THE OFFICE OF DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
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n October 28, 2010, the Board of Trustees approved changing our name to the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. Although we will always remain committed to advocating for educational access and success for historically underrepresented groups, this more inclusive title sends a welcoming message to students who may not identify as “minority,� but who bring experiences and qualities that contribute to the vitality and academic excellence of Ohio State. Our new title also emphasizes our charge to incorporate diversity into the core of university life and into the mission of every campus unit. Collaboration with a number of units and programs across the university is paramount to that charge. Toward that effort, we announced new grant programs earlier this year to support research-based diversity projects. Two prime examples of ongoing collaborative efforts that we support are the PHD and DISCO, multi-disciplinary research-focused partnerships that are highlighted in this issue. Today, diversity as a term has become multi-layered and as a concept is constantly evolving. It remains heavily embedded in historical, cultural, and legal contexts. As demographics are shifting and definitions have become more complex and inclusive, diversity has come to embrace a broader vision represented by terms such as: access, equity, and inclusion. In this issue, we launch a critical conversation on the concept of diversity to encourage deep thinking across our campus communities about what it means.
Welcome
In addition to our new initiatives and collaborations, we are committed to strengthening our unique and signature programs. Several signature programs have achieved national recognition for the unique contributions they make to understanding or enhancing inclusion and diversity in higher education. The Todd Bell Resource Center for African American Males, featured in this publication, has demonstrated impressive results in retention and graduation rates. We hope that you enjoy this first issue of our new DRUM. We encourage your engagement in our ongoing efforts and hope that this issue inspires new ideas for achieving excellence through our diversity.
Valerie B. Lee Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion Chief Diversity Officer Professor of English
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DRUM 2011-2012 | Issue 1 | MAY
IN THIS ISSUE
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Fall Symposium to Mark 100 Year Legacy of American Indian Leadership
By Chadwick Allen, Associate Professor of English and Coordinator for American Indian Studies
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The Program for Arts and Humanities Development: An Innovative Approach to Graduate Recruitment
By Tiffany Clyburn and Maurice E. Stevens
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The Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at Ohio State: A Model of Successful Cross/Inter-disciplinary Collaboration By Debra Moddelmog, Professor of English, Co-Organizer and Director of Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at OSU (DISCO)
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Bodies of Knowledge and the Politics of Diversity
By M. Joseph Ponce, Assistant Professor of English and Coordinator, Asian American Studies Program
Students Voice Their Own Stories through Photos ODI Sponsored Events Photos ODI at a Glance Meet ODI Students and Alumni
African American Males Achieving Success The Todd A. Bell National Resource Center Promotes Excellence OSU Professor Emeritus and Champion of Civil Rights Dr. Frank W. Hale, Jr. inducted into Ohio Civil Rights Hall of Fame
Please send all letters, press releases, and other materials to: The Office of Diversity and Inclusion Student Academic Services Building, 3rd Floor 281 West Lane Ave. Columbus, Ohio 43210 This publication is funded through The Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
Editor: Yolanda Zepeda Layout and Cover Design: Herbert “Trae� Wilborn III
The Ohio State University is not responsible for the content of this publication. This publication does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the staff or the editorial board. All submissions for publication must include name and phone number or e-mail of the person(s) responsible for the work. DRUM reserves the right to refuse any and all submissions for publication at any time.
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Fall Symposium to Mark 100 Year Legacy of American Indian Leadership By Chadwick Allen, Associate Professor of English and Coordinator for American Indian Studies Image: Arthur Caswell Parker (1881-1955), Founding member of the Society of American Indians
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he Society of American Indians (1911-1923) was the first national American Indian rights organization developed by American Indians themselves, rather than by so-called “Friends of the Indians.” The SAI’s early leaders, a group of highly educated American Indian men and women known as the “Red Progressives,” were assisted in their organizing efforts by the nonNative sociologist F. A. McKenzie, a professor at Ohio State. After more than two years of correspondence, McKenzie hosted six of these Indian leaders on the Ohio State campus April 3 – 4, 1911: Dr. Charles A. Eastman (Santee Sioux), Dr. Carlos Montezuma (Yavapai-Apache), Thomas L. Sloan (Omaha), the Hon. Charles E. Dagenett (Peoria), Laura Cornelius (Oneida), and Henry Standing Bear (Sioux). As this temporary executive committee worked on the platform for a new organization, initially called the American Indian Association, they received an invitation from university and city leaders to hold their first national meeting on the Ohio State campus as well: Word has come to our ears that you are planning to meet in national assembly for the first time in history to discuss the problems which devolve upon the Indian race, and we, therefore, hasten to invite you to light the camp-fire first in the city named for the first white man who visited these shores. Let us, if we may, forget any animosities of the past, and jointly work for those conditions and those policies which in the future will justify peace because based upon the principles of equity, intelligence and progress. The high position which your leaders are reaching make us eager to welcome the representatives of all the tribes in the name of the State University, the city of Columbus, and the civic and religious bodies of our city. The invitation was signed by the President of The Ohio State University, W. O. Thompson, and the Mayor of Columbus, George S. Marshall, as well as by the President of the Chamber of Commerce, the President of the Ministerial Association, the Secretary of the YMCA, the Secretary of the State Historical and Archaeological Society, and the President of the Columbus Federation of Labor. The temporary executive committee accepted this invitation, and the first annual conference of what became the SAI was planned for the Columbus Day weekend, October 12 – 17, 1911. Professor McKenzie was appointed the local representative for the meeting. Nearly fifty prominent American Indian leaders, scholars, clergy, other professionals, writers, and artists participated in the SAI conference at Ohio State, as did representatives of the university, the mayor’s office, the governor’s office, and the federal office of Indian Affairs. Daytime events were held on campus in the Ohio Union, while evening entertainment (provided by several of the Indian participants and by a quartette sent from the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania) was scheduled in the city’s Memorial Hall.
