ARCHIVES OF LEAD STORIES
March 31, 2005
UMass students pan diversity proposal
Adam Gorlick
Amherst, Mass. (AP) — University of Massachusetts students
and faculty members on Thursday criticized Chancellor John Lombardi’s
proposal to improve campus diversity issues, saying his plan takes
too much power away from students.
Acknowledging the “angst and pain and sense of alienation”
that many students expressed over the topic, Lombardi said he
will redraft his proposal and extend the public comment period
on the plan — first scheduled to end April 1 — until
April 22.
“Everybody’s voice will be heard,” Lombardi
said after a Faculty Senate meeting where more than 100 students
and professors showed up to comment on the plan.
Lombardi’s proposal issued earlier this month would reallocate
$800,000 from the campus budget to pay for programs designed to
improve the academic performance of minority students and to recruit
and retain a more diverse pool of faculty members.
The plan comes four months after a drunken party where a group
of students posed for photos with a caricature of a student government
leader dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
A commission formed by Lombardi afterward identified a “climate
of distrust” on campus and said many students and faculty
feel “racially or ethnically isolated” at UMass.
Lombardi wants to create a new Center for Student Development
intended to address diversity issues and enhance student performance.
His plan calls for hiring an associate vice chancellor and two
directors to run the center.
Some worry that will take control of diversity issues away from
students.
“It takes a voice that has been independent and puts it
under an administrative umbrella where it can be controlled,”
said Student Government President Eduardo Bustamante.
The proposal would also strip student government officials of
their responsibility to fund and manage certain student support
and advocacy programs. The funding and oversight of those programs
would come under control of the administration, another move that
critics say takes too much power from students.
“It seems like there’s an agenda being presented outside
of the issue of diversity,” said Dan Clawson, a sociology
professor. “This suppresses free speech and the diversity
of opinions.”
Some accused the chancellor of ignoring them when they showed
up at Thursday’s Faculty Senate meeting to voice their concerns
about the proposal.
“I don’t feel like the feedback coming from the community
is being heard,” said Marisha Leiblum, a 20-year-old junior
from Amherst who was upset that Lombardi wouldn’t respond
to any student or faculty comments on Thursday.
“These are very complex issues and I am not prepared at
this time to go tit-for-tat right now on every point that’s
being raised,” Lombardi said.
He said his revised proposal for improving campus diversity, as
well as a counter-proposal drafted by students, will soon be posted
on the school’s website.
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