GSE Faculty, Students To Discuss Diversity

Less than one month after 150 Graduate School of Education (GSE) students rallied for increased diversity, a meeting has been scheduled for faculty and students to hash the issue out.

The Standing Committee on Diversity, a body of faculty and students charged with working out diversity concerns, will host a "working session" next Wednesday, May 26. Titled "Deciding the Next Steps," the session will include small group discussions between students and faculty about diversity at GSE.

Committee co-chairs Eliot Professor of Education Charles V. Willie and Assistant Professor Eileen de los Reyes sent an e-mail message to the GSE community yesterday inviting anyone interested to participate in the session.

The rally's organizers, Students for Diversity at GSE, had originally requested a meeting to be scheduled for yesterday, but the committee pushed back the date until after grades were submitted.

The session is organized into four categories--faculty recruitment and retention; curriculum, pedagogy and advising; student services and quality of life issues; and admissions and student aid.

Participants will spend three hours in small groups before rejoining the larger group to discuss conclusions for an additional hour and a half.

Faculty, staff and students may select which topics they would like to discuss and each group will set its own agenda. One student and one faculty member will serve as co-chairs for each section.

Although the small group discussions will not be recorded, the final reporting session will be audiotaped, transcribed and be included in the committee's report for the academic year.

"These advisory recommendations will be referred to the Standing Committee on Diversity, the faculty, administration and other groups at our School for consideration and implementation during the next school year," the e-mail message said.

Next Wednesday's meeting is the result of the correspondence between the students, faculty and GSE Dean Jerome T. Murphy.

Enrico S. Mayuga, a student diversity activist at GSE, said the students are looking forward to the meeting.

"We want to move forward, not just go back and forth," Mayuga said.

Students for Diversity at GSE presented Murphy with a list of their demands in a letter April 25 and at the rally in front of Gutman Library May 3.

The students requested a reply by May 6.

Murphy sent out a memorandum addressing the demands, but student leaders said they felt he had not responded adequately to any of their substantive demands.