Participants in the October 1911 conference spent Thursday afternoon working on issues of Organization. That evening, they were formally welcomed to the university and to the city by President Thompson, Mayor Marshall, a representative for Governor Harmon, and the President of the Columbus Chamber of Commerce, and then listened to an address by the U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs. They spent Friday, Saturday, and part of Sunday in formal conference sessions. The various presentations on contemporary issues facing American Indians were organized under the general topics of Industrial Problems, Educational Problems, Legal and Political Problems, and Moral and Religious Problems; specific topics included issues of class and gender, higher education, the role of the arts in contemporary Indian society, and citizenship. (American Indians did not become U.S. citizens, as a group, until 1924.) Each speech was followed by general discussion among the gathered participants. On Sunday morning and evening, Indian speakers were delegated to appear at various churches in Columbus. Finally, on Monday, participants elected officers for the new organization and formally adopted a platform, constitution, and by-laws. The SAI published an official Report of the Proceedings of its First Annual Conference in April 1912. Although it lasted only until 1923, the SAI and the journal it published between 1913 and 1920, originally titled the Quarterly Journal of the American Indian (1913-1915) and later renamed the American Indian Magazine (1916-1920), are of great significance to the history of twentieth-century American Indian political, cultural, intellectual, and literary development. Given the high level of support the SAI received from The Ohio State University and the city of Columbus in 1911, it seems only fitting that we host an academic symposium in 2011 to mark this centennial and to assess the ongoing legacies of the SAI and the diverse group of American Indian women and men who formed its core. The SAI Centennial Symposium will be held October 7 – 9, 2011 in the new Ohio Union on the Ohio State University campus and will feature opening remarks by OSU President Gordon Gee; keynote addresses by Philip Deloria (University of Michigan), K. Tsianina Lomawaima (University of Arizona), and Robert Warrior (University of Illinois); a series of focused “state of the field” workshops on our current knowledge of key SAI figures and legacies; evening entertainment, including a performance by Joy Harjo; and a tour of the nearby Newark Earthworks. Detailed information about the symposium will be forthcoming in the next months. In the meantime, mark your calendars! Direct any inquiries to Chadwick Allen, Associate Professor of English and Coordinator for American Indian Studies, Ohio State University (allen.559@osu.edu).
SAI Centennial Symposium, October 7 – 9, 2011 Ohio Union, Ohio State University
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The Program for Arts and Humanities Development: An Innovative Approach to Graduate Recruitment By Tiffani Clyburn and Maurice E. Stevens
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“Some Things I’ve Learned After Four Years Directing The PHD”
he Office of Diversity and Inclusion applauds the successes of collaborative initiatives and programs that hold as a principle diversity in its multifaceted manifestations (racial, cultural, national, institutional, disciplinary, etc.) and advocate for the production of new forms of knowledge as it emerges from a myriad of perspectives. Here, we profile two such programs: the Program for Arts and Humanities Development and the Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at Ohio State. Established in 2007, the Program for Arts and Humanities Development (PHD) is a summer research and cohortbuilding experience targeting undergraduate students from underrepresented groups, representing colleges and universities from across the country. By proposing a research experience that would meet the needs of a diverse student cohort from disciplines ranging from dance to philosophy, musicology to linguistics, the PHD Steering Committee knowingly took on the challenge of creating an interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary curriculum that takes a holistic approach to graduate school preparation and recruitment. While the PHD has not been without its programmatic and institutional growing pains, under the guidance of Dr. Maurice Stevens, associate professor of Comparative Studies, it has emerged as a program that emphasizes collaborative forms of knowledge production that empowers students to be active participants in their own learning. Dr. Stevens shares his reflections:
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These past four years have been profoundly educational in my journey with the Program for Arts and Humanities Development. The PHD is unique in its mission to provide a very high quality interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary curriculum for the racially, ethnically, economically, and institutionally diverse group of undergraduate students it serves each summer. Over the past four years, directing this extremely successful program has taught me, oddly enough, some important lessons about ‘trusting the process,’ appreciative analysis, and programmatic flexibility. These lessons are not entirely new, as people working for diversity enhancement are quite familiar with them. But I have, nevertheless, been reacquainted with them in my work with the PHD program. Perhaps because I imagined that its trajectory might be different than the typical arch of diversity initiatives – that the simple quality of the program would ensure it’s ongoing success in institutional support – I found myself a bit surprised by some of the challenges the program has encountered, even while others were predictable. Before sharing some of the challenges, though, I’ll share the rewards that come with directing a program like the PHD. First of all, there’s the sense of excitement and ‘fire’ that can emerge when a program design works. And believe me, this format for engaging graduate school bound students from underrepresented groups, works! Summer after summer, the rest of the teaching team and I have witnessed students come into an understanding of themselves as knowledge makers and not simply consumers of knowledge – they arrive adept at the consumption
and reflection of knowledge produced by others, and develop an awareness of their abilities in this capacity – but as sources of valuable new knowledge, themselves! Over the past three summers, we have seen this format work to enhance the students’ senses that they belong in graduate school and that they have something to offer not just that they can ‘survive’ graduate school, but that they can thrive and make meaningful contributions – or, and just as importantly, that graduate school is not where they will make their most significant contributions. Our program design does a great job of helping participants discern their capacities, their desires, and their intellectual passions. The program works on other scales as well. Our students and teaching staff are not the only beneficiaries of the learning and reflection the PHD elicits. Over the past four years, the PHD (along with programs like SROP) has effectively shifted the conception in the Division of the Arts and Humanities that pools of qualified underrepresented students just ‘aren’t out there.’ Departments that have historically had difficulty ‘finding qualified students’ from underrepresented communities are encountering these students right here at Ohio State. As a result, Arts & Humanities and its intellectual culture is coming to learn that, in fact, these students do exist, and that if we develop meaningful relationships with these talented scholars, they will come here for graduate school. It has been very rewarding to see this pedagogical goal, inherent to the PHD program’s initial mission, being steadily achieved.
