Creating diversity and culture at WPI

Diversity, multiculturalism, and pluralism are not just buzzwords. Far-reaching from the initial minority and women recruitment concerns, which many students hope to see an increase in, a broad range of topics and issues stems from the aspects of diversity. Tolerance, acceptance, and embracement of diversity in the end are highly beneficial to all students at WPI.

As of Fall 2000, the Black, Hispanic, and Native American minority students compromised only 4% of WPI undergraduates, while women accounted for 23% and Asian/Pacific Islander stood at about 7%. The school also has a large contingent of students from Massachusetts and the greater New England area. Efforts have been made over the past decade to get the numbers up to their current standings and enable the increases to continue.

Since its creation in 1993, the office of Minority Affairs and Outreach has been serving the needs of underrepresented minority students. As Director Dawn Johnson illustrates, the program is not only about recruitment but also providing adequate support of minorities once when they begin their WPI careers. "We do individual advising on a variety of issues, " Johnson says. "It's basic support, whether social, personal, or academic, providing a venue through role modeling for relating common experiences and issues with being a minority on campus."

MAO helps to sustain student organizations such as the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), and Black Student Union (BSU) to help meet a variety of cultural needs. The department has advanced community outreach including STRIVE, a pre-college enrichment program for rising high school seniors that works to promote technological careers. MAO also supports Hoop Dreams, along with Lambda Chi Alpha and Friendly House, and the Kids to College project.

One significant portion of Minority Affairs is its retention program for underrepresented minority students. EMSEP (Excellence in Mathematics, Sciences, and Engineering Program) offers tutoring, study tables, and a freshmen-upperclassmen mentoring program. Midterm progress reports evaluate students and mediate with students having trouble in classes. United Technologies Corporation, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, and the Fleet Investment Group fund the program.

EMSEP also encourages student-faculty interaction by offering a transitional two-week Summer Bridge program to incoming minority students. With increased visibility and interaction outside of the classroom, students realize that professors are people too and more inclined to ask for assistance when needed. The program also introduces students to the services available at WPI, such as the Academic Resource Center, Student Development and Counseling Center, and Academic Advising.

EMSEP aids encouragement of community involvement, whether on or off campus. An activity created this Fall was ALANA "Crossing Boundaries" conference. This enables minority students from across the Worcester Consortium to network and support each other with issues on their campuses. Saturday, March 24, several EMSEP students attended a second conference held at Worcester State College with an emphasis on particular topics of supporting minority groups.

MAO helps bring speakers to the WPI campus, such as James Powers, for the New Student Orientation in 2000 and cultural groups. Johnson aids committees in the planning and promotion of activities for Latino Awareness Week, Native American Awareness and Black History Months. She said, "We try to have programs that represent the student population the office serves and these events help to support cultural awareness at WPI." Events can stimulate participation and engagement for students who are not of that culture, which helps with educating the larger WPI community.

Last spring, the Student Life Office conducted a study of undergraduates, with a focus on ethnic minorities, women, and non-heterosexual groups. This Quality of Life survey consisted of rating prior expectations of WPI, actual experiences of the academic programs, and the environment of diversity on campus. Janet Richardson, Vice President for Student Affairs, comments that the overall survey showed a more "tense" and "disrespectful" climate dealing with issues of race relations and different sexual orientations. Only thirty-nine percent of Caucasian students in the study said they frequently "socialized with someone of another race or ethnicity," while underrepresented and Asian students were considerably higher, at 80 and 61 percent respectively.

Over the past two years the services toward minority students have undergone restructuring. Areas previously covered have been reassigned and new positions created, which according to Richardson makes better sense strategically. Actively visiting schools and career fairs to recruit students of color is as now a division within the Admissions office.

Henry Ritter, Coordinator of Multicultural Recruitment, has the position of focusing on increasing the number of minority applicants. He said, "Efforts to recruit multicultural students to WPI this year have concentrated on bringing students of color onto campus. We planned two overnight programs specifically for the multicultural population." Through these MLK Overnight and Umoja-Unidad programs, the prospective students can tour the campus and learn about what WPI has to offer, whereas normally they might overlook WPI in their college application process. Admissions has also worked in cooperation with Financial Aid to increase merit scholarship funds for all students, which will hopefully increase the appeal towards minority families who may be concerned with monetary feasibility.

Current minority students are also encouraged to participate in phone call initiatives, which allow students to ask questions and address concerns with actual WPI students rather than just personnel. Ritter said, "We are trying to form a stronger relationship with the multicultural student community at WPI. Individual students as well as organizations like the BSU, NSBE and SHPE have been instrumental in the success of our programs this year. We will continue to seek out the minority student perspective and encourage them to continue to come out and support us."

