Diversity and collegiality were heavily discussed at an open forum Thursday for Cal State Long Beach students, faculty, staff and a team representing the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.
CSULB’s diversity among students was, for the most part, praised while collegiality was universally commended — especially during an economic downturn — at the hour-long forum.
Michael Carbuto, associate director and chief of medical staff at Student Health Services, noticed the diverse student population upon his arrival from the University of Southern California where he worked for eight years.
“You look around here and almost nobody is a majority,” Carbuto said. “I think the University embraces that diversity and uses that diversity to our advantage.”
Rita Hayes, director of club sports and recreation, said she has received tremendous support for the recreation program from all different departments on campus.
“Any time our clubs decide to put an event on, it’s never ‘you can’t do it’ it’s ‘how can we help you be successful?” she said.
Assistant Professor of English Bill Mohr said the collegiality on campus might be a product of student diversity.
“Until this conversation took place it never occurred to me to look to diversity as a source of something that I think is really special about this place,” Mohr said. “That is, the collegiality with which the faculty treat each other.”
Associate Professor of Chicano and Latino Studies Jose Moreno questioned student diversity, however, as a possible “accident of demography” and the lack of faculty diversity as a continually unaddressed problem.
“It feels like a very diverse campus because of our students,” Moreno said. “I don’t know if that was a strategic plan. From a leadership and decision-making standpoint it is a highly segregated campus.”
The forum was put on by the Office of the Vice President for members of the CSULB community to share comments about the campus with WASC representatives.
WASC made its Capacity and Preparatory Review visit last week as CSULB continues its second step of a three-step process for reaccredidation.
“The WASC visiting is learning more about the university as they meet with the various constituencies,” said Karen Gould, Provost and Senior Vice President of academic affairs. “We can expect a written report with their findings within two months.”
WASC is a regional accrediting organization of schools and colleges. Although WASC is not government-operated, it is authorized by the U.S. Department of Education to accredit schools.
Bravo to Professor Moreno for speaking truth to apparent smoke and mirrors. As a former English literature major, journalism graduate and CSULB alumnus, just walking down the English department corridor (or a glance at its faculty directory) demonstrates with appalling clarity the massive disparity between CSULB’s ethnically diverse student body and its predominantly “narrow shade” of instructors and faculty as a whole. I wholeheartedly believe that the BEST instructors and professors should be hired and retained, based on individual merit and a rich background of professional and personal experience — on balance, what unique and distinguishing knowledge and other invaluable qualities each one brings to enrich a dynamic, sound whole. But, even just a random glance at any number and type of demographics, seems to defy the reality of what I see at the faculty level in the English department. The gap is more like a gaping crevasse, and one that is inexplicable to me by any measure of rational or reasonable expectation, much less as a remote reflection of reality. The best professors I have ever had at CSULB hailed from its English Department, but a vast many more are mediocre to less-than mediocre (and some of these rewarded in ways that are grossly undeserved, in my opinion). I realize that severe budget constraints play their part in such hiring deficiencies, but that dollar reality does NOT account for why — among the overwhelming majority of such middling to poor instructors — I see so few instructors (much less qualified, tenured professors) who are not caucasian. Pardon me, but the last time I checked, the English language, its history, its literature, its cultural legacy, its living legacy — and certainly in the U.S. — is not represented by just one band of the larger human demographic. What kind of department can prize the vast richness of such a legacy, offer a “capstone” course in ethnic American literature, and not have its faculty (literally) embody that very diversity of experience and contribution to our collective language? I remain astonished by that stagnant and sad “false” reality, gravely disturbed by the lack of explanation for it and, more so, deeply disappointed by what appears to be an overt absence of any concerted, organized, public discussion and administrative commitment as to WHEN that reality will have the decency, dynamism, and wisdom to transform itself into a finer one. Indeed, to a more enlightened vision of the English department as a whole — one that loves the totality of the language and the fullness of its cultural history as much as I. Such transformation should, fundamentally, cost the department nothing but the WILL and IMAGINATION to seek out equally qualified candidates — across a broad spectrum of society — for positions teaching what is often the same content. Seriously, and certainly for non-tenure-track or entry-level positions, how difficult can this be? Surely, here in Southern California, we can do much better. And we must. There’s no legitimate reason why we can’t. Does CSULB’s English department really want to keep living up to the “old dead white guys (and gals)” image? Or does it see itself as representative of a vibrant reality that upholds and embraces the best of academic, scholarly and pedagogic courage, intellectual merit and the deep richness and spectrum of human experience? (For the record, the latter is also a heckuva lot more fun.)
If the English department has the gumption and student, staff, faculty and administrative support to diversify itself — not to mention work toward being an interdisciplinary department (such as CSULB’s Africana Studies department) — it will certainly have my enthusiastic support.
No students? Just a bunch of kiss ass faculty and employees saying everything is peachy keen. Hopefully, the WASC team will see through the public relations charade and realize this bureaucracy is no more than a shroud of terror. Moreno is the only one who was courageous enough to say the emperor is naked.