programs like this one, but moving through each one has made the program better and more effective; each has made the program’s purpose and guiding principles clearer. I’d be remiss, though, if I did not mention what I believe to be the biggest challenge to the ongoing success of the PHD. The Program of Arts and Humanities development faces the same challenge that many programs invested in increasing diversity and inclusion in the Arts and Humanities face; namely, the lack of institutional will. Programs seeking to increase diversity and enhance inclusion in the halls of academia have long struggled with tensions and deep cultural ambivalences about the very nature of their work. For programs like PHD, this has translated into the need to ‘make a little go a long way,’ as small investments in diversity efforts sometimes seem safer than large ones. When larger monetary investments are made, they seem to be possible only when those who don’t really ‘feel’ the urgency of programs like this are made comfortable enough to ‘buy in’ to the current effort, which, in turn, sometimes means making concessions regarding program format or assessment or time-frames for evaluation. The lack of systematic institutional commitment to diversity has also meant having to accept that institutional support depends on the courage of this or that individual administrator. It has also meant accepting that in precarious times, one must work with what one has and not wait for what one wants or what one imagines to be optimal; and it means facing the fact that in tough times, diversity enhancement is considered an ‘extra,’ something that can be cut when necessary. The Program for Arts and Humanities Development has worked under these pressures for these four years, and its results have been tremendous! Its rewards unbelievable!
“Our program design does a great job of helping participants discern their capacities, their desires, and their intellectual passions.”
I suppose this connects with one of the minor challenges we’ve faced (I’ll say a bit about a major challenge in a moment). One of the principles grounding the structure and philosophy of the PHD is that the systematic diversification of academia, from the graduate student body to the professoriate, requires novel approaches to recruitment and retention, because most recruitment practices (attending graduate school fairs, offering larger packages to students identified as good prospects, etc.) do not increase the range of students recruited – even when they do increase the number of students recruited. As a result, disciplinary areas that have been bereft of underrepresented students (disciplines like Art History, Philosophy, English, Comparative Studies, and Linguistics, say), tend to simply reproduce their demographics year after year. It’s been important pedagogically, and I count it as an early benefit, that the PHD has had underrepresented students in all of these disciplinary locations. Introducing new recruitment techniques has been one of the PHD’s minor challenges. There have been other minor challenges as well, that any new program faces (I’ve been told that programs like this really need 8-10 years of operation to be meaningfully evaluated for their outcomes). For example, we’ve had to work through the bugs in our financial operations, make curricular and instructional adjustments, and work through glitches in our inter-programmatic collaboration. These are the headaches that go with directing
Over these four short years, more than forty students will have attended our program and many of them are excelling in graduate school right now. Those that are not are making their contributions elsewhere; in Teach for America, professional school, and in community organizations. Their testimonials say it all! Former PHD participants speak of having their lives changed, of coming to know themselves as scholars, of developing a sense of what graduate school can mean, and they talk about the significant and enduring relationships they develop while here. Their growth and development cannot be over valued. Ohio State’s Division of Arts and Humanities PHD has students ‘representing’ in graduate programs all over the country! And we have enjoyed exponential growth in applications from year to year. The news is getting out, there’s something special going on in Columbus, and the fact that participants are spreading this kind of word, is perhaps what gives me the greatest pleasure. The PHD is proving to be a deeply meaningful experience for underrepresented students from across the country!
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The Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at Ohio State: A Model of Successful Cross/Inter-disciplinary Collaboration
By Debra Moddelmog, Professor of English, Co-Organizer and Director of Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at OSU (DISCO) addressed by these programs individually and collaboratively.
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he Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at Ohio State (DISCO) was started in 2005-06 and has grown, morphed, and developed since then. It began as an informal collaboration among eight departments and programs that principally address intersecting issues of gender, race, class, ethnicity, dis/ ability, sexuality, and other elements of identity, culture, social difference, and social power. The eight partnering units include: African American and African Studies, American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies, Comparative Ethnic and American Studies, Disability Studies, Latino/a Studies, Sexuality Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. The co-organizers of DISCO are Debra Moddelmog (English), Joe Ponce (English), Maurice Stevens (Comparative Studies), and Judy Wu (History and Women’s Studies). Goals of this collective are to: promote innovative, interdisciplinary, and/or intersectional research on issues of diversity, identity, and social difference and power; coordinate and advertise courses and curricula on these issues; and sponsor diversity-focused intellectual and creative programs. Since its inception, DISCO has formed close partnerships with other diversity units on campus—e.g., the Kirwan Institute, the Multicultural Center, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, the Women’s Place—and over 200 faculty, staff, and students from across campus are now members of our listserv (disco@lists.acs. ohio-state.edu). In 2010, DISCO acquired Working Group status with the Humanities Institute, a two-year relationship that enables the development of research and other intellectual projects among members of our collective. In Fall 2010, four interdisciplinary DISCO programs—American Indian Studies, Asian American Studies, Disability Studies, and Sexuality Studies—became their own administrative unit within the College of Arts and Sciences reporting to interim Dean of Arts and Humanities Mark Shanda. The purpose of this DISCO unit is to provide infrastructure and support for the interdisciplinary academic programs collected under this umbrella and to foster curricula, programming, and research related to the issues
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Although DISCO was formed around eight academic departments and programs (listed in the attached), its influence and importance to OSU expands beyond that. Indeed, anyone at OSU who is interested in intellectual, academic, and scholarly work related to race, gender, class, sexuality, dis/ability, and other differences and their interactions is welcome to participate in DISCO and/or attend our events, workshops, and symposia. This includes faculty, staff, students, and administrators. Our work is collaborative in that each of our programs addresses the issue of identity, social power, and social justice through a particular disciplinary framework: African American and African, Asian American, Disability, etc. However, our work is necessarily intersectional and interdisciplinary since we all operate on the assumption that identity is always multiple and dynamic, that is, no one inhabits a singular identity (Latina, heterosexual, disabled, for example), but identity is formed in the complex linkages of a variety of social differences and practices. The events that DISCO has sponsored so far have more than fulfilled expectations about the necessity and advantages of a collaboration such as this. The “Arizona, Why Should We Care?” panel discussion on the recent immigration law and attack on ethnic studies programs in Arizona focused not only on current U.S. policies related to immigrants coming to the U.S. from Mexico but also on the longer history of restrictive immigration laws in the U.S., such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the Immigration Exclusion Act (the Johnson-Reed Act) of 1924. This forum encouraged us to commit to a follow-up event that further addressed the complexity of immigration within the U.S. So on Oct. 29, we hosted “Beyond the Arizona Immigration Law: Policing Bodies, Borders, and Belonging.” For this event, representatives from each of the eight partner areas presented on issues of immigration related to their specific field, covering topics such as resistance to state-sponsored violence against Mexican immigrants, sexual trafficking, the refusal of the U.S. to recognize American Indian sovereignty in regard to travel visas, policies regarding immigration and sexual orientation and/or HIV status, and the history of identifying particular conditions, bodies, and races as “disabled” in order to prevent their entry into the U.S. The result of this symposium was greater understanding on the part of the both the presenters and the audience about the history and complexity of immigration in the U.S. This is precisely the point of DISCO: that collectively we can produce knowledge that not only builds the understanding of each unit but also creates new knowledge out of the aggregate.
