Faculty discuss privilege, diversity before Spring Break

UNC’s Faculty Council once again put diversity at the center of its monthly meeting Friday afternoon.

The pre-Spring Break meeting began with diversity training from Elizabeth Dickinson, a Kenan-Flagler Business School professor, and a discussion of privilege.

“People in positions of power — we can create all the policies we want. We can create all the organizational change we want,” Dickinson said. “But it’s not really until we actually start listening and changing and having the glimmer in our mind that we actually have to give something up that anything will change.”

She shared her own personal story of growing up in San Bernadino, Calif., getting a full scholarship to college and then going on to get a master’s degree and a Ph.D.

“And I can look back and say, ‘But I worked hard for that, I’m a woman, first-generation college student from a socio-economically depressed area,’” Dickinson said. “But what’s the big elephant in the room? I’m white. And to say that being white had absolutely nothing to do with that would to be just disingenuous.”

After a group exercise in which meeting attendees threw crumpled pieces of paper into trash bins from varying spots around the room to highlight what Dickinson called "unearned advantages," she urged members of the faculty council to rethink privilege and diversity in their daily lives.

“Oftentimes we have a little bit of a disconnect between how we see the game and how it actually is played, “ Dickinson said. “In our minds if the game isn’t really exposed, we think, oh everybody has a free shot, everybody can make it if they want … What we know though is that that’s not necessarily true.”

Dickinson’s presentation was part of the Faculty Council’s diversity syllabus, which is taking place at each meeting. But even after the end of the official diversity discussion, the subject remained at the forefront during committee reports.

Aid and diversity

The presentation of an annual report on the Committee on Scholarships, Awards and Student Aid by Chairperson Don Hornstein highlighted the role of student aid in supporting diversity on campus.

“A huge percentage of undergraduates would not be here — could not be here — were it not for financial aid,” Hornstein said. “Our campus would look differently.”

The Office of Scholarships and Student Aid awards more than $400 million in aid each year, according to data Hornstein presented at the meeting. Seventy-two percent of total aid to undergraduates is awarded in grants, rather than loans or work-study opportunities.

“We are, in fact, the only public university left that is both need-blind at admissions and committed to meeting the full financial need of every student who earns admission to the campus, in-state or out-of-state,” Hornstein said.

Hornstein made particular note of the Carolina Covenant program, which gives students whose families live at or around the poverty line full scholarships to attend UNC.

When the program began in 2004, Carolina Covenant students were graduating within four years at a rate of 56 percent, far below non-Covenant aided students and non-aided students. Now, with the addition of etiquette classes and other supports for Covenant students, the four-year graduation rate for the program’s students is increasing at such a pace to meet, if not exceed, the rest of the student body.

“The incredible improvement is Shirley (Ort’s) office realizing that it’s not just dollars and access that account for success,” Hornstein said. “The Covenant students are going to outcompete the students who are here with no financial aid, I don’t know, next year — something like that. It is the most heartwarming story.”

As a final testament to the impact of financial aid on diversity, Hornstein highlighted UNC’s two recipients of the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship — one a Morehead-Cain Scholar, and one a Covenant student.

Faculty gender diversity

Margot Stein presented the mission and current projects of the Committee on the Status of Women, which she leads.

“What we have really focused on is working very closely and collaboratively with a number of other communities,” Stein said. “Our job is really to sift out that specific gender aspect of all the broader issues that affect the faculty in general.”

Stein noted specific progress in establishing lactation rooms around campus for female faculty members and said the committee is hoping to hire a graduate research assistant to collect data and contribute to the group’s general efforts and efficacy.

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