The Committee on Diversity and Community is comprised of faculty, staff and students, and is charged with examining the health of our Williams community with respect to diversity and inclusion. In particular, the CDC examines issues and proposes initiatives with regard to the College’s commitment to educate students for engagement with our increasingly diverse world. Over the years, the CDC has addressed issues associated with both curricular and extracurricular areas. These have included student retention and academic success, staff and faculty recruitment and retention, discrimination and sexual harassment/misconduct grievance procedures, admission and financial aid policies and practices, and student orientation and advising training. Over the last six years the Committee has also sponsored the Williams Reads projects during Winter Study. Williams Reads originated in the CDC and creates the opportunity for students, staff and faculty to foster new connections through shared readings and discussions. The CDC was restructured recently to allow representatives to serve two terms.

During the 2011-2012 academic year, the CDC worked in four subcommittees:

1. Williams Reads Subcommittee

From fall 2011 through January 2012, the Williams Reads subcommittee, chaired by Rob White, focused on this past January’s program, which featured Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, and on advanced planning for an extended Williams Reads program for 2012-2013.

Despite Williams Reads events that rivaled previous years, January participation was very sparse, highlighting the need for: 1) better marketing through closer ties with more Williams Reads partners; 2) clear delegation of roles and responsibilities regarding program execution. It also became clear that the Williams Reads committee would benefit greatly by extending its membership to include other members of the Williams College community, as had been done in past years.

All three of these needs can be met through a longer program window, earlier planning and powerful partnering envisioned and already substantially planned for Williams Reads 2012-2013. Chaired by Dean of the College Sarah Bolton and Associate Professor of History Leslie Brown, who was Chair of the Williams Reads subcommittee in 2010-2011, Williams Reads 2012-2013 will address socioeconomic diversity through Barbara Ehrenreichs Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. This is an important topic that previous Williams Reads books have not focused on. Programming will begin in advance of First Days with the book being mailed (or e-mailed) to all incoming first year students. Discussions around Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America involving first years, JAs, professors, and staff will be integrated into First Days programming. Campus-wide programming for all students, faculty, staff, and interested readers in the surrounding community will begin in mid-September and continue through January, with a final event envisioned for Claiming Williams Day 2013. A larger Williams Reads committee, which includes participants from beyond the CDC, has already met
this spring 2011.

2. Subcommittee on College Policy

The Policy subcommittee, co-chaired by Joan Edwards and Ruth Harrison, focused on policies that are associated with and in turn affect diversity in our community. In particular, we looked critically at how we govern our community through these policies that serve as a public face of how we welcome and embrace diversity at Williams. These policies influence whom we employ, who is in the classroom, and define non-discrimination laws that ensure fair and equal treatment and a safe campus environment. We first identified policies (i.e., Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy, Non-discrimination Policies, Sexual Harassment Policies, Hate Crime Policy). We are now examining each in turn to review them for clarity, ease of access/use, transparency, and adjudication methods. For each policy we ask if there is more we can do to make the policy more effective and to ensure that it is followed. Our goal is to develop a set of recommendations for changes, if any, for each policy.

Our subcommittee decided not to cover the Sexual Assault policies because the Rape and Sexual Assault Task Force developed by the Dean’s Office was already addressing these pressing issues. In addition, in the wake of the 12 November 2011 hate crime on campus we had several discussions on anti-hate crime policy and researched resources on hate crimes on college campuses. We have passed on our ideas and references to the newly formed Bias Incident Response Task Force to formulate a policy on hate crimes on campus.

During spring term we focused on the Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity policies. We first reviewed our policies, which are described in multiple locations on the Williams College web pages. We then compared our policies to those at other institutions. And finally we met with Mike Reed, Vice President for Strategic Planning and Institutional Diversity, to discuss his views. We are now working on suggested changes to the policy itself and on the presentation of the policy on the web site. Our goal is to present the policy so that it is accessible, clear and thorough. Our proposal will clarify our policy by streamlining the web information, adding ideas based on policies at other institutions, and recommending changes that we think will strengthen our program. We plan to have a proposal ready for review by next fall. We will also address how to ensure that the Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action policies are carried out.