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African American Males Achieving Success The Todd A. Bell National Resource Center Promotes Excellence
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he Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s Todd Anthony Bell National Resource Center on the African American Male is reversing the education odds for Black males at Ohio State. In recent years, more than 90 percent of Black male freshmen have returned for their sophomore year, a dramatic increase over rates witnessed just ten years ago when retention rates floundered below 70 percent. Today, those African American males who return are not just surviving but are thriving, maintaining high GPAs, mentoring their peers, and contributing to the campus community. The success of OSU’s African American males is remarkable, when viewed against national trends. For example, black males, ages 18 and over, accounted for 5% of the college population in 2008 but represented 36% of the nation’s prison population. Risk factors throughout the educational pipeline are well-documented. They include inadequate college preparation in public schools, absence of positive black men as role models, low expectations from teachers and other adults, low self-esteem and high rates of dropping out of high school. To help students overcome these barriers, the Bell National Resource Center nurtures a sense of community and connectedness among African American males, promoting their success in college and beyond. Laying a foundation for success, the Early Arrival Program is a three-day bridge program, designed to give incoming African American males a head start on their experience as undergraduate students. These students learn about resources and meet faculty, staff, fellow students and alumni who are eager to assist in their success. Participants also attend faculty presentations, student panels and a tailgate luncheon prior to an OSU football game. A range of program activities build upon the foundation established in the bridge program. For example, students discover and develop their own leadership abilities at a Leadership Institute, where emphasis is placed on academic excellence and service to the community. Further, an annual retreat promotes student self-awareness, academic motivation, leadership, and career development, and the “Gathering of Men” networking event allows students, staff, faculty, and community persons to establish significant relationships with other African American males. The roundtable discussions provide opportunities to interact with successful, professional role models that include notable guests, such as Guy Bluford, the first African American in space; singer and actor Harry Belafonte; and distinguished Yale sociologist Elijah Anderson.
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Chigo Ekeke receives a Bell Resource Center academic excellence award from Professor James Moore.
Chigozirim “Chigo” Ekeke, a senior biochemistry major, reflects on his involvement with the Bell National Resource Center, which provided his first experience as a student leader: “I became a part of a cohesive group that would grow and become the Band of Brothers organization. The Band of Brothers serves as a student liaison group for the BRC and is based on service, scholarship, proactive leadership, professional development and the empowering of the African American male mind at The Ohio State University.” Ekeke has also embraced his role as mentor through the Early Arrival Program. As an example of this, he states: “This program allowed me to talk to incoming freshmen and their parents about OSU, as well as the support provided by the BNRC. My participation in this program showed me the importance of mentorship, as I continue to serve as a mentor for many of the freshmen today.“ A Bell National Resource Center peer helped him navigate medical school admissions, and Ekeke is now weighing his options among multiple medical school acceptances, but he will carry with him his commitment to service. “The Bell Resource Center served as a pivotal medium, allowing me to fulfill my passion to serve the African American community on campus and abroad,” said Ekeke. Under the leadership of the Center’s director James L. Moore III, Professor of Counselor Education in the College of Education and Human Ecology, the mission has expanded beyond applying
“The Bell Resource Center served as a pivotal medium, allowing me to fulfill my passion to serve the African American community on campus and abroad.” retention practices. It now includes the production of highquality research and scholarship on African American males that informs theory, policy, and practice. The Bell National Resource Center has produced a growing body of published works that address research problems throughout the educational pipeline: elementary school assessment, underrepresentation in gifted education, high school counseling services, and college readiness. In addition to identifying best practices and applying cutting-edge research on African American males, the Bell National Resource Center’s priorities include providing consultation and professional development to school districts, colleges, agencies and other institutions on issues focusing on African American males and advising governmental officials and policymakers on designing effective policies and services for African American males. In pursuit of these goals, the Bell National Resource Center has successfully secured nearly $2,000,000 from university, state and federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, AT&T High School Success Special Grants Program, and the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Dr. Moore has earned national and international recognition for his research and achievements with African American males. For example, in 2008, the American Education Research Association presented Dr. Moore the Distinguished Scholar Award in Counseling, and he received the international-based Oxford Symposium’s prestigious award for Outstanding Contribution to School-based Family Counseling in 2009. Dr. Moore has also received accolades from National Alliance of Black School Educators, National Association for Gifted Children, and National Association for Multicultural Education. While he celebrates the many achievements and awards that the Bell National Resource Center has earned, Dr. Moore’s ambitious research agenda has many questions yet to be explored. “The Bell National Resource Center is committed to developing a generation of future scholars and professionals who are dedicated to the education and development of our nation’s African American males,” says Moore. “Among some of the research areas we need to better understand are pre-college experiences, the impact of role models, the role of HBCUs, and STEM learning processes. I also have great confidence in the talent and leadership of our students at the Bell National Resource Center, and I believe that their experiences and successes will lead us to new understandings and new questions.”
