Doing Diversity in Higher Education: Faculty Leaders Share Challenges and Strategies

Chapter 8: Agents of Change: Faculty Leadership in Initiating and Sustaining Diversity at the University of Arizona

166 In the late s, the collective action of several women faculty members in the School of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) initiated a study that found gender-based disparities in salary, office and laboratory space, awards, resources, committee assignments, named chairs, teaching obligations, and retention. With the support of their dean and president, these women made recommendations aimed at ensuring equity for senior women faculty, improving the professional lives of junior women faculty, and increasing the number of women faculty (Massachusetts Institute of Technology ). Their study and MIT’s quick, positive response received wide national attention; other institutions , among them the University of Arizona (UA), were inspired to investigate inequities on their own campuses (National Academy of Sciences ). UA’s parallel study—known as the Millennium Project—was a collaboration between the president of the Association for Women Faculty (AWF) and the chair of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Although the university administration did not initiate the project, it did provide funding; “The Millennium Project Report: Phase I: Faculty” was released in October  (Cress ; Cress et al. ). That study’s goals were to measure the campus climate for faculty women and faculty of color, and its findings identified multiple changes that would enhance academic excellence. A subsequent study focusing on university staff members and their experiences of campus climate, “The Millennium Project: Phase II: Staff,” was released in October  (Johnsrud et al. ). While there has been significant research on campus climates (National Academy of Sciences ), researchers have rarely investigated the impact of such studies or explored efforts to pursue recommended changes. In this 8 Agents of Change Faculty Leadership in Initiating and Sustaining Diversity at the University of Arizona JENI HART, LINDY BRIGHAM, MARY K. GOOD, BARBARA J. MILLS, AND JANICE MONK chapter, we report on an exploratory case study that addresses how faculty leadership at UA implemented, fostered, and sustained diversity initiatives. The study drew on a conceptual framework developed by Huberman and Miles (), who presented findings from a comparative case study about the implementation of K– school improvements. Their goal was “to show just what happened in the course of these school improvement efforts, to explain why it happened, and to suggest the implications for changes . . . elsewhere” (vi). Following that imperative , our study asked: () How did UA implement the Millennium Project recommendations ? () Why did it choose those approaches? () What are its implications for improving the campus climate? Our central focus was on who implemented the changes and how faculty and administration worked together. In January  the university president and the faculty cochairs organized a university-wide Millennium Report Oversight Committee (MROC), which had a five-year mandate to oversee implementation of the project’s recommendations . Our study looked at the work of this committee as it reached the middle period of its mandate as well as related faculty-led MROC committees that were established at most of UA’s fifteen colleges. We also studied MROC’s three subcommittee task forces, which focused, respectively, on diverse, fair, and hospitable communities. The University of Arizona UA prides itself on its reputation as a research university with a high level of research productivity. Many of its programs are ranked among the nation’s top ten. At the time of our study, UA had a student population of more than ,,  percent of them undergraduates. It employed more than , people, including , instructional faculty members (defined as “regular tenured and tenure-track instructional faculty, permanent lecturers”) and  other faculty members (defined as “adjunct, emeritus, clinical, research, and visiting faculty; non-tenure-track instructors, and non-permanent lecturers,” including librarians) (University of Arizona –). The administration had  employees categorized as executive or other administrators, department heads, and academic directors, and , employees classified as academic professionals: this constitutes a remarkably diverse group, some of whose work encompasses traditional faculty functions (such as research), others whose primary roles are managerial or administrative. UA’s fifteen colleges and its other administrative and professional units are governed by the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR), a state-level board of appointed officials responsible for overseeing all three universities in Arizona’s public higher-education system (Arizona Board of Regents ). At the local level it was led by President Peter Likins (also on ABOR), with various functions managed by a team of vice presidents, the provost, and several AGENTS OF CHANGE 167 HART, BRIGHAM, GOOD, MILLS, AND MONK 168 vice provosts. Faculty and...