CLIDE Update
July 7, 2020
Dear Campus Community:
We want to thank all of you who participated in June’s Racial Climate Forum. The information you shared has provided considerable insight on how we can best address the issues in our campus climate in support of our underrepresented groups. We will continue to provide you opportunity to express your thoughts and experiences, as well as learn how you can support anti-racism efforts on our campus. In the meantime, we want to provide you with an update on new and ongoing efforts to address our campus climate.
Dr. Patrick Louchouarn has taken the lead in charging the Texas A&M University at Galveston Civic Literacy, Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (CLIDE) committee, formerly the Climate and Inclusion Committee, with accelerating the goals outlined in our 2019 Diversity Plan Accountability Report. While CLIDE is housed within the Office of the Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs and Chief Academic Officer, the recommendations provided by CLIDE will drive campus-wide efforts to address our campus climate, a crucial aspect of recruitment and retention.
This April, all Texas A&M University departments and units were asked by the President’s Council on Climate and Diversity to account for the recruitment and retention of underrepresented groups on our campus broadly, and specifically asked us to share our plans and strategies to recruit and retain African American students, faculty and staff. Building on the considerable success of CLIDE over the past two years, we believe the committee is best positioned to lead the efforts to address our campus climate.
CLIDE, chaired by Dr. Carol Bunch Davis, Associate Professor of English in the Department of Liberal Studies and beginning September 1, 2020, Assistant Vice President of Academic Affairs, is comprised of campus faculty and staff representatives appointed for a two-year term. Those interested in joining the committee to aid in ongoing efforts may express interest in doing so here. Additionally, we highly encourage you to take advantage of an assessment the Executive Team completed last year, the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). This confidential, 50-item assessment measures cultural competency and provides an intercultural development plan to support expanding and enhancing cultural competency both individually and as a group. This program is now available to the entire campus. We’d like to thank Daisey McCloud, Director of the Office of Counseling Services, and Dr. Bunch Davis for their significant efforts in implementing this tool on our campus.
To aid in shaping and directing policy changes in the Texas A&M Dean of Faculties Office to improve campus climate for all community members, Dr. Louchouarn asked CLIDE to create a Campus Conduct, Engagement and Communication subcommittee that is exploring existing Galveston Campus policy, peer institution policy and policy currently being created to develop a list of recommended actions. Chaired by Vernon Camus, Director of Marine Education Support and Safety Operations, the goal of this subcommittee is to enhance campus climate and accountability measures that moves from tolerating cultural differences to respecting and valuing them as a vital and intrinsic part of our community. In addition, this subcommittee is tasked with providing recommendations on how to effectively share information about these and other developments related to inclusion, diversity, accountability and equity on our campus.
Recommendations from this subcommittee will be submitted for review by broader faculty, staff and student committees before being submitted to our offices by August 1st (or shortly after), and later to the Dean of Faculties Office, and likely The Texas A&M University System Office of General Counsel.
Secondly, CLIDE has created an Anti-Racism Allyship subcommittee to support staff and faculty in understanding how racism shapes our lived experiences regardless of how we culturally identify. Dr. Kathryn Falvo, Instructional Assistant Professor of History in the Department of Liberal Studies, has organized this effort to offer faculty- and staff-led presentations and discussions twice monthly to all Galveston Campus faculty and staff. Information on this initiative is available on the CLIDE webpage. Branston Harris, Assistant Director for Community Standards in the Office of Student Affairs, is leading a corollary effort for students.
We are incredibly disappointed in learning we are one of only three schools in the Texas A&M System that does not provide a dedicated multicultural space to provide historically marginalized students, faculty and staff with a physical space to make campus more welcoming and inclusive for all Aggies by the Sea. Dr. Todd Sutherland, Associate Vice President of Student Affairs, and Dr. Bunch Davis are working with the Executive Team to remedy this promptly. A potential location has been identified that will provide three offices for diversity initiative professionals, a meeting area/lounge for Black, Indigenous and other students of color, as well as a student area and training room. We will provide more concrete details when this space becomes fully available.
We are actively working with department heads and our recruiting office to develop plans to focus efforts to recruit Black, Latino, and Indigenous students to our campus and with the Department of Student Affairs to devote programs and resources to issues facing these populations. In coming weeks, unit heads will be asked to nominate team members to create a more equitable and respectful work and learning environment. This team will learn peer institution best practices and develop a systematic approach to recruiting and success programs to aid us in better supporting underrepresented minority students.
As an institution of higher education we are responsible for providing our students with an education – not simply a degree – that enables their success. We are all responsible for building a campus climate that values and respects all of its members, and for helping our institution to reflect the state’s cultural diversity. Building our capacity for intercultural competency, or the ability to effectively understand and navigate cultural differences and commonalities, is essential to their success—individually and as an institution—in an increasingly complex and diverse world.
Sincerely,
Col. Micheal E. Fossum & Dr. Louchouarn