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Committee Statement
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The President’s Advisory Committee on Diversity at Pomona
College represents a new and unique undertaking for the
college, one that brings together all its various campus
constituencies to study and address the matter of diversity
on the campus. Traditionally, the college had approached
matters of diversity by attempting to expand the number of
historically underrepresented faculty and students. Over the
years, various programs and efforts have been implemented by
the administration, the faculty and the office of admissions
to further these objectives.
As a premier educational institution in the United States,
Pomona College seeks to educate and prepare students to meet
the present and future challenges as responsible citizens of
this nation and as members of a global community. To ensure
that goal, it is important that our own community mirror the
society and world in which students will live and function.
The College has the obligation to lead by example, to create
the conditions and climate where people of different
backgrounds, genders, cultures, races/ethnicity, sexual
orientation and national origin can constructively engage
each other in a climate free of discrimination and prejudice
of any kind. Education without diversity would be a failed
enterprise. Diversity therefore should not simply be a
slogan, but is at the core of our educational mission.
The programs we developed to achieve these goals occurred
largely in isolation, with little exchange of information,
or actual cooperation between the various campus entities
charged with this responsibility. The campus wide Irvine
initiative, conversations within the various ethnic studies
departments and the restructuring of the faculty recruitment
plan in the aftermath of the Michigan case compelled us to
rethink how we approached diversity. Out of these
discussions, it became clear that in order to fully address
and grapple with diversity the entire campus community
faculty, students, staff and alumni had to be engaged and
drawn into the discussion. Moreover, our administrative
approach largely isolated to faculty, student recruitment
and several outreach programs had to be expanded to include
representation from all sectors of the campus community.
President David Oxtoby accepted the recommendation of these
committees and the faculty and formed the President’s
Advisory Committee on Diversity
The committee has been charged by the president to “monitor
all aspects of institutional diversity pertaining to
faculty, students and staff. ….That charge includes, at a
minimum, providing the community with reports on the status
of diversity and advising the President on strategies to
enhance diversity on the campus”(Faculty Hand Book p. 18).
In keeping with its charge, the committee began to gather
information regarding the state of diversity on the campus.
This has meant, attempting to decipher data on faculty,
students and the various staff categories and develop a
comprehensive view of diversity on campus. In addition, we
have also been collecting information on the various
programs and initiatives which the college has implemented
over the years. This has not been as simple as it may sound
since many of these programs and activities are dispersed
throughout different campus offices, departments or
programs. The different constituencies represented on the
committee have also met independently and established
priorities that we have discussed as a group. A list of
concerns and areas that require attention is beginning to
emerge.
One of our first recommendations was to establish a Pomona
College Diversity web page where we could centralize
information and share with the campus community the material
we have gathered. The only way in which this committee can
effectively implement its charge is by involving the campus
community, to that end we welcome your comments and
suggestions. |
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