3. Subcommittee on Curricular Issues

This subcommittee, co-chaired by Carmen Whalen and Armando Vargas, focused on curricular issues broadly, working to explore some concerns raised by students about curricular processes and classroom dynamics. The importance of this work was given added urgency by curricular concerns raised by students in the aftermath of November’s incidents and responses. We started as a small subcommittee with just five members, and our membership decreased during the year, having a negative impact on our ability to address these complex issues as effectively as we would have liked.

Winter Study 99’s: Our initial focus was on off-campus Winter Study 99’s, specifically on the clarity and transparency of the proposal review process.
Concern: that the explanations provided when proposals were denied could be clearer. Much of the communication happens informally between the student and the Chair of the Winter Study committee. Committee members thought it might be beneficial for the Winter Study committee to consider a written paragraph to both the student and faculty advisor, indicating the reasons for denial.
Concern: that some students may be disadvantaged in the proposal process by having less familiarity with how to write a proposal and/or by being less sure of how to approach a faculty member for assistance. Committee members thought it would be useful for the registrar to provide information on the proposal writing sessions that the library conducts on the Winter Study web page. In addition, the Committee members wondered if it might be useful to discuss this proposal writing issue with Stephanie Dunson.
The subcommittee found out that other concerns were already being addressed or explored:
Concern: apparent lack of communication between the Winter Study and Gaudino committees has been remedied by regular meetings between the Winter Study committee and the current Gaudino scholar. The subcommittee thinks this practice should be institutionalized to reduce the possibility of students getting divergent responses to their Winter Study 99 proposals.
Concern: limited financial aid available for Winter Study 99’s means that financial aid students may have far more limited options for doing Winter Study 99’s and be able to do them only if they receive a Gaudino fellowship. We were informed that this issue was being looked into by Alumni Relations and the Development office.

Classroom bias: We then focused on classroom bias, as we tried to figure out how to assess what the specific issues are and how they might be addressed. As in other areas of campus life, non-reporting and a broader culture of silence make this a difficult issue to confront. Still, there were clearly concerns and campus interest in addressing these issues, as students included classroom dynamics in the concerns they voiced in November and designated one of their Students against Silence task forces to focus on “classroom culture.” The Classroom Culture task force defined itself:

“This task force will examine the classroom culture at Williams and assess the best way to build a supportive network for students and professors. We will investigate the issue of individual self-expression inside the classroom and attempt to foster a comfortable environment for all. Daily classroom interaction among students and professors should not be limited to facts and figures, but rather allow the exploration of open-mindedness in the analytical comprehension of course material when applicable.”

In addition, a Claiming Williams Day event, “Creating Safe Spaces for Uncomfortable Learning” drew a large and engaged audience of students, staff, and faculty.
Initiative: Committee members looked at the Williams Speaks Up web site, which is currently being revised and will hopefully be re-launched to become one effective means for students to report bias, including bias in the classroom. We hope that the website will include a clear discussion of what bias means and what it includes, and that it will do so in a way that includes the classroom.
Initiative: Committee members met with the student leader of the Students Against Silence task force to get a sense of what they saw as the issues and what they are trying to do. They hoped to
host an event where students would be encouraged to share their classroom experiences verbally or in anonymous writing. We discussed the possibility of working together to gather and organize those experiences into a pamphlet that could be used by students, staff, and faculty to initiate discussions and increase awareness of bias/unintentional bias and how that can manifest in the classroom. Unfortunately, it was late in the semester and seemed unlikely that this student run event would happen this semester. We share it here with hopes that it may be picked up next year, if interest persists.

