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EducationCounsel meetings continue diversity discussion

By Megan Zahneis, News Editor

In late April, Miami University hosted educational consulting firm EducationCounsel for a series of sessions on diversity issues at Miami. More than 200 students, faculty and staff attended over four days of meetings with 15 campus organizations and committees.

The conversations have been a long time coming, said campus officials, and, once EducationCounsel issues a formal report of its findings, changes may be implemented at the university level.

Michael Kabbaz, vice president of enrollment management and student success, said that Miami's relationship with EducationCounsel came about from its participation in the College Board's Access and Diversity Collaborative (ADC).

Founded in June 2004 as a response to a 2003 Supreme Court decision on the University of Michigan's race-related admissions policies, the ADC is a think tank consisting of 45 educational institutions and a dozen sponsoring organizations.

"We're looking at best practices research," Kabbaz said. "[We're] looking at the policy implications underlying legal impact and discussing how we can work together to advance diversity inclusion efforts."

ODA's executive team is comprised mostly of EducationCounsel staff, including managing partner and co-founder Art Coleman and policy and legal advisor Terri Taylor, both of whom made the trip to Oxford in April.

Given the history between Miami and EducationCounsel, Provost Phyllis Callahan said, the decision to hire the firm to consult on diversity at Miami was an easy one.

"I think it came about because we had conversations over time -- particularly, I think, in this last year -- about our diversity and inclusion goals," Callahan said. "This is a firm that has experience in those areas -- in policy, in law, in advocacy, in helping institutions to develop strategies to meeting their diversity goals."

An investigation into diversity issues at Miami seems predicated by a recent number of events on and around campus: the defacing of a pro-LGBTQ mural in the Women's Center; the homophobic, anti-Semetic and racist graphiti that stained a bulletin board in Wells Hall last year; an incident in Thompson Hall earlier this semester; and homophobic and racist remarks directed toward students marching Uptown for Unity Day.

In response, incoming president Gregory Crawford has stated that diversity will be a priority upon his arrival in office July 1.

The national conversation on diversity -- especially on race -- has been spurred by a more recent Supreme Court case, brought by a student alleging she was denied admission to the University of Texas on the basis of race.

Art Coleman, of EducationCounsel, said that the time is ripe for Miami to address such matters.

"There's a lot of energy around these issues. There is a lot of passion around these issues," Coleman said. "[At Miami,] we addressed challenges as well as opportunities. We addressed gaps as well as strengths.

"Our effort was to try to get as much of a balanced picture of where Miami is and where it might be in the future on this front and our principle role was to likely facilitate but fundamentally listen. So we were there through bringing our knowledge of this work and this space nationally, but really to understand the dimensions of the challenges, the opportunities, the strengths, the gaps at Miami so that we can give Miami's leadership an honest, balanced picture of what we saw and heard."

Coleman said that his firm consults broadly with dozens of institutions on policy each year, and directly with a handful each year. Miami's situation, he and his colleague Terri Taylor explained, is not a unique one.

"There is a heightened awareness on college campuses that talking about diversity and inclusion is really important," Taylor said. "The students, in particular, are quite well organized across the country. And so, I think there's a broader national context of different movements that are happening that I think are going to keep focus on this. It's really like a key to the success of higher education in the 21st century we think."

Kabbaz thinks Miami does face some institutionally specific challenges, including its situation in a relatively isolated environment.

"We think, once we get students here, we can show them that we provide a great educational and supportive environment. But certainly, location tends to be an impediment often," Kabbaz said. "When you talk to diverse students, however, it is defined is that it is critical that we continue to diversify the campus. A lot of diverse students want to be around diverse students.

"Great institutions are diverse places ... geographic, ethnic, racial, international, you know, all sorts of diversity make up an excellent institution and a premier institution. I think it's a moral imperative that the classroom be a diverse educational experience."

Callahan said that based on conversations she's had with students, the primary obstacle Miami faces in alleviating ostracism of diverse students is a subtle one.

"Some of the things that came up [were] the way we interact with each other, the inadvertent things we may do or say that could be construed or are construed as not being inclusive," Callahan said. "I've heard issues around or concerns around our curriculum being inclusive enough across a broad range of difference."

Kabbaz said that the EducationCounsel visit served as a crucial first step in advancing the university's diversity agenda.

"It''s not a destination, It's a journey that you'll continue to make gains on," Kabbaz said. "We've made some gains. We have a lot more work to do on this front, and I think just the engagement of the university campus [with EducationCounsel] was really energizing. I think it gets people excited. I think it rallies around what are the most important goals Miami's going to focus in on."

And while direct consequences of Miami's collaboration with EducationCounsel remain to be seen, for Kabbaz, the dialogue brings a sense of urgency to promises made as part of Miami's 2020 Plan.

"I think we saw an opportunity on campus to expand that conversation," Kabbaz said. "It's great that you can continue to make advances on the diversity of the campus, but are we providing an inclusive environment? You can't do either one by themselves. You can have diversity on campus, but if it's not an inclusive environment, that's not doing what we want to accomplish."