Sean Plaskett, 2011 Excalibur Prize Recipient
Congratulations to the 2011 Award Recipients The Todd A. Bell National Resource Center on the African American Male honored students, faculty, staff, and community professionals for their leadership and service to the African American male population at The Ohio State University. At the 2011 Recognition Ceremony, the distinguished Gene and Sheila Smith Excalibur Prize was awarded to Sean Plaskett in recognition of his exemplary scholastic achievement, outstanding character and leadership and service to The Ohio State University community. Outstanding Service Awards were presented to the following individuals, honoring their contributions to the Todd Anthony Bell National Resource Center:
Undergraduate Award: Chigozirim Ekeke, Biochemistry
Graduate Award:
Ashley Hicks, Human Development and Family Science
Staff Award:
Minnie McGee, Assistant Dean, Outreach & Special Programs, College of Engineering
Faculty Award:
Leon McDougle, Assistant Professor of Family Medicine and Assistant Dean for Diversity and Cultural Affairs, College of Medicine
Community Professionals:
Kathryn Burn-Sanders, Speech Language Pathologist, Princeton City Schools Richard Dent, III, Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer & Co - Leader of Victoria's Secret PINK at Victoria's Secret
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OSU Professor Emeritus and Champion of Civil Rights
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Dr. Frank W. Hale, Jr. inducted into Ohio Civil Rights Hall of Fame hio State Vice Provost and Professor Emeritus Dr. Frank W. Hale, Jr. has dedicated his life to the struggle for racial equality and educational access. His legacy was honored last fall when he was inducted into the Ohio Civil Rights Hall of Fame. The 2010 induction ceremony was held at the Ohio Statehouse on October 14 and marked the second annual event honoring citizens who have made significant contributions to the progress of the civil rights and equal justice in the State of Ohio. Dr. Hale earned a PhD in communication and political science from Ohio State in 1955. Following his service as department chair at Central State University and a presidential term at Oakwood College, Dr. Hale returned to Ohio State to become the first African American dean of the Graduate School. Soon after his arrival in 1971, Dr. Hale set to work recruiting top African American students from historically Black institutions across the nation to Ohio State’s graduate programs. He was charged with leading the university-wide Fellowship Committee, and through his efforts some 1,200 ethnic minorities were funded for graduate
Returning to the university after several years at Kenyon College and the University of Nebraska, Dr. Hale created a forum for the campus community to engage in thought provoking discourse with leading voices for diversity in all disciplines. The President and Provost’s Diversity Lecture and Cultural Arts Series continues to bring national experts to lead conversations on wide-ranging topics such as art and contemporary African American identity, American Indian poetry, relations between African Americans and Latinos, Black feminist legal theory, international women’s rights, and Asian Americans and racial politics. While his works have left a prominent and lasting mark on the Ohio State community, Dr. Hale’s hallmark extends well beyond the campus. His vision for racial justice has inspired leaders in government agencies and educational organizations. Dr. Hale has shared his administrative acumen serving on national advisory boards and consulting with many national agencies including the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Military Academy, Education Testing Service, and the Council of Graduate Schools, among others, and lecturing at more than 300 colleges and universities.
“A long-time activist, Dr. Frank W. Hale, Jr. has demonstrated courageous educational, religious and scholarly leadership in civil rights struggles.” Valerie B. Lee, Vice Provost and Chief Diversity Officer study. By the decade’s end, Ohio State had become the nation’s top producer of African American PhDs, and the Graduate and Professional Student Visitation Day served as the national model for targeted graduate recruitment. Appointed Vice Provost for Minority Affairs in 1978, Dr. Hale turned his attention to educational access for undergraduates. He was instrumental in initiating many scholarships, including the Morrill Scholarship Program, named for the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act. Dr. Hale also played a key role in the establishment of a Black Cultural Center on campus, helping to move forward collaboration between the Department of African American and African Studies and the university administration. When the center officially opened in 1989, the Frank W. Hale, Jr. Black Culture Center and Hale Hall, the building where it is housed, were named in his honor recognizing Dr. Hale’s contributions and his service to the university.
Testament to his broad influence are the honorary doctorates awarded to Dr. Hale from Wilberforce University, Shaw University, Capital University , University of Nebraska, La Sierra University, and Andrews University. Dr. Hale’s extensive publications include a widely-referenced compendium of successful practices, What Makes Diversity Work in Higher Education (Stylus Publishing Company, 2004). On a more personal level, Dr. Hale’s life and legacy continue to inspire. For the countless students who benefit from the Hale Black Culture Center, he serves as powerful role model and reminder of the core values that lie at heart of education. Through his life and works, he remains a mentor to leaders in higher education and to those who carry on the struggle for equality and diversity.