4. Subcommittee on Student Life

While the College maintains one of the best four-year graduation and retention rates in the nation, students from historically underrepresented ethnic and racial minority groups, differing socio-economic classes, and other backgrounds have statistically had difficulty successfully navigating Williams. The goal of the Student Life Subcommittee, co-chaired by Mike Reed and Carly Valenzuela, is to address issues that we felt prevented all students from effectively thriving at the College.

In the fall, the subcommittee established a list of preliminary issues that we were interested in examining. We wished to understand a number of different issues that disproportionately affect the Williams experience of traditionally under-represented students. These issues included:

ALCOHOL CULTURE
FINANCIAL AID
INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT
       First-generation students
       Asian American students
       International students
FIRST DAYS ORIENTATION
JUNIOR ADVISORS

The subcommittee reviewed the series of “Navigating Williams” directed at providing students with strategies to help them thrive. Also, we began discussions of both alcohol and the Junior Advisor (JA) system to consider their inter-connected nature as a way to begin addressing problems that have risen around them. We reviewed a JA training and feedback survey conducted in 2009 and met with Dean Bolton to discuss changes underway regarding the JA selection process and training.

We also examined Financial Aid and held discussions as to how to improve the office’s relation with students, particularly in the realm of communication, and also reviewed workshops on financial aid and financial literacy. Members of the subcommittee attend sessions to help provide feedback. We plan to write up recommendations and reactions about the workshops.

Additionally, we examined questions of institutional support for the following three groups of students: international students, first-generation students, and Asian American students. For international students, we discussed the new orientation program for first-years and issues with summer work credit, which the Dean’s Office was in the process of resolving. For first-generation students, we talked about a possible restructuring of their first-year orientation program so as to provide more resources throughout the duration of the year and contacted Dean Gina Coleman about gathering more responses to the current program for future adjustments based on student feedback. For Asian American students, we discussed the need for more Asian American staff members within offices that work directly with students, as well as a general need to build more support for this community of students.

In the spring, the subcommittee continued conversations about many of the fall topics while also more thoroughly considering questions of informal mentoring within student faculty relations. We considered questions about how to create a more consistent space wherein students and faculty feel more capable of having perhaps uncomfortable conversations about non-academic related issues, particularly as traditionally under-represented populations tend not to take full advantage of faculty members as a resource, and held discussions with staff in the Office of Student Life and the Neighborhood Boards on the topic. Faculty on the subcommittee also expressed an interest in closer engagement and relationships with students outside their discipline. In addressing this issue, the subcommittee organized a student-faculty informal gathering among faculty members from eight departments and programs, and first-year students to begin to create a space for and promote dialogue between the two groups. Approximately 50 students and 10 faculty members participated and provided feedback that the effort was worthwhile. We agreed that we would explore hosting other similar events in the fall semester.

Additionally, we continued to discuss approaches to increase diversity among staff members and problems that have been encountered in trying to do this.

Respectfully submitted,

The Committee on Diversity and Community
Justin Adkins
Jaliz Albanese ‘13
Patricia Burton
Jennifer Chan ‘14
Joan Edwards
Diane England
Zachary Evans ‘12
Katherine Flanagan ‘14 (spring 2012)
Joyce Foster, Co-Chair
Eva Grudin
Ruth Harrison
Kris Herman (fall 2011)
David Johnson
David Lee ‘14
Wendy Magoronga ‘12
James Mathenge ‘12
David Michael ‘13 (fall 2011)
Bojana Mladenovic (fall 2011)
Reema Sharma ‘13
Michael Reed
Jorge Tena ‘12 (fall 2011)
Claire Ting, Co-Chair
Carly Valenzuela ‘13
Armando Vargas (fall 2011)
Carmen Whalen
Robert White
Lily Wong ‘12
Li Yu

To: The Steering Committee
From: The Committee on Diversity and Community
Subject: Annual Report

The CDC worked in three subcommittees in 2010-2011.

