Chair Talk #11 February 2016

Update on the Faculty Senate Listening Tour

At the end of the semester, 30 faculty conducted a listening tour with students at six Cultural Centers at the UA.  Observations from those conversations were summarized in Chair Talk #9 (link available on Faculty Governance website) and were discussed during the January Faculty Senate meeting.  Our listening tour continues and we are visiting with students in five more venues over the next two weeks. We will be hearing student stories at the Vets Center, the Transfer Center, the International Center, the Disability Resource Center, and one of our residence halls (Pima).  Once again, faculty volunteers will listen to what life is like for the students.  The aim remains the same – to find out what we as faculty can do to increase inclusiveness and lower barriers for all our students.

If you haven’t read the summary from the first group of visits I encourage you to do so.  Those of us who participated in this effort were strongly affected by what we heard and have a sense of urgency about attending to the range of issues that surfaced from students. They made a compelling case for practical changes that would enhance their educational experience inside and outside the classroom. I hope we, as a faculty community, can agree to adopt many of their recommendations.

As I see it, there are both moral and economic reasons to attend to the concerns we heard. I’m sure most of us would agree that creating a more inclusive university environment feels like the right thing to do. We claim to be an open and accessible campus that values diversity, so we should fully deliver on the promise we make to incoming students. But there are economic arguments to be made as well. Being recognized as an inclusive university will drive enrollment, retention, and higher graduation rates. Making diversity and inclusion a centerpiece of the UA experience will position us for a better future in many ways.

So how will we move forward? Our intention this semester is to generate a set of specific steps faculty can take to create a more inclusive learning experience. This will be but one part of a multi-pronged campus-wide response to what we are hearing on these visits.  Faculty can make a difference outside the classroom as well.  I don’t know about you, but among my most satisfying moments at the UA are those occasional meetings I had with a first or second year student that turned on a light in their head – they hadn’t realized what was possible – either within themselves, or at the UA, and then suddenly they did.  We need to encourage more of these life-changing conversations.

Beyond what faculty can do directly lie areas where the central administration needs to respond.  Here, faculty can advocate for what we think will best serve the institution, and all of its students.  These are challenging times, but in such times opportunities lurk. Here at the UA we have an opportunity to do the right thing, but it will take all hands on deck.  We hope to have some concrete suggestions for action not long after Spring Break, at which point we will be asking faculty to commit to some changes that will address the concerns we are hearing about from our students.