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Photo: “Classroom Chairs 2” by James Sarmiento
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Bodies of Knowledge and the Politics of Diversity
By M. Joseph Ponce, Assistant Professor of English and Coordinator, Asian American Studies Program iversity considerations span virtually every aspect of higher education. My focus here will reflect critically on two oft-cited benefits of diversity: the notion that education is enhanced when individuals from different backgrounds have opportunities to interact with and learn from one another, and the idea that such interactive education promotes a multicultural national citizenry that can then perform effectively in the global capitalist economy. What I hope to suggest is that the first aim does not automatically lead to the second. In fact, learning about the construction, perpetuation, and elaboration of social differences in specific historical circumstances ought to compel all of us to question, rather than capitulate to, the ways that knowledge is instrumentalized to further U.S. nationalism and global capitalism. Before explicating these claims, it is necessary to distinguish between diversity as it refers to marked bodies, and diversity as it relates to areas of knowledge production. The former involves categorizing people by race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and ablebodiedness through processes of identification, enumeration, and statistical computation whose data is then used to create “profiles” of particular segments of the campus. The latter, highlighted most emphatically in fields such as ethnic, women’s, sexuality, and disability studies, focuses on how markers of difference accrue social and political meaning as sources of oppression and resistance, how those meanings shift in a varying contexts, and how they affect access to and distribution of resources. Whereas the first understanding of diversity is largely a bureaucratic matter used to measure and publicize a university’s national reputation, the second is much more wary of the ways that social differences get naturalized and manipulated toward political ends. My remarks are informed by my teaching, research, and service
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in the fields of ethnic and queer literary and cultural studies. I am less concerned here with how to increase the number of “diverse” bodies on campus than in demonstrating that the effects of “diverse” bodies of knowledge are, or ought to be, incompatible with upholding the class and national status quo—what politicians are still able to call, without a hint of irony, “the American Dream.” So to return to my first claim, on the first day of classes devoted to Asian American or queer literatures, I ask students to fill out a short profile that inquires about their academic interests, their previous experiences in the course’s area of study, why they decided to take course, and what they expect to encounter. While some say that they don’t have any expectations, the majority write something along the lines of enrolling in the course because they want to learn more about other communities and cultures. A smaller number self-identify as belonging to that constituency and therefore have a personal investment in the topic. With the exception of those who simply say that the course fits into their schedule or satisfies a degree requirement, the responses to this informal poll essentially adhere to the logic of diversity and identity—learning about “others” or learning about “oneself.” Without denying the good will behind these intentions, the framework and content of these courses typically cut against those expectations. For example, in my queer literature classes—which I organize around sexual, racial, and national differences—we do not examine the texts as repositories of discrete, static “cultures” or “experiences” that can be distilled and consumed into neat packages. Rather, we explore the uses of queer reading as a strategy for interpreting a range of texts that challenge normative conceptions of desire, gender, sexuality, and intimacy and that, at times, present alternative relationships and forms of eroticism. When reading work by U.S. writers of color, such as Audre Lorde’s
Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1983) or Rakesh Satyal’s Blue Boy (2009), we focus on the authors’ engagements with homophobia in mainstream and ethnic contexts as well as with racism in mainstream and queer contexts. By the end, then, the very idea of, say, “the queer community,” “the black community,” or “the Asian American community” is called into question, not merely by interrogating the artificial divisions between them but also by taking into account the internal differences that constitute them. The basic reason I emphasize this approach is to undermine the assumption that a text produced by an author of a given social group is somehow “representative” of that group. When we read Maxine Hong Kingston’s classic The Woman Warrior (1976), for instance, we also look at some of the controversies that attended its reception—especially among Chinese and Chinese American readers, some of whom felt that its appropriation of myths was unwarranted and inauthentic, or that its depiction of sexism was overdrawn. The second, more subtle, reason is so that students don’t automatically presume that minoritized bodies bear the burden of “other” cultural knowledge. One relatively unnoticed effect of the institutionalization of liberal multiculturalism in the academy is that marked bodies are expected to deliver insider information about “their” cultures, thereby obeying an insidious logic of native informancy that casts otherness as valuable only insofar as it can be safely consumed and contained without altering the dominant culture. Accounting for the ways that multiple differences are constructed inevitably raises the question of why—which brings me to my second claim. Not only does this approach oppose versions of multiculturalism that assume an equal playing field for “plural” cultures, neutralize the conflicts that inescapably erupt between competing interests, and posit mutual respect or toleration as the remedy to social antagonism. It also forces us to probe the ends to which the production of differences serve. And these, I would suggest, involve macro-level forces of political economy, national power, and imperialism. To take an example from my own research on Filipino American literature and history, the United States government at the end of the nineteenth century justified its annexation of the Philippine archipelago through racial, gender, sexual, and economic rationales. On the pretense of “liberating” Filipinos from Spanish colonial rule (Filipinos had already declared an independent Philippine Republic in 1898 during their revolution against Spain) and as an extension of the Spanish-American War, the Americans effectively reversed their position, deemed Filipinos a “race” of savage or incompetent peoples who were unfit—and not “manly” enough—to govern themselves, and so initiated the brutal Philippine-American War (officially 1899-1902, but lasting much longer). The imperialists of the day further invoked divine providence (expanding the continental ideology of Manifest Destiny across the Pacific) as well as overseas economic opportunities, viewing the Philippines as a strategic “stepping-stone” to what one senator described as “China’s illimitable markets.” As a de facto U.S. colony until 1934 and a commonwealth until 1946, the Philippines also supplied a stream of cheap labor for sugar plantation owners in Hawai’i, fish cannery industries in Alaska, and agribusiness on the West Coast. Recruiters were especially keen to secure young, single,
able-bodied men who could be mobilized to pick seasonal crops but wouldn’t need to be paid to support families. Not surprisingly, such a demographic gave rise to fears of Filipino “hypersexuality,” as economic competition during the Great Depression heightened racial tensions and led to anti-miscegenation laws as well as vigilante violence. It’s possible, I suppose, that this sort of knowledge advances personal development and social understanding, but students would be seriously missing the point if they took this history as a lesson in how to live in a diverse society and work in a globalizing economy. It was exactly the expansion of the country’s economic competitiveness vis-à-vis other imperialist powers during this period that justified intervention in the Philippines. I don’t presume to know how my students react to such encounters—with anxiety, resentment, anger, shame, glee? Perhaps they simply recur to historical progress and imagine that “that was then, this is now.” But are not similar, if not identical, forces operating in the present? Newly racialized peoples detained in the wake of 2001; wars fought for political and economic control as much as for “humanitarian” reasons; a global economic recession whose “recovery” is benefiting only the very wealthy—to say nothing of the punitive legislation targeting immigrants and ethnic studies programs in Arizona; the attacks on collective bargaining rights among public employees in Wisconsin, Ohio, and other states; the legislation curtailing women’s reproductive rights and other social services; the pervasive homophobia in schools that have led to highprofile suicides; a highly domesticated national gay and lesbian movement that privileges marriage and the military at the expense of issues relevant to queers of color, immigrants, youth, and the poor . . . . The list could go on and on. If there has been one persistent methodology in ethnic studies, I would suggest that it lies in the critique of state power—whether the state’s production of racial hierarchies (and their gendered and sexualized embodiments), its stigmatization and exacerbation of class stratification, its prioritization of the military-security state (including the stripping of sovereign power from indigenous peoples, and the implementation of immigration restrictions), its exploitation of dehumanized labor, or its incarceration of expendable populations and “enemy combatants.” If you think I’m overstating the case, consider the title of a recent conference I attended at UC-Riverside, “Critical Ethnic Studies and the Future of Genocide: Settler Colonialism/Heteropatriarchy/White Supremacy,” an event that featured over 200 sessions, six plenary panels, and a number of film screenings, and that drew approximately 1,200 registrants. In sum, the forty-year history of ethnic studies has unequivocally interrogated the systemic mechanisms by which social hierarchies are maintained and reproduced, as well as the institutions that enforce middle class assimilation not only culturally and nationally but also economically and sexually. So my question about the relation between diversity and the academy boils down to this: are our teaching, research, and service efforts aimed at enabling students and ourselves to enter (or surpass) the American middle class—with all of its constitutive exclusions? Or are our endeavors oriented toward transforming the political and economic structures—the institution of higher education included—that necessarily create social inequality?