1) Williams Reads. From Fall 2010 through January, the Williams Reads subcommittee (chaired by Leslie Brown) focused on this year’s Williams Reads, which featured Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Because the CDC had chosen the novel a year in advance, we were able to urge classes to adopt it (two fall semester and one WSP course did so); those students helped create library displays and participated in the kick-off open reading. We had several successful, well-attended events (an open, public reading; a discussion with staff; a gallery display /talk in collaboration with WCMA; as well as a faculty lecture by D.L. Smith). (Two more events were cancelled due to snow.)

In February, Rob White took over as chair of the subcommittee. (We have decided to have each chair serve from January to January.) The subcommittee is in the process of choosing next year’s book in collaboration with the whole CDC; we have already decided that the following year (2012-2013) the book will be Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickle and Dimed.

The 2009-2010 CDC agreed that it would try to choose the books for Williams Reads well in advance of the January they would be featured, in order to allow for more advance planning of events and, potentially, more coordination with College courses. This year, in the spirit of these changes, the Williams Reads subcommittee has been exploring ways in which Williams Reads could expand to become a more significant participant in and spur to the intellectual culture of the College community. The subcommittee has explored or proposed: expanding the subcommittee itself to include members of the broader College community (so this spring, the subcommittee invited members of the Library and OIT staffs to join its work); expanding the duration of Williams Reads, so that an intensive series of events in January might be extended by events occurring during the course of the whole year; incorporating more “partners” into Williams Reads (for example, alumni; relevant campus offices and organizations; faculty who might agree to teach the book and/or related material in courses); and, most radically, transforming Williams Reads into a core intellectual experience for first-year students, by asking them to read the book over the summer, integrating discussions of the book into their First Days experiences, and providing programming that returns to the book during the year.

Ongoing work: This is an ambitious and continuing agenda, one that will only move forward after discussion and in stages. For next year, the CDC is hoping to enlist a core of faculty to teach the book in courses (and our choice of book will be influenced by our sense of where and how that will be possible); we are also hoping to coordinate programming with the Gaudino program, which will be focusing next year on the arts. The idea of incorporating summer and first-days has been tentatively discussed with the members of Eph Ventures/Orientation Committee and with the Dean of the College Sarah Bolton all of whom are in favor of this proposed expansion as early as the 2012/13 academic year. Next year the subcommittee will also continue discussing this more ambitious agenda with relevant College offices and groups, including Eph Ventures, the Bridges program, JAs and first-year entries and the Dean of the College’s office.

(NB: at its final meeting, the CDC decided that Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home will be the Williams Reads choice for January 2012.)

2) Health, Gender and Sexuality. This subcommittee, chaired by Ruth Harrison and Gayle Donahue, had the broad agenda of understanding and tackling aspects of the student sexual culture on campus: it was especially concerned with issues of sexual harassment and assault and the silence around these issues; it also wanted to think of ways of making Williams a more “sex positive” campus. It quickly defined two kinds of projects:

1) It endorsed a plan for Michael Reed’s office (Vice President for Diversity and Institutional Affairs) to bring together all the various offices and people on campus who were in some way charged with responding to sexual harassment and/or assault, in order to better coordinate and publicize these efforts, to educate its members about the issues and learn from the work of other institutions, and to improve the training of responders. Three members of the CDC subcommittee are part of that group.

2) The subcommittee as a whole explored ways to open up broader conversations about sex and sexuality on campus, in conjunction with efforts already being made by the MCC. The subcommittee planned an informational website, modeled on Columbia University’s popular “Go Ask Alice,” staffed by health services and MCC staff to whom students could address anonymous questions about sex and sexuality. The website will also have links to educational resources and to the resources being coordinated by Michael Reed’s office. The website is ready to go up in Fall 2011.

Ongoing work: The subcommittee also assisted in requesting and promoting an ACHA/NCHA survey of student health, which was distributed in the Spring semester; the results will be available during the summer, so next year’s CDC will have to decide if the results warrant further CDC attention. The committee also spent time addressing issues of alcohol on campus; JA training; and senior week (alcohol and cost). Some of these issues may become part of next year’s agenda.

