In August 2021, the Office of the Provost initiated a review of GW’s diversity climate to improve it. As part of the process, a subgroup of 26 community members — including students, officials and faculty — produced a list of recommendations on how to solve ongoing issues of diversity, like increasing faculty from minority groups. The next year, officials surveyed the diversity climate at GW, revealing poor results, with about half of respondents having experienced general negative interactions or negative interactions regarding their identity.
Survey results and faculty recommendations were supposed to be included to create a final report to cultivate a more diverse GW, but after three years of waiting for a plan that turned these issues and recommendations into solutions, the product lacked faculty input, accountability and transparency from GW — missing the “action” part of the “action plan.”
The result of the review was a nine page document with 10 recommendations, some corresponding with staff and faculty suggestions and subsequent responses to feedback. The recommendations included adding all-person restrooms to all “major” buildings, adding more staffing to the Multicultural Student Services Center and cluster hiring diverse staff. But throughout the document, officials used vague language that lacked actionable timelines for the implementation of initiatives and, according to faculty, excluded their proposals.
What went wrong?
Provost Chris Bracey, in 2021, deviated from GW’s past diversity reviews — which were previously more dependent on outside firms instead of GW’s community — by proposing a process that heavily prioritized GW’s involvement on top of an external review to determine if the community’s eventual recommendations were appropriate. It came at time of deep faculty distrust with administration, who said then-University President Thomas LeBlanc was “inflexible” and rarely listened to faculty recommendations, so a project willing to prioritize faculty input was readily welcomed.
A good plan takes its time, and if GW took three years for a thoughtful, specific plan, that’s even better. But faculty members spoke out about how many of their most substantive suggestions were not represented in the final plan. One professor said earlier this month that the plan was so general that it could’ve been written without “analysis and input.” They acknowledged that while not everything can be represented, most of the recommendations didn’t seem to make it on the page at all.
Faculty brought up issues they felt passionate about, like cluster hiring — hiring faculty or staff for multiple positions and keeping track and metrics of GW’s diversifying progress. But they were brought up in passing in mentions, with officials saying they “will take the recommendation of cluster hiring, consistent with applicable law” but providing no clarification on how it will be implemented. And for the past three years, department chairs have pressured administrators to cluster hire more diverse faculty.
As professor Shaista Khilji asked earlier this month, what are the specific steps that will address the root of the diversity issues at GW? How will they address that three-quarters of students struggle to afford GW and improve diversity recruiting — and retention — across the University?
Later on, when discussing trainings and hiring diverse faculty, the report states that the Human Resources Management and Development will “encourage a diverse pool of candidates.” But “encourage” isn’t a plan community members can hold administration accountable for. GW should go into depth about their plans and what they’ll do — and if it’s too much detail to put into the report, they could always offer a more detailed plan that isn’t concise.
GW also mentions throughout their report that to improve diversity, they have an”optional orientation program” that includes key sessions like “Interrupting Unconscious Bias” and “Title IX/Anti-Discrimination” for new faculty and offer an optional exit survey for departing faculty. But these are all not required when they could be mandatory, and for the most part only apply to new faculty members or those leaving, with little on their time in between.
When discussing accessibility, the report states that “a committee has already been established to address issues of accessibility,” but we don’t receive any future plans about what else they can do. What kind of accessibility issues? How will they address them?
In response to long-standing issues among GW’s community that haven’t been resolved in the last few years, it seems that at times, officials simply restated what procedures GW already has in place. Past actions are worth mentioning, but they shouldn’t be the substitute for the University’s main response to recommendations for the future.
GW should be stating the actions they will have moving forward, while acknowledging past issues that may have contributed to hurting diversity on campus. They mention hiring more staff for the MSSC in response to increasing resources for the center, but don’t acknowledge the personnel turnover that happened before it. They mention the launch of a new interfaith center and prayer space in response to a recommendation to provide meditation and prayer rooms, but don’t mention that the relocation of the MSSC’s G Street townhouse in 2023 caused the University to get rid of a previously existing one.
The GW community would be more inclined to accept and appreciate the contents of the report if officials acknowledged past GW actions or inaction, deliberate or not, that contributed to these problems escalating, especially if officials can acknowledge that the diversity landscape has experienced “momentous change” over the past two years in the beginning of the document.
GW should start moving away from vague language and put out a plan that is willing to dive into the diversity issues that are so present in our institution. Bracey originally rejected diversity improvement plans from external firms in 2021 because they weren’t able to provide “concrete” recommendations, but so far, officials haven’t been able to either.
The editorial board consists of Hatchet staff members and operates separately from the newsroom. This week’s staff editorial was written by Opinions Editor Andrea Mendoza-Melchor based on discussions with Sports Columnist Sydney Heise and Contributing Social Media Director Anaya Bhatt.