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Students Voice Their Own Stories through Photos photographer, I have disabilities and I’m interested in storytelling, so this study definitely caught my eye.” A key aspect of the study was that students had the freedom to photograph whatever they chose. Miller explains, “Throughout the project, it was very important to maintain the authenticity of the students’ voice; therefore we did not “lead” participants in regard to what impacts their academic experience, we allowed them to communicate verbally and/or through photos and stories to tell us these impacts, whether positive or negative.”
O
hio State students had an opportunity to share perspectives on their day-to-day experiences through a photographic and storytelling project. Using a process called Photovoice, a team of seven students and several campus partners collaborated for six months to produce photographic images that tell the stories of students living with disabilities, particularly stories around positive and negative impacts on academic success. Photovoice is a process that allows members of a community to represent and advocate for their community. By documenting their own experiences, participants who are not traditionally viewed as “experts” or knowledge creators are able to create understanding about their community and promote critical dialogue through discussion of the photographs. The project was spearheaded by Katye Miller, wellness coordinator at the Student Wellness Center (SWC), who was inspired to bring Photovoice to OSU when she learned about it. “I attended a conference where one of my colleagues talked about the use of Photovoice with various underrepresented populations,” says Miller. “After reading up on the methodology, I found it to be inspiring and felt it could be a great route to learn more about academic success and what impacts it has from the students’ ‘eye/I.’ Photovoice provides a strong voice to populations that may not feel like they are ‘heard’ all the time.” Partnering with the Nisonger Center and the Office for Disability Services, the Photovoice Team recruited seven students, who met with the two session facilitators, Ms. Miller from SWC and Dr. Hwang from Counseling & Consultation Service (CCS), every two weeks throughout winter quarter. They learned about storytelling from OSU English professor Brenda Brueggemann, and community photographers Meredith Stone and Justin Luna provided training on photography skills, ethics, and camera usage. For one of the student participants, the fit seemed natural, “I am a
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An advantage of Photovoice as a research technique is that the process of storytelling can strengthen and affirm the community. One student participant, who chose to remain anonymous, noted that the project enabled her to share some experiences that she would not have considered sharing outside of the project. “I was really surprised at the amount of support I got through this experience. When I shared my experiences about my frustration in class, my peers in the Photovoice class would tell me, ‘That isn’t right’, and ‘Of course you’re frustrated!’ It was nice to be a part of a group to share my experiences. It’s not the kind of stuff you’d share with your normative peers.” The Photovoice Art Exhibition opened early April with a reception that included photography and stories relating what impacts student academic success. The exhibit will be on display at the Frank W. Hale, Jr. Black Cultural Center through April and early May. Part of the exhibit and a presentation on the methodology and results will be shared at Ohio State’s annual Multiple Perspectives on Access, Inclusion, and Disability Conference on May 4-5, 2011.
“Hopefully this will promote sensitivity in people who may not have a person with a disability in their life.” Photovoice Participant The project was funded through the collaboration of many campus and community partners who provided staff time, expertise, and monetary support. Partners include the Student Wellness Center, National Research Institute for College Recreational Sports & Wellness, Counseling and Consultation Service, Nisonger Center, Office for Disability Services, Shell Global, Wexner Center for the arts, Department of English, Recreational Sports, Frank W. Hale, Jr. Black Cultural Center, Community Photographers, Digital Union, Multicultural Center, ADA Coordinator’s Office, Disability Studies Program, College of Public Health, McAlister Framers, Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations, Urban Arts Space, Year of eLearning, and Student Life Research & Assessment.
New Initiatives: Office of Diversity and Inclusion
Inaugural Faculty Fellow
Dr. Barbara A. Fink Diversity Enhancement Chair, College of Optometry
Faculty Fellows Program
The Faculty Fellows Program provides an opportunity for faculty who want their service tailored to their research or teaching interests in the areas of diversity, equity, and social justice. The Office of Diversity and Inclusion works with the tenure initiating unit to buy out the fellow’s time for part or all of the academic year to work on projects of mutual benefit.
Education Abroad Scholarships
Scholarships will be awarded to graduate or professional students conducting research on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. Undergraduate scholarships will be awarded to students who are enrolled in a university-approved program, and special consideration will be given to those students from underrepresented groups, and/or first-generation students going abroad for the first time to study, conduct research, or render service. Average scholarship: $2,000.
Diversity Research Grants
Small grants will be awarded to faculty and graduate and professional students who are working on interdisciplinary research projects that have as their central focus such topics as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. Average grants will range from $1,000 - $10,000.
Conference/Symposia Grants
Small grants will be awarded to students, faculty, or staff sponsoring a conference or symposium that directly addresses issues of diversity and inclusion. Average grants will range from $500 - $5,000.
For more information please visit:
http://odi.osu.edu/new_initiatives
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ODI SPONSORED EVENTS
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ODI at a
Glance
The Office of Diversity and Inclusion sponsors a range of programs that expand educational access and promote success for students, faculty and staff from historically underrepresented groups. Our activities span from precollegiate pipeline programs to scholarships, from academic support to professional development, to cultural exchange and enrichment. The following is an overview of last year’s activities.
