Members of the Access, Success and Retention subcommittee of the President’s Commission on Diversity and Community convened for an open forum on Monday Nov. 18 in the Fireside Lounge. The forum was designed to give students an opportunity to share their thoughts on how Geneseo could be a more inclusive and affirming place that retains a more diverse student body.
Despite a small turnout, students in attendance had their concerns and ideas heard by committee members who seemed eager to work with them toward promoting a more diverse and inclusive campus climate.
Director of Multicultural Programs and Services and subcommittee member Sasha Eloi-Evans moderated the forum. She opened the event by explaining that these forum opportunities grew out of student concerns surrounding the accessibility of the Diversity and Community commission. The commission’s outreach efforts have since been restructured to be more inclusive of students’ voices.
“The charge [of our subcommittee] is to utilize the action plans that are in our current Strategic Diversity Plan and identify one or two initiatives to look at how we’re addressing them,” Eloi-Evans said. “This is us taking a look at what the Strategic Diversity Plan currently says. How is Geneseo already accomplishing or fulfilling this portion of the Strategic Plan and then what else needs to happen to fulfill some of these action items.”
Geneseo’s Strategic Plan is a multi-faceted set of goals that the college hopes to meet and implement by 2021. The plan is broken down into four areas of focus: learning, access and success, advancing the public good and resilience and sustainability. The Access, Success and Retention subcommittee falls under the second area of focus: access and success.
In materials passed out to those who attended the open forum, the subcommittee spelled out their implementation strategies and action items.
Implementation strategies named in the materials include “analyze data, identify trends and commonalities and use these results to develop new strategies to address the identified needs” and “identify programs and services that address isolation by maintaining a directory of community resources.”
Action items listed in the materials include “implement student recruitment programs and activities that will enable the campus to enroll a student population that is increasingly representative of the diversity of the region and [New York State] as a whole” and “intentionally incorporate inclusivity into campus tours, orientation, weeks of welcome, academic activities … and student and campus life programming.”
In response to what Geneseo is currently doing to foster diversity and inclusivity, forum attendee and communication major senior Ousmane Sam said he enjoys seeing representatives from Doty visit the Access Opportunities Program office on Wednesday afternoons. He feels it’s a nice merger between academics and administration and allows for open communication directly with the people in charge.
Sociology major sophomore Nakkia Smalls feels like while the AOP office is a great place to start with inclusivity efforts, it shouldn’t stop with the AOP office. She proposed the idea that multicultural groups on campus need more visible office space aside from the AOP office and the Multicultural Organization Space for Activities, Inclusion and Collaboration (MOSAIC) Room in the Union.
Smalls cited the fact that the Pride group on campus has designated space and believes that if other minority and cultural groups had similar permanent office space access, it might help with retention.
“How can we bring more people of color here and keep them here? How can we establish places where we don’t always feel like we’re the minority?” Smalls said.
Sam built upon this idea, saying that if organizations were more diverse and inclusive, it may also help to keep students at Geneseo for all four years. “If you don’t find your niche here, it can be difficult to want to stay here,” he said.
The subcommittee members in attendance were receptive to the students’ ideas, describing programs that were already in place to address their concerns and what programs might be possible to implement in the future.
Initiatives that have recently been implemented include the human resources department working with the chief diversity officer, robbie routenberg, to ensure there are more intentional hiring processes in place to hire more diverse faculty and staff members and that any potential candidates have a demonstrated commitment to diversity. These new practices came directly out of student feedback, according to committee member and chemistry stockroom manager Dan Jacques.
In addition, any search committee formed to hire new members of the Geneseo community must be led by a faculty member who has been trained in equity-minded search practices. Up to fifty percent of the search committee must have also received the training.
The open forum was an early step in the Commission on Diversity and Community’s goal of creating a more open communication channel between the commission and students. Students are encouraged to participate in these dialogue opportunities and are welcome to join the various subcommittees within the commission.