3) Student Life Issues

Student groups have a critical role in shaping and structuring the campus community and climate, and are a significant factor in a student’s overall satisfaction with her/his undergraduate experience. The proposed agenda of this subcommittee, chaired by Claire Ting, was to begin mapping the way student groups on campus are currently structured, how they interact, what kinds of resources they currently have, and what they have to compete for. All groups were to be considered, including groups under the umbrella of MCC and MinCo, College Council, JAs, and athletic teams. The subcommittee’s agenda also included looking at ways to strengthen the effectiveness of student groups and to foster alliances among them, and exploring connections that could be made among student groups, faculty, staff, alums, and the wider community.

The subcommittee first targeted a variety of different sources in order to collect data on student groups at Williams College, and on the resources they currently have and for which they must compete. Working from a list that we had compiled of over 200 student groups, including athletic teams and club sports, we examined the structure of different groups and their access to funding. We met with members of the Campus Community, including College Council Chair, Francesca Barrett (’12), Director of the MCC, Lili Rodriguez, the Director of Campus Life at Williams, Douglas Schiazza, and the Director of Institutional Research, Chris Winters. One advance that emerged from our research involves MinCo groups and impacts their access to funding. We discovered that although MinCo groups are eligible for funding from College Council, they have not been aware of this and have historically not approached College Council to request funds. We anticipate that this will take pressure off the MCC budget, which can be reserved for programming that addresses social, cultural and political issues.

The subcommittee also obtained and discussed reports and the results of several College surveys, including the 2009-2010 Athletic Committee Report, 2005 Survey Findings on the Role of Alcohol at Williams College, and the 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2010 Senior Surveys. It became clear to the subcommittee that data are not currently available on the network of student groups on campus and on which groups interact, collaborate and form alliances. Moreover, it is unknown whether the network of student group interactions, and thus student interactions, is correlated with specific demographic factors and priorities. This information is critical for fostering further alliances and collaborations among student groups, faculty, staff, alums, and the wider community, and for establishing how the effectiveness of student groups can be strengthened. Because of the absence of such data, the subcommittee also worked on developing a campus-wide student survey. Questions in this survey include “with which groups does your student group currently interact?”, “what are the main factors that affected your decision to join this student group?”, “what are the factors that have deterred you from joining student groups you are interested in?”, and “are you part of the leadership of this student group?”

Ongoing work: By building on the structure and results of previous College surveys, the subcommittee will continue to refine its campus-wide student survey to address these and related issues.

Other business: discussing and drafting a letter in support of the Muslim Student Union’s proposal to hire a Muslim Chaplain; providing feedback for Claiming Williams; planning an event to celebrate the life and work of Manning Marable, who had spoken and taught at Williams several times during his distinguished career. We would also like to draft a brief letter to the administration underscoring the need to key for demographic information for all College surveys; next year’s committee may possibly follow up with a more detailed response.
The structure of the committee: The CDC spent a meeting discussing what it saw as its role in the College and its place in College institutional structure at the beginning of the Spring term; we reported to the Steering Committee our thoughts at that time. For the past several years, the CDC, which is a large committee, has tended to do much of its work in focused subcommittees, which stay in existence for a year or two, depending on the complexity of the issue. We feel that is an effective method of working. We also decided this year to have the CDC co-chaired by a staff and faculty member: this worked well in 2010-2011, when Joyce Foster and Karen Swann chaired the committee, and is in keeping with our expanded commitment to inclusion of staff representation and issues. When possible, we would like to time the terms of the co-chairs so that each year the committee will have one continuing co-chair and one new co-chair rotating into the position.

We will spend some time in our last full meeting discussing two issues that concern our year-to-year operations:

1) Normally, each fall the full committee decides its agenda for the year. If a subcommittee has unresolved business, it is up to the full CDC to decide if it wants to include this business as part of its agenda. We want to discuss whether it might be better and more efficient for each CDC to plan at least part of the next year’s business, as a way of getting the committee going more quickly and of assuring that work doesn’t get lost.

