Chancellor Holden Thorp talks diversity at open house

Students gathered around Chancellor Holden Thorp on Monday night to talk innovation and critique the University’s diversity and transportation policies.

Held in the Upendo lounge of the Student and Academic Services Building, the open house was the first to be held on South Campus.

Thorp began the evening’s discussions by highlighting diversity’s role in answering President Barack Obama’s call for innovation in the State of the Union address Jan. 25.

“If you create an environment where only one kind of people have access to the table, then you’re not going to maximize your opportunity to create something new,” Thorp said.

“One unmistakable part of that is getting people from different backgrounds together.”

Senior B’anca Glenn questioned the University’s tactics of recruiting and retaining minority faculty members and how administrators plan to attract more minority professors in the future.

“Higher education is an industry and UNC has not done a good job of diversifying the faculty,” said Thorp in response.

“That’s where we need to put the most effort.”

Terri Houston, interim associate provost for diversity and multicultural affairs, asked students to serve as a liaison for the community at large and encouraged them to bring issues surrounding diversity to her office.

Students responded positively to the idea of a voluntary faculty-student mentor program, which is outlined in the proposed academic plan.

One student said she saw the program as an opportunity to address both innovation and diversity.

“I think if you have this type of program in place, especially with faculty in graduate school programs, it would encourage future students to stay at Carolina and maybe they’ll be interested in staying and becoming faculty members in the future,” she said.

But students were outspoken against the Department of Public Safety’s five-year plan to increase parking fees and to begin charging fees for night parking on campus.

“Parking and transportation doesn’t put students first,” said Shelby Dawkins-Law, a senior.

“The entire problem would be solved if they increased the bus route, which is free already.”

Notably absent from the discussion were questions surrounding budget cuts, though Thorp stressed that the University will strive to continue to meet 100 percent of need-based aid.

“If folks are spending time feeling excluded, then they’re not spending time being creative,” Thorp said.

“That’s part of the environment we have to create in order to have an ecosystem of new ideas.”

The student advisory committee to the chancellor worked closely with the Black Student Movement to organize Monday’s event.

Organizers said the new location represented an opportunity to bring the chancellor to the students.

“The benefit is if students are engaged early there aren’t so many problems later,” said Jeremy Martin, a member of the committee.

“If administrators already have student input, then they don’t have to work as hard to get students engaged later on.”

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