Young Scholars Program
Provides comprehensive pre-collegiate support 655 Precollegiate students served 307 YSP students currently enrolled at OSU (AU 09) 88 Completed YSP pre-collegiate program 68 Enrolled at OSU 91% 1st year retention
Upward Bound Program
Provides federally-funded college preparation services 53 High school students served 20 High school seniors preparing for college 2 OSU scholarship recipients to enroll Au 11
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Scholarship Services
Manages merit-based and need-based scholarship programs 1492 Morrill Scholars Funded 1666 Freshman Foundation Scholars 235 Young Scholars Funded
Frank Hale Black Culture Center
Provides programming on issues of race, politics, economics, community, art and culture 107,693 Visits to the Hale Center in 2010 11,048 Event Hours Scheduled 36% Events Sponsored by Student Groups 55% Events Sponsored by Academic Units 9% Events Sponsored by Community Groups
Todd A. Bell National Resource Center on the African American Male
Leads efforts increase the retention and graduation rates of African American men 943 35 88% 63% 366
Academic Advancement Services
Provides student academic and professional development assistance
56 Students in Bridge Program 154 Students Provided a Peer Mentor African American Male Students Served at OSU 1456 Students Tutored Events, Programs and Activities Sponsored 3,738 MAP Retention Consultations First-Year Retention Rate for African American Males Six-Year Graduation Rate for African American Males Undergraduate African American Males with 3.0 GPA
Access Collaborative
Provides academic and social support to assist low-income, underrepresented single parent students 39 Students Participated in Programming 66 Received Evening Child Care Services 100% Retention Au 09 to Au 10
Undergraduate Recruitment & Development Nurtures community relationships to develop diverse prospect pools 124 11 7 4
High school and other outreach events attended Community recruitment receptions hosted Campus student tour groups led Overnight campus visit programs
Signature Events 700 350 320 209
Job Seekers at University-wide Career Fair Participants at Grad & Prof Student Orientation Attendees at Natl Conference on Diversity, Race & Learning Prospective Graduate Students attend Visitation Days
For more information please visit:
http://odi.osu.edu
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Meet ODI Students and Alumni Anastasia Martinez
Since the time that Anastasia Martinez was a sixth grade student in Cleveland, she had her heart set on attending Ohio State. Through the Young Scholars Program, OSU’s pipeline program for urban students across the state, Anastasia learned about college opportunities and gained valuable college preparation and financial assistance, helping to put her dream of college in reach. Now in her third year, Anastasia is majoring in English Pre-Education with a minor in Latino Studies and is on track to graduate in the spring of 2012. She has been accepted for a teaching internship with the Breakthrough Collaborative, a national organization dedicated to preparing high achieving middle-school students, most of whom are of color and from low-income families, to enter and succeed in college-prep high school programs. “I am extremely excited to teach students who come from backgrounds that are similar to mine and I am determined to show them that they are able to have successful futures. I hope to be a positive influence on my students and I can’t wait to teach them as well as learn from them throughout our time together this summer.”
Nikol Bowen, Ph.D.
OSU alumna Dr. Nikol Bowen is on the faculty of the Department of Counseling at Ohio University where she teaches courses in counseling theory and personality disorders. When she got her start as an undergraduate at Ohio State, Dr. Bowen found herself balancing the challenges of being a non-traditional student and single mother. She found the support she needed to succeed from ODI’s Access Collaborative. The program provided book scholarships, child care services, and peer support, enabling her to graduate with Distinction and launch an academic career. Dr. Bowen went on to earn a master’s degree and doctor of philosophy degree at Ohio State. Her current research examines the concept of compassion within helping professions and explores diversity and integration in primary, secondary, and higher education from a systemic perspective to increase community collaborations for education. “The Access Collaborative was a program that I benefited from tremendously. They helped me connect with other single parents, provided financial resources, support groups, as well as convenient and affordable childcare.”
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Joseph Clark, III
Joseph Clark is a Young Scholars Program alumnus currently earning a Juris Doctorate at the Moritz College of Law and a Master’s at the John Glenn School of Public Affairs. He served as a legal Intern assisting Chief and Deputy Legal Counsels for Governor Strickland, and as a DICE Development Intern on the OSU Office of University Development. During his undergraduate years, Joseph undertook leadership activities serving as an Orientation Leader and a University Ambassador and was involved with Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity and SPHINX Senior Class Honorary. After graduation this spring, Joseph will be working for Battelle Memorial Institute on Government Relations and Policy. On a lighter note, Joseph was inducted into the inaugural Sloopy’s Diner Sandwich Club and enjoys the unparalleled distinction of having a Sloopy’s BLT sandwich named in his honor. “The Young Scholars program gave me the opportunity to be around other like-minded, achievement oriented youth in my neighborhood and across Ohio and the resources that I or my family did not have, to capitalize on my potential.”
Kenton Williams
Born and raised in East St. Louis, Illinois, Kenton Williams was awarded a Morrill Scholars Program (MSP) scholarship to study at Ohio State. The merit-based award targets students underrepresented in higher education. Soon after his arrival, Kenton took full advantage of the many opportunities he found at Ohio State, directing undergraduate research on implementing an energy-based control technique on a 3-D, biped walking robot. His achievements earned him distinctions such as the MLK Scholar Award in 2008 and OSU Outstanding Senior Award in 2009, and Kenton graduated magna cum laude with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. Kenton is a 2008 Ford Foundation Fellow and received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in 2010. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree at the MIT Media Laboratory in the Personal Robots Group, “My research at MIT explores ways in which robots can leverage physics-based reasoning strategies for object manipulation in human-robot teaming scenarios.” “With the MSP scholarship, I did not need to seek part-time employment and could devote my time and energy primarily to my coursework and campus leadership opportunities. I was able to mentor, tutor, and empower many students within the OMA community and beyond. These experiences have been invaluable to me as I prepare for a future career as a university professor.”
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THE OFFICE OF DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
The Ohio State University Office of Diversity and Inclusion Student Academic Services Building, 3rd Floor 281 West Lane Ave. Columbus, OH 43210-1132
http://odi.osu.edu
Valerie Lee presents Cornel West with the ODI kente stole at the 2011 MLK Celebration
Photo by Ira Graham III