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231 In , a small group of female faculty members representing fields in the humanities and social sciences sat around a small round table in one of the women’s offices at the University of Vermont (UVM). The latest faculty demographics report had just been circulated. To the surprise of none, the number of both white women faculty members and faculty who were members of minority groups were severely underrepresented. Their discussion centered on what to do about it and how to organize themselves. More than a decade later, their actions continue to have an influence on this small public research university in the Northeast. Some of the members of the Faculty Women’s Caucus have changed, but their mission has remained the same: to identify where institutional policies or practices negatively influence equity and diversity, and to do something about it. Their actions have influenced the development of a campuswide faculty mentoring program, the composition of reappointment, promotion, and tenure (RPT) committees, and the offering of RPT workshops, practices around recruitment, retention, the availability of multiyear contracts for lecturers, and the equalization of faculty compensation . Recently, with the support of the Faculty Women’s Caucus, a Diversity Faculty Caucus has been established. The ripple effect from the Faculty Women’s Caucus continues to widen and to influence many, if not all, parts of faculty life at UVM. This chapter documents the history of the Faculty Women’s Caucus and the influences of its work. While issues of diversity and equity have been fought on the national stage, the stories of small groups of committed faculty members have not received enough coverage. This chapter addresses the deficiency of the documentation and heralds the University of Vermont Faculty Women’s Caucus. 11 A Ripple Effect The Influence of a Faculty Women’s Caucus on Diversity and Equity at the University of Vermont PEG BOYLE SINGLE AND DANNIELLE JOY DAVIS Like most research universities, UVM is a primarily white institution (PWI). And like most PWIs, UVM has an overrepresentation of Anglo faculty members and male faculty members. Along with the zeitgeist toward diversity in higher education, UVM has engaged in efforts to bring greater diversity to the university. While diversity and equity efforts occur throughout the university , these efforts are primarily housed within the President’s Commission on Diversity and Inclusion, the Provost’s Office of Multicultural Affairs, and the Diversity and Equity Unit. There are three additional commissions focusing on diversity: the President’s Commission on Racial Diversity, the President ’s Commission on the Status of Women, and the President’s Commission on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Equity. For issues regarding race and ethnic diversity, UVM uses the acronym ALANA, which stands for African Americans, Latinos/as, Asian Americans and Native Americans. Diversity efforts are being conducted within the context of Vermont being one of the whitest states in the nation. In , . percent of the Vermont population was classified as white not Hispanic compared with . percent of the U.S. population (United States Census Bureau ). UVM is housed within the most diverse county in the state, with . percent of the population being white not Hispanic (United States Census Bureau ), largely because of the employees recruited by the university. UVM often needs to engage in recruitment efforts outside the state to bring race and ethnic diversity to its student body, staff, and faculty. As current (Single) and past (Davis) members of the UVM community, we began exploring the role of the Faculty Women’s Caucus indirectly. One of us is the newly appointed director of the Faculty Mentoring Program and both of us are educational researchers who focus on the field of mentoring. We jointly applied for a grant to conduct an evaluation of the UVM Faculty Mentoring Program. This grant was submitted to the Rutgers University’s Institute for Women’s Leadership Reaffirming Action Grant Program, which was funded by the Ford Foundation. To strengthen our grant application, we were encouraged to examine the role of faculty activism at UVM. This was not a difficult task, as we already knew that the Faculty Women’s Caucus was responsible for the development of the Faculty Mentoring Program. As we dug more deeply, we found a much broader and deeper story about the ability of a small group of committed faculty members to help their institution become more equitable. As we examined this story by interviewing some members of the Faculty Women’s Caucus and through documentation review, the influence of the Faculty...

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