2) For a variety of reasons (leave patterns, and Karen Swann having a three-year term) almost all the faculty members of the committee are rotating off this year. We need to work out a long-term strategy for ensuring more continuity in coming years.

3) The committee will also discuss whether it would like to propose working more closely with the Steering Committee to generate a slate of potential faculty members of the CDC.

Respectfully submitted,

The Committee on Diversity and Community
Justin Adkins
Jaliz Albanese ‘13
Leslie Brown
Danielle Diuguid ‘11
Gayle Donahue
Zach Evans ‘12
Joyce Foster, Co-Chair
Ruth Harrison
Kris Herman
Jamal Jefferson ‘11
Aaron Kelton
Giselle Lynch ‘12
Michael Reed
Jeanette Rivera ‘12
Neil Roberts
Merida Rua
Vincent Schleitwiler
Karen Swann, Co-Chair
Jorge Tena ‘12
Claire Ting
Armando Vargas
Carmen Whalen
Robert White

• Nominations are due by Friday, May 4, 2012.
• Elections will be held the week May 21–25, 2012.

• Nominations are due by Friday, May 4, 2012.
• Elections will be held the week May 21–25, 2012.

The president appointed an ad hoc committee, composed of a diverse group of staff, to organize the election of the first WSC. The ad hoc committee will solicit nominations from all offices and departments, and will determine voting procedures (presumably modeled on those for faculty elections). The first WSC will be composed of five members serving three-year terms and six members serving two-year terms, to establish the two-year rotation described above.

The ad hoc committee

Lisa Briggs, Dining
Kelly Kervan, Controller’s Office
Tom Mahar, Facilities
Pat Malanga, English
Christine Menard, Library
Trevor Murphy, OIT
Geraldine Shen, College Relations
Suzanne Silitch, Communications
Rick Spalding, Chaplain

The Committee

Brings ideas from the staff to senior administrators and serves in return as a group that the senior administration may consult for staff input on college issues, excluding terms and conditions of staff employment,

Provides open and direct communication within the staff community,

Advises, as appropriate, on staff members who will sit on other standing and ad hoc committees that address issues that relate to matters of interest to staff,

Identifies other ways for staff to engage with each other, students, and faculty in an effort to promote community and to make staff a more visible, involved and recognized part of the wider college community

Guidelines

• WSC is elected by all eligible staff members* (salaried and hourly) from self- and other nominations solicited from all staff.
• WSC is composed of 11 salaried and hourly staff members, in proportion to their representative numbers (currently four salaried and seven hourly).
• WSC must have at least one hourly member from dining services and at least one hourly member from facilities.
• No more than two members from any department or office may serve concurrently.
• In consultation with WSC, the president appoints one ex officio non-voting member from human resources, below the level of director.
• Members serve two-year terms, with five members of WSC being replaced one year and six the next.
• Meetings are held monthly, with additional subcommittee meetings as needed.
• Each year, WSC elects from among its voting members a chair, who develops meeting agendas, in consultation with the members of WSC.
• All votes are made by secret ballot unless WSC agrees unanimously otherwise.
• WSC membership, with contact information, appointments to subcommittees or other college committees, and meeting notes are posted in a timely manner on the WSC website.
• Members’ time to attend WSC meetings during work hours, as well as meetings of other committees they have been appointed to is considered by the college to be work time.
• WSC receives administrative support from the Office of the Vice President for Finance & Administration.
• It is expressly understood that WSC is not a recognized labor organization for the purposes of collective bargaining with the college over terms and conditions of employment.
• * Eligible members exclude the President, the Provost, the Deans of the College and of the Faculty, the Vice Presidents for Finance & Administration, Campus Life, Strategic Planning & Institutional Diversity, and College Relations, the Chief Investment Officer, the Assistant to the President for Public Affairs, and the Secretary of the College.