The International House, directed by Tom Thomsen, helps to facilitate the International Students and Scholars program, which focuses on aiding students into the environment of WPI. Thomsen acts as a resource to the students on cultural, immigration, and academic issues. Billy McGowan directs the English-as-a-Second-Language program to improve linguistic and communication skills. A resource room has computer access and cultural materials and books. Groups meetings and activities are held in the house, often by the International Student Council. Many programs of the ISC, such as the International Dinner and Cultural Festival, also serve domestic Asian-American students as well, an important recognition that Asian students are not necessarily of a different nationality. International students have similar issues in common with minority students, but also separate difficulties of dealing with a different culture altogether. Thomsen and McGowan help students with these problems and help to make their experience enjoyable.

The WPI Strategic Plan also called for a position within Student Affairs to "further multicultural awareness and plurality." Resources from the Assistant Director of Minority Affairs position were set into motion to create the new Diversity and Women's Programs division. Currently, the specification between the roles of Minority Affairs, Admissions, and Diversity and Women's Programs is being resolved. High school outreach towards minorities will be handled by DWP; recruitment by Admissions; and support and retention by MAO.

Stephanie Blaisdell, director of the department, will handle the creation of new WPI programs geared towards women and sexual orientation issues. The new office will also manage the Frontiers-Strive program, and support Camp REACH and other pre-college minority and women outreach programs. The recent National Engineers Week Celebration for minority students, the GEMS (Girls in Engineering, Math and Sciences) program, and a variety of other possibilities are in the works for upcoming years.

Blaisdell plans to offer services to current students at WPI, such as an orientation program for women, professional development and women's issue seminars, and endorsing both the Society of Women Engineers and Pan-Hellenic Council. Such programs could support females who do not participate in the WPI Greek letter system. For sexual orientation, DWP will support BiLaGA and consider the office a Safe Zone.

Diversity and Women's Programs will also be working to educate mainstream students through an upcoming lecture series and training. This will theoretically increase tolerance and understanding among WPI's cultural populations, in addition to being informative. Blaisdell offered insight into the obstacle of trying to better integrate the campus. She said that upon hearing the term "diversity," White heterosexual males tend to become defensive and equate it as an attack on their ethnicity and sexual orientation. By showing the broad scope of diversity, similarities between groups can be seen and can develop team dynamics. "Diversity is a good experience for all students and helps the majority students gain exposure to minority populations and have them appreciate those experiences," she said.

The importance of diversity at WPI is not just for social enrichment, but also including areas such as job recruitment on campus. With an increasing global market, companies seek universities that have a diverse student population. Blaisdell said, "Working with people from other countries, employers want people who are ready to work with other cultures and thinking styles." Different backgrounds and experiences can lead to viewpoints and approaches that may have not been considered. By showing that its graduating classes have completed group work in a diverse environment, WPI is attracting larger, quality companies and employment opportunities for its students within the Career Development Center and effectively prepares non-minority students for the job market.

WPI President Edward Parrish also sees the importance of multiculturalism within the globalization of the economy. The Global Opportunities at WPI allows cultural immersion, yet he notes that on-campus diversity "provides opportunities for those that stay on campus to have cultural experiences." By improved marketing to students concerning cultural issues, increased interaction and networking will follow.

The definitions within various offices tend to differ slightly, which can cause confusion with target goals. In the Strategic Plan, the definition of "minority" is stated as "AHANA (African, Hispanic, Asian, and Native Americans)." However, in other areas of the school, the term "underrepresented" minority is used, which does not include students of Asian descent due to their ratios in the technological fields. Ambiguity appears in the administration's hopes to increase the number of minority students, from 4% currently to an ambitious 15%. With this interpretation, it would be possible to include international students as part of the "minority" population, thus counting them twice in quota purposes.

Parrish said that the objectives for increasing international enrollment are quite different from those for underrepresented minorities and the Cabinet does separate between the two groups. He states that the Cabinet "would like to raise the percentage in our populations considerably," including among the staff and faculty. "Each vice president is responsible for staff hiring within their division," he explains, "Faculty is different because staff are drawn from fields that are already small." Low numbers of doctoral graduates in technical fields makes for fierce competition among colleges and it is harder for WPI to cater as well as larger schools.

Parrish says, "I recognize diversity as being more important now to the university as it has ever been. For us to prepare our graduates for the real world, they need to know how to relate with different people. WPI is not all about science and engineering."