FINAL REPORT
TASK FORCE ON RACE

Tufts University
December 5, 1997

Prepared for
President John DiBiaggio and
Vice President Mel Bernstein

by
The Task Force on Race
Anne F. Gardulski - Co-Chair
Michael A. Powell - Co-Chair

TASK FORCE ON RACE MEMBERS

Members served for three semesters, from Fall 1996 through Fall 1997, unless otherwise noted. Some members served on more than one subgroup of the Task Force.

Co-Chairs:

Anne F. Gardulski - Geology Dept.

Michael A. Powell - Office of Equal Opportunity

Institutional Policy

Emily Adler - Student (Fall 1996 - Spring 1997)

David Cuttino - Dean of Admissions - ex officio

Shuk-Mei Ho - Biology Dept. (Fall 1996 - Spring 1997)

Aliguma Kabadaki - Student

Bobbie Knable - Dean of Students - ex officio

Fred Nelson - Mechanical Engineering Dept.

Ruben Salinas Stern - Hispanic Center Director

Walt Swap - Dean of the Colleges - ex officio

Jean Wu - Assistant Dean for Faculty Development - ex officio

Campus Life

Hillary Bassett - Student

Rommel Childress - Student, Senate - ex officio

Gerald Gill - History Dept. (Fall 1996 - Spring 1997, on leave Fall 1997)

Bobbie Knable - Dean of Students - ex officio

Todd McFadden - African American Center Director

Kim Nguyen - Student (Fall 1996 - Spring 1997)

Jonathan Strong - English Dept.

Academic Experience

Ryan Centner - Student (Fall 1996 and Spring 1997)

Marilyn Glater - Dean of Natural and Social Sciences - ex officio (Fall 1996 - Spring 1997)

Andrew McClellan - Art and Art History Dept.

Sandra Nam - Student (Spring 1997 - Fall 1997)

Ashish Shah - Student (Fall 1996 - Spring 1997)

Kathleen Weiler - Education Dept.

Jean Wu - Assistant Dean for Faculty Development- ex officio

Linell Yugawa - Asian American Center Director

Other ex officio members:
Susan Ernst, Dean of Natural Sciences and Social Sciences (Fall 1997)
Leila Fawaz, Dean of Arts and Humanities
Ioannis Miaoulis, Dean of Engineering

The Task Force gratefully acknowledges the assistance and efforts of Deborah Nutter, ACE Fellow at Tufts in 1996-1997, now at the Fletcher School.

INTRODUCTION

BREAKING THROUGH TRADITIONAL VIEWS OF RACE

TASK FORCE LOGISTICS

INSTITUTIONAL POLICIES AND PRACTICES

ADMINISTRATION POLICIES AND STRUCTURE

INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSE TO RACIAL INCIDENTS

FINANCIAL AID

ADMISSIONS

ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE

NEW FACULTY POSITIONS IN RACE AND ETHNIC STUDIES

BUILDING A MORE DIVERSE FACULTY

FACULTY TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

RACE IN UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS

RACE IN THE OVERALL UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM

CAMPUS LIFE

ORIENTATION POLICIES

STUDENT ACTIVITIES

: Sports; Arts; Media; Student Government

RESIDENTIAL LIFE

CULTURE CENTERS AND HOUSES

: Asian American Center; Hispanic American Center; African American Center; Native American Student Needs; Culture Center Resources

CONCLUDING REMARKS

APPENDIX 1

APPENDIX 2

INTRODUCTION

The Mission Statement of Tufts University declares a "commitment to promoting diversity within the student body, the faculty, and the staff, as well as in the curriculum. Arts and Sciences will build and maintain an educational community that reflects the complexity and richness of our society."
The Task Force on Race was charged in the Fall of 1996 with examining the impact of race on the undergraduate community at Tufts. The charge included preparing recommendations that will 1) proactively address ways to increase awareness of the value of the diverse community that we strive to be; 2) recognize problematic policies, practices, and behaviors that cause marginalization of students of color; and 3) develop ways to counter these negative factors.

The Task Force was keenly aware that the entire Tufts community must eventually become involved in ways of addressing race problems on campus. The recommendations and their implementation must not be viewed as "programs for people of color", as it is essential that the white majority population begin to address its own racial identity and how it fits into the increasingly diverse community at Tufts as well as outside the university. Most white students, faculty, administrators, and staff do not recognize the broad "comfort zone" that they enjoy across the whole physical, intellectual, and social space at Tufts. The corresponding "comfort zone" for students of color is much reduced, because of subtle to overt racist attitudes in dormitories, classrooms, and offices. These attitudes more often spring from ignorance than malice, but the resulting hurt is similar. Students of color have said that they often feel they are "guests" at this institution rather than an integral, vital part. Until the white majority population understands its position of power and privilege at Tufts, and in society, the "comfort zones" of our students of color will remain small.

A theme repeated in every conversation with students of color is the burden they feel of being expected to educate the community about race. In any other aspect of student life we listen to student concerns and needs, and then interpret and translate those concerns into relevant policy, based on our skills and knowledge of institutional administration. When issues of race arise, we seem unable to carry out such translation in ways that are meaningful to students. Instead, we rely on students of color not only to relate concerns but also to construct policy or waste valuable time and energy working against existent, ineffective or counter-productive policy. Many of these students are heavily involved in programs that address the needs of students of color, and do take on the educational work in an informal way among their peers, but we must realize that the primary responsibility of these students is their own education. Thus, administrators, staff, and faculty must assume more of the work of increasing race awareness among the white majority so that our students can do what they came to Tufts to do - get the highest quality education possible.

The Task Force also realized that it is impossible to deal exclusively with race issues for undergraduates without looking at these issues as they influence, and are influenced by, faculty, staff, graduate students, and administrators. Our analysis and recommendations focus on how these various groups interact with undergraduates, although it is clear that issues of race affect each of these groups on its own as well and they should be addressed in the near future. This report and its recommendations touch on many aspects of the university: faculty recruitment, mentoring, and development; curricular revision; administrative structure and policy; and campus life for students. These recommendations are designed to infuse consciousness of race and diversity throughout the community with the goal that students, faculty, administrators, and staff develop the tools to talk about and deal with the issues in constructive ways.

BREAKING THROUGH
TRADITIONAL VIEWS OF RACE

As the Task Force examined the myriad issues of race that were presented, it became clear that we needed to be very explicit about addressing how race and racial categories can be misused and misinterpreted. Racial categories often include a wide variety of cultures and ethnicities that are usually grouped for convenience and census reasons. Also, on this campus and in the society at large, issues of race are often simplified to Black/White relations only, at least in informal discussions. These are damaging shorthand methods for two reasons. First, they often times ignore and render invisible Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. Second, they set the precedent that a racial group can be categorized as one monolithic entity. For example, Asian Americans may then all be considered as having the same experiences, cultures, and needs, when in reality there are enormous differences among such groups as Vietnamese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Korean Americans. Each of these groups is affected in a variety of ways, and in some cases very differently, as Tufts institutes policies and practices to enhance the diversity of the community.

These effects do not always operate in the ways they were intended. For example, 'Hispanic' , as defined in practice at Tufts, includes students whose heritage can be from Spain, Argentina, or Chile although these groups represent only a very small number in this country. The term "Hispanic" is thus very broad and not always helpful. A more useful and relevant way to look at the definition of 'Hispanic' for purposes of representation at Tufts is to focus on underrepresented Hispanic/Latino groups in the United States. Underrepresented Hispanic/Latinos at Tufts include Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans from the mainland, which are the two largest Latino groups in the U.S. Puerto Rican students who have grown up in and live on the island are not underrepresented and form the largest part of the Tufts Hispanic/Latino population (about 20%).

Another unintended consequence of grouping large segments of the population into broad racial categories is cultural isolation not acknowledged by the institution because the numbers appear robust. Asian Americans are not underrepresented at Tufts, but within that broad group students of Vietnamese or Cambodian heritage, for example, have few peers to maintain the required membership for culture clubs, and few students whose backgrounds and experiences are similar. Whether Tufts can enroll sufficiently representative numbers of the many Asian- , Southeast Asian-, and South Asian-American populations is problematic, however acknowledging this issue and seeking new ways to address underrepresentation within the large racial categories is a first step.

The smallest group of underrepresented students at Tufts is Native Americans. These students of color have been almost completely ignored in the curriculum and resource systems. Their small numbers have rendered them nearly invisible, and there are no Native American faculty at Tufts to provide mentoring, advocacy, or assistance as they seek to understand their racial identity in the largely white community. Other students of color may turn to Culture Centers for this kind of support, and Tufts should recognize the similar needs of Native Americans.

There is an additional philosophical issue: how multiracial students are categorized and how their needs are served. A growing population of bi- and multiracial students is enrolling at Tufts, reflecting the reality of the changing racial makeup of the country. Tufts can take a step ahead by recognizing that this group of students does not fit neatly into the existing racial categories and should look ahead to how to meet the needs of this group. We urge that Tufts follow the national trend for allowing individuals who identify themselves as bi- or multiracial to note also the different, specific races with which they identify on Admissions forms and other surveys.

International Students of Color

The international students of color were not addressed as a separate population by the Task Force, yet their experiences and the way they are viewed at Tufts by other students generates some unique issues. International students are fully self-funded, and most have been schooled in international or American schools in their home countries. They are in a sense a temporary population here, who come to accomplish the goal of getting an education, and who intend to return to their home country. This goal-oriented ethic means many of them do not consider extracurricular activities or leadership roles on campus as important parts of their education; they focus on course work.

The perceptions and experiences of international students about race and diversity are different from students who have grown up in the United States. Most are from privileged, affluent backgrounds. Many may have not experienced racism directly and their class privilege may have protected them from other discriminations. Many who are white rarely have had significant contact with people of color while growing up. This lack of experience in engaging race and diversity may manifest itself in inappropriate comments in class that are based on lack of information and racist ideology and images learned in their home societies, lack of understanding about race as a social and personal issue that permeates U.S. society across all socioeconomic levels, and a resulting alienation from their peers.

International students of color are racialized in this society and some may encounter, for the first time, overt and covert racism. They retreat into themselves because they do not understand how they are being racialized and do not have the tools to cope with confronting race and diversity. Currently, international students receive some information during Orientation about race and diversity issues in U.S. society and how that may impact them. The Director of the International Center has expressed that she hopes to give them more of this content. Students from the United States receive no information about issues facing international students, whether they are people of color or white. The lack of followup on race and diversity discussions for and about international students and their experiences on campus will allow the misunderstandings to continue.

TASK FORCE LOGISTICS

Three subgroups divided the work of the Task Force into broad categories that overlap in many areas. Institutional policy and practices, academic experience, and campus life were the topics for the subgroups, each of which consisted of two faculty, two students, a Culture Center director, and several ex officio members. The groups met individually, usually on a weekly basis, during 1996-1997, and the Task Force as a whole met nearly weekly during 1996-97 and Fall 1997.

Data were gathered from a variety of sources. The Admissions Office, Development Office, Culture Centers, Dean of Students Office, Institutional Research, Public Safety, Dean of Advising, and International Center supplied information and met with the Task Force members. Two open meetings for the campus community in the Spring 1997 semester provided invaluable insight from students. Numerous focus groups were assembled to gain information from particular constituencies, including groups such as campus media, performing arts, and sports teams. Meetings held at the Culture Centers provided an opportunity to hear from students of color about their experiences and their views about race issues on campus. Finally, information was acquired from other institutions for comparison with Tufts.

Our recommendations are presented in the following sections in boldface type, with explanations, rationales, and qualifications. A summary of these recommendations in prioritized form is included in Appendix 1. The Task Force is aware that as implementation of recommendations proceeds it may become necessary to modify the details of the recommendations. We hope that the spirit of the report is adhered to in this process, so we believe it is imperative that implementation is done in the context, and with referral to, the explanations in the text of the report to avoid misinterpretation.

INSTITUTIONAL POLICIES AND PRACTICES

The subgroup that addressed institutional policies and practices focused their efforts on a few themes: race and diversity awareness workshops for administrators; creation of a new office to work on race/diversity programs for Arts and Sciences; Admissions and Financial Aid; administrative diversity; policies to encourage faculty development regarding diversity; and institutional response to racial incidents. Many other recommendations that touch on policy are presented in the sections dealing with Academic Experience and Campus Life.

The Task Force realized that all the recommendations will require oversight to ensure that they are being implemented and to gauge whether the implementation procedures are effective.

An oversight panel of faculty, administrators, and students should be formed to oversee the implementation of the Task Force's recommendations.

The panel should consist of a small number of people (perhaps six), some of whom have served on the Task Force in order to ensure that the spirit and the history of deliberation of the recommendations is not lost. Although this lengthy document summarizes the three semesters of work of the Task Force, it cannot guarantee any followup unless a long-term implementation group is charged with such oversight.

ADMINISTRATION POLICIES AND STRUCTURE

All administration personnel, including the President, Vice Presidents, Provost, Academic and Administrative Deans, Budget and Fiscal Officer, Head of Human Resources, and Assistants and Assistant Deans, should participate in a workshop that deals exclusively with issues of race awareness and diversity. This workshop should require a two-day commitment, that may be modeled on the Teaching Diverse Populations workshops.

The culture, personality, and morals of an institution are set largely by the visions and goals of its top administrators and the policies and practices they promote. Public statements must be reinforced with visible actions to give credibility to these policies, but equally important are the messages delivered by subtle means.

Tufts administrators set the tone for interactions among faculty, staff, and students, and without the tools with which to deal sensitively with an increasingly diverse population, problems ranging from insensitive remarks to unfair policies may result. Although not a panacea, a workshop or retreat geared specifically toward the special problems faced by administrators would accomplish three goals:

Individuals would have the opportunity to examine race and diversity issues in small groups in a safe and confidential setting, with the hope that insights into attitudes and behaviors would be forthcoming.
Such a time commitment is a significant statement to the whole Tufts community that the administration is personally invested in this issue.
The administrators may develop a deeper appreciation of the commitment that faculty, staff, and students make when they participate in such workshops, and promote the University's mission statement through recognition of those people's efforts.

This workshop will contribute to the generation of top-down initiatives on race and diversity policies.

The workshop should be facilitated by an individual or group from outside Tufts, in order to avoid the awkwardness of having a Tufts employee managing a potentially emotionally-charged atmosphere in which the person(s) to whom he or she reports is a participant. Ideally, two workshops will be held. This will accommodate the hectic schedules of the administrators, many of whom are exceptionally busy at certain times of the year, and also allow the workshops to maintain small size. No administrator should be exempt from participating. As new administrators are hired or appointed, they should participate in some comparable type of workshop, perhaps one geared toward faculty, but with consultation with the Office of Faculty and Staff Education and Development (see below) to address issues specific to administrators.

We recommend that as administrative position openings occur, energetic efforts be directed toward increasing the diversity of the Arts and Sciences administrators.

The diversity of the Tufts upper level administration is low, with most positions occupied by white men. More women and people of color should be sought to fill openings as they become available. The administration's diversity should reflect that of the Tufts community of students. It may be appropriate to form a committee similar to the faculty ad hoc committee to investigate ways to increase administrative diversity.

We recommend the creation of a new Office for Faculty and Staff Education and Development that will develop initiatives to promote race and diversity awareness.

The Task Force found that there are a number of offices, programs, and individuals at Tufts involved in teaching or promoting race awareness. There is, however, no central Arts and Sciences office that coordinates these activities. Strides in making Tufts a more tolerant and enlightened community can be made most efficiently through an office whose mission is to develop programs and initiatives to address race and diversity issues in many venues. The office would be responsible for generating and running programs for faculty and staff, and coordinating programs about diversity aimed at educating the entire Tufts community.

The focus of these efforts should lie in helping the community deal with issues of race and diversity in the work environment and classroom. The name of the office may be modified as appropriate, but based on research on similar offices in our cohort institutions, we know the physical location and position titles carry significant symbolic weight in telegraphing the importance of mission and function of an office. We therefore recommend that:

the newly-defined office be instituted with positions at the Dean level, to include a full-time Affirmative Action officer and a full-time Dean for Faculty and Staff Development.
it be housed in Ballou Hall, and the Deans report directly to the Vice President.
the Office of Development be charged to find new sources of revenue to fund the office.
there be no reduction in budgets from other offices or programs that currently work on race and diversity issues.

What follows provides a framework for the types of tasks the Office might undertake.

Faculty Recruitment, Retention,
Education, and Development

As noted elsewhere in this report, there is a critical need to recruit and retain faculty of color at Tufts. The Chairs proposed the Faculty Recruitment Initiative in 1997. This new office, in conjunction with the Office of Equal Opportunity, will monitor and promote this initiative. Once faculty of color arrive at Tufts, however, they often face adversity in overt and subtle forms. The problems of finding housing are particularly difficult, because of (usually) subtle racism out in the community. