm that separates administrative formalism of the concept (through rules and aspirational sentiments) as against its functional realization.

Diversity at Penn State: Reports of the Joint Diversity Awareness Task Force--Moving Forward Embedding Divesity Policy--Advisory/Consultative Report

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2016)

It has been my great honor to serve as the Chair of the Penn State University Joint Diversity Awareness Task Force (JDATF). JDATF was charged this past April by our Provost and the University Faculty Senate Chair to consider a number of important diversity initiatives at Penn State (Charge (PDF); Members). Our work over the academic year has produced four reports with recommendations for substantial changes in a number of areas.

Presented March 2016 for consideration by the PSU Faculty Senate April 2016:

1. US/IL Courses Survey--Recommendations (Legislative; and Advisory/Consultative)
2. Diversity Best Practices
3. Moving Forward Embedding Diversity Policy

Presented February 2016 and Approved by the PSU Faculty Senate March 2016

4. Moving Forward

Each of the next several posts will provide links and the text of the reports to be considered by the Penn State Faculty Senate on April 19. An "after action" report will follow Senate action on the 29th--action which I hope will be positive.

This post includes the Report, Moving Forward Embedding Diversity Policy, which was prepared by our Substantive Policy Recommendation  Sub-Committee.

Diversity at Penn State: Reports of the Joint Diversity Awareness Task Force--Diversity Best Practices--Advisory/Consultative Report

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2016)

It has been my great honor to serve as the Chair of the Penn State University Joint Diversity Awareness Task Force (JDATF). JDATF was charged this past April by our Provost and the University Faculty Senate Chair to consider a number of important diversity initiatives at Penn State (Charge (PDF); Members). Our work over the academic year has produced four reports with recommendations for substantial changes in a number of areas.

Presented March 2016 for consideration by the PSU Faculty Senate April 2016:

1. US/IL Courses Survey--Recommendations (Legislative; and Advisory/Consultative)
2. Diversity Best Practices
3. Moving Forward Embedding Diversity Policy

Presented February 2016 and Approved by the PSU Faculty Senate March 2016

4. Moving Forward

Each of the next several posts will provide links and the text of the reports to be considered by the Penn State Faculty Senate on April 19. An "after action" report will follow Senate action on the 29th--action which I hope will be positive.

This post includes the Report, Diversity Best Practices, which was prepared by our Policy Coordination Sub-Committee. 

Diversity at Penn State: Reports of the Joint Diversity Awareness Task Force--US/IL Courses Survey--Legislative Recommendations

 

 (Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2016)

It has been my great honor to serve as the Chair of the Penn State University Joint Diversity Awareness Task Force (JDATF). JDATF was charged this past April by our Provost and the University Faculty Senate Chair to consider a number of important diversity initiatives at Penn State (Charge (PDF); Members).

Our work over the academic year has produced four reports with recommendations for substantial changes in a number of areas.

Presented March 2016 for consideration by the PSU Faculty Senate April 2016:

1. US/IL Courses Survey--Recommendations (Legislative; and Advisory/Consultative)

2. Diversity Best Practices
3. Moving Forward Embedding Diversity Policy

Presented February 2016 and Approved by the PSU Faculty Senate March 2016

4.  Moving Forward 

Each of the next several posts will provide links and the text of the reports to be considered by the Penn State Faculty Senate on April 19.  An "after action" report will follow Senate action on the 29th--action which I hope will be positive.

This post includes the Report, US/IL Courses Survey--Legislative Recommendations, prepared by our Technical Issues Sub-Committee.

Embedding Diversity at Penn State: A Progress Report From the Penn State Joint Diversity Awareness Task Force

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2016))

It has been my great honor to serve as the Chair of the Penn State University Joint Diversity Awareness Task Force (JDATF).  JDATF was charged this past April by our Provost and the University Faculty Senate Chair to consider a number of important diversity initiatives at Penn State (Charge (PDF); Members).

Our work over the academic year has produced four reports with recommendations for substantial changes in a number of areas.  

Presented March 2016 for consideration April 2016:

1. US/IL Courses Survey--Legislative Recommendations

2. Diversity Best Practices
3. Moving Forward Embedding Diversity Policy

Presented February 2016 and Approved by the PSU Faculty Senate March 2016

4.  Moving Forward 

One of these has already been considered and approved by the University Faculty Senate and awaits the President's decision.  The others will be considered by the Senate in the next several weeks.

This post provides an update on the work of the JDATF.  I have provided copies of the PowerPoints of the presentation of that update which was delivered on 21 March 2016 to the Penn State Academic Leadership Council and now more broadly shared. I welcome comment and further engagement.  We look forward to our Senate's review of our reports and hope for favorable action. In any case the reports as the final products of the work of the JDATF are worthy of consideration more broadly in their own right. 

Diversity Statements in the Academy--The View From Penn State

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2016)

Diversity statements have become an important element in the governance of the university.  In the absence of a societal or legal consensus on norms and values, these statements represent a means of developing a coherent normative or values structure within which the expectations of conduct can be managed in the university. Not all universities have such statements, several prefer Action Plans, Strategic Plans, or incorporation within general university policy (Illinois, Washington). Others have adopted Diversity Statements through their regents (Michigan), or faculty organizations (Indiana) or within their units (Maryland, Northwestern, Minnesota), or from campus units (Minnesota-Duluth) or in administrative units (Rutgers) or in reaction to incidents (Rutgers) or more informally as statements from high officials (Chicago, Nebraska, Michigan State).  Still some universities have begun to frame structure their efforts through or in connection with such statements (e.g., Purdue, Maryland, Iowa, (within their Strategic Plan), Virginia, here, and here)

But the values inherent in Diversity statements have been maturing as well.  Their current expression tells us much about the values structures of universities in the context of its approach to inter-group relations within the university community.  It is worth considering, then, just what values are embedded in the concept of "diversity" and the manner in which it is to be embedded in university culture--and its governance structures.  

Penn State, a large multi-campus research university has just announced its adoption of a university diversity statement--Penn State Statement on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusive Excellence.  This post considers the Diversity Statement in its context and for what it may tell us about the future of such statements within university culture in the United States. What emerges is that, and consistent with approaches at other comparable universities, diversity at Penn State has moved from a focus on historically based racial and ethnic marginalization to a much broader application of the concept.

Part 1 Penn State Law: The Public Face of Diversity--The Example of Penn State

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2016)

Diversity has become an important element of operations at the American University.  It has become a priority for governance at most research universities.

At Penn State diversity has been embedded at the core of the strategic planning of the university on both pragmatic (demographics) and normative (morals) grounds. Among the challenges identified by Penn State in its project of enhancing diversity touches on communication--both to stakeholders nd the wider community (see, e.g., here). is  This post and those that follow will consider the public face of Penn State's diversity efforts.  It will look at the way that Penn State's units have embedded diversity in their communications by looking at diversity on the web sites of Penn State's units.  The purpose is simple--the way a university projects itself provides a good means of understanding how the university sees itself.  In light of the President's commitment, it would be useful to examine the way that diversity appears throughout Penn State.  This post provides a short introduction to the character of that public face from the top of the administrative hierarchy.  In the posts that follow, we will consider how each of Penn State's units projects its own image of its engagement with diversity in light of official and public face of diversity at Penn State.

The object is not just to get a sense of the collective self projection of this important issue an an important an influential university.  It also serves to see the extent to which diversity can be administered in a coherent manner throughout a large and complex institution.  Do all units approach the issue the same way? Do all units share the same approaches to diversity as the central administration suggests they should?  What are the variations in approaches?  These and other related questions will be posed and considered.  Comments, suggestions, and additional insights are welcome as we work through the theory and practice of diversity at major institutions.

This post starts with Penn State Law.

The Table of Contents may be accessed HERE.

Introduction: The Public Face of Diversity--The Example of Penn State

(Pix © Larry Catá Backer 2016)

Diversity has become an important element of operations at the American University.  It has become a priority for governance at most research universities.

At Penn State diversity has been embedded at the core of the strategic planning of the university on both pragmatic (demographics) and normative (morals) grounds:

Building diversity at Penn State isn’t just good for business and environmental richness -- it’s a moral imperative, said President Eric Barron today (March 20) during an in-depth review of the demographics and 2020 census projections for Pennsylvania and the United States.

“It’s our obligation as a public institution of higher education to teach the people in our communities, in our state, in the nation, and increasingly at Penn State, students from around the world,” Barron said in his address to the Board of Trustees.

Diversity/demographics is one of six topics declared by Barron as major talking points of his presidency. Barron presented numerous slides worth of data describing demographic projections for 2020, University-wide demographics for students and faculty/staff as of fall 2014, and snapshots of the demographics in 20 statewide recruitment areas.

 Barron said he sees three imperatives: moral, educational and business. The University has a duty to teach all people, a diverse campus is a richer learning environment, and a welcoming and inclusive campus responding to changing demographics is crucial in attracting students.

“At many universities, diversity is an assigned responsibility,” he said, “when in fact, we won’t be successful unless it is everybody’s job.”

Penn State’s diversity will need to grow if the University is to mirror the racial makeup of Pennsylvania and beyond, according to Barron. (Barron stresses demographics', diversity’s importance in future of Penn State, Penn State News, March 20, 2015)

Among the challenges identified by Penn State in its project of enhancing diversity touches on communication--both to stakeholders and the wider community (see, e.g., here). is  This post and those that follow will consider the public face of Penn State's diversity efforts.  It will look at the way that Penn State's units have embedded diversity in their communications by looking at diversity on the web sites of Penn State's units.  The purpose is simple--the way a university projects itself provides a good means of understanding how the university sees itself.  In light of the President's commitment, it would be useful to examine the way that diversity appears throughout Penn State.  This post provides a short introduction to the character of that public face from the top of the administrative hierarchy.  In the posts that follow, we will consider how each of Penn State's units projects its own image of its engagement with diversity in light of official and public face of diversity at Penn State. 

The object is not just to get a sense of the collective self projection of this important issue an an important an influential university.  It also serves to see the extent to which diversity can be administered in a coherent manner throughout a large and complex institution.  Do all units approach the issue the same way? Do all units share the same approaches to diversity as the central administration suggests they should?  What are the variations in approaches?  These and other related questions will be posed and considered.  Comments, suggestions, and additional insights are welcome as we work through the theory and practice of diversity at major institutions.

Contents

Introduction
Penn State Law