Diversity officer takes the helm

As the university's first-ever chief diversity officer, Kumea Shorter-Gooden knew exactly where she wanted to start when taking the helm Jan. 1 — by reaching out to the dozens of minority groups and diversity offices on the campus.

In her role, Shorter-Gooden now oversees a multitude of diversity organizations on the campus as well as the implementation of a 10-year Diversity Strategic Plan — responsibilities reflective of her aim to bring together groups working toward the same end. But starting these implementations meant first and foremost familiarizing herself with the campus issues.

"There's really no sector of the university that's really untouched or that is immune to this need to be diverse and inclusive," she said. "My job is to really be a partner, to collaborate, to provide resources to help the university and think of new policies that would foster a diverse, inclusive community."

Now that she's begun to acclimate, Shorter-Gooden said her primary goals are recruiting faculty, staff and students from underrepresented groups, fostering a climate to retain them and incorporating more diverse issues into university curriculum. Hiring a chief diversity officer was a key part of the university's Diversity Strategic Plan, Shorter-Gooden said.

"The excellence we have is very closely linked to diversity," university President Wallace Loh said. "You cannot be excellent without being diverse, in every single respect — diversity of viewpoints, diversity of backgrounds, diversity in intellectual areas."

And while Shorter-Gooden said she's been welcomed on the campus, diversity in the administration has been a contentious issue in recent years. Former Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity Cordell Black, who held the highest diversity position at the university before Shorter-Gooden's position was created, was fired suddenly in fall 2009. Hardly any explanation was given to infuriated students, faculty and staff members, who protested the decision by holding a 600-person march from the Nyumburu Cultural Center to the Main Administration Building.

But in the wake of Black's dismissal, Shorter-Gooden said the community has had the chance to contribute to the university's diversity future by vetting the Strategic Plan for Diversity in fall 2010. With this sense of collaboration engrained in the university's guiding diversity document, Shoorter-Gooden said she hopes the community is ready to move forward.

"My sense is [this collaboration] probably has helped to heal some of the hurt from the time when [Black] was let go," she said. "And I think people have felt included in this next phase and feel like their input has been taken into consideration."

One of the plan's chief goals is to recruit students, faculty and staff from underrepresented groups, which means working with faculty search committees in different schools and colleges, as well as with Academic Affairs to minimize minority graduation gaps, Shorter-Gooden said.

Junior community health and neurobiology and physiology major Damien Pinkett, president of the Black Student Union, said improving recruitment of minorities is an important step toward greater diversity. Pinkett added that he has been working with the Student Government Association to visit local high schools and talk to students about applying to the university, hoping to set aside the image that attending is an unachievable goal.

"Sometimes because of the caliber of the school that Maryland is, some people have the assumption that they won't get in, so we want to dispel that factor," said Jamil Scott, the SGA's Vice President of Academic Affairs. "You can go to Maryland if you put your mind to it."

Curricular transformation — making all students prepared to live and work in a diverse world — is another crucial area on which Shorter-Gooden said she will focus.

"All students need to be able to work in a diverse dynamic and the curricula needs to reflect that," she said. "Even in disciplines like science and math … there are clearly opportunities to focus what students learn in a way that engages them around real world examples and issues that pertain to diversity."

Senior journalism major Lizzie Horne, co-president of the group Community Roots, said although she feels diversity has been on the back burner for the administration, she hopes this will change with Shorter-Gooden's appointment.

"Some of things I do want to see are increased funding for programs like African-American studies, Latino studies, Asian studies — all those academic programs that are extremely underfunded — and help for different student groups working to relieve tensions on campus, to improve relations between different types of people, because I think right now a lot of group work is swept under the rug and a lot of students feel they aren't getting the response they want from the administration," she said.