Controversy mostly cut from UO diversity plan.

Byline: Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

A new draft of the University of Oregon's five-year diversity plan drops most of the controversial elements that sparked a campus backlash last year, a move officials hope will provide some common ground on a subject that so far has been as much about division as diversity.

The new version, presented to the UO Senate on Wednesday, no longer includes language from the earlier draft that would have made "cultural competency" an issue in hiring and promotion as well as in many other aspects of university operations. It also substitutes specific diversity requirements with broader language and gives individual campus divisions flexibility to draft their own diversity plans.

Psychology professor Gordon Hall, co-chairman of the committee that developed the revised plan, said the new plan recognizes that different schools, colleges and departments within the university will need to take different approaches to achieve diversity.

"In other words, one size doesn't fit all," he said. "This new draft allows more tailoring and flexibility in particular units and colleges with respect to these issues."

But the broader language and flexibility is likely to be a concern for those who supported the original draft and saw it as a stronger tool for meeting the administration's pledge of creating a "caring, supportive atmosphere on campus" and an "acceptance of true diversity ... within a welcoming community."

Diversity has been a regular flash point at the UO for a number of years. From incidents of classroom harassment to charges of benign neglect to claims of discrimination by students and staff, the campus has struggled to come to grips with an issue that some say gets too little attention and others too much.

The issue boiled over again last May with the release of the first draft of the diversity plan.

Its focus on the undefined standard of cultural competency made national news and spread widely among conservative pundits.

UO President Dave Frohn- mayer formed a committee to take another run at the plan in hopes of bridging the gaps on a such a fractious subject.

With that revision in hand, he plans to appoint a new Diversity Advisory Committee to help him gather comments on the draft and recommend any changes before he settles on a final version in late May.

In a letter accompanying the draft plan, Frohnmayer acknowledges the difficulty of finding consensus on the issue.

"I acknowledge that virtually every reader is likely to have some disagreement with the final proposal," he wrote.

The revision keeps the six major themes of the old plan: developing a culturally responsive community, improving campus climate, building a critical mass, expanding and filling the pipeline, developing and strengthening community linkages and developing and reinforcing diversity infrastruc- ture.

It makes a number of suggestions - adapting course content and student evaluations, training programs, hiring efforts and numerous others - but leaves it up to individual schools and units to decide what methods to include in their plans.

Charles Martinez, the UO's interim vice provost for institutional equity and diversity, acknowledged the plan isn't what he would have written on his own and said some changes were disappointing.

But overall he said he is very optimistic because the plan sets out a much more realistic path for moving from planning to action.

The individual diversity plans, he said, will need to set concrete steps for improving the campus climate and will have to be approved by incoming Provost Linda Brady.

"Those plans aren't designed to be vision statements that go in a glass frame and are put on someone's wall," he said. "They have to spell out very precise actions that will take place. Despite the fact that this document sets direction rather than prescription, it's not weak."

But department-level committees might not find it any easier to settle on an action plan than the administration did.

Attitudes toward diversity at the UO run the gamut from those who see it as a critical issue to those who think it's already being addressed to those who believe it's wrong to give any group special status.

"There will be those among us in the campus community who will say this goes too far, it pushes us too much," Martinez said. "And there will be strong voices that will say this doesn't go far enough, there's not enough in here. I think that reflects in many ways where this campus is. This looks like us."

Most faculty haven't had time to digest the 43-page document yet. Early comments suggest the new draft won't be as controversial as the last one, but many of the same concerns remain.

UO chemistry professor Michael Kellman said the new plan is an improvement, but he said it's still centered on different treatment for particular groups and said that's not in the best interest of the university or the people the plan seeks to help.

"This plan is still obsessed with group identity, it's still full of group preferences in scholarships and faculty hiring," he said. "I think those things are bad public policy so I object to the plan on those grounds."

Also, Kellman believes the document fails to address the university's one legitimate diversity issue.

"The real kind of diversity that the University of Oregon needs, and which the University of Oregon and most other universities is sorely lacking, is intellectual diversity," he said.

"The University of Oregon, like most universities, is slanted way to the left of center of American society. But it seems nobody's thinking about that."

Students may see it from the other direction.

Adam Walsh, the UO student body president, said the students who served on the committee that prepared the draft were concerned about the time line for developing plans and the fact that no money was allocated for the effort.

"A lot of the students were not thrilled with everything they saw," Walsh said. "It's somewhat wait and see how the administration will respond to some of these concerns."

Others have expressed concern about whether funding will be committed to the effort and where it will come from.

But Frohnmayer said it is important to move ahead regardless of financial issues.

"Too often in these endeavors the availability or lack of resources dilutes our vision or defines our reach," he wrote. "We cannot fall into that trap in this effort."

DIVERSITY PLAN

Here are the next steps in the UO's diversity planning effort:

March and April: Gather comments on draft plan

Early May: Final report from diversity advisory committee

End of May: Final version of plan approved by Frohnmayer

Spring break 2007: Individual diversity plans submitted

Spring term 2007: Plans revised and adopted

Spring term 2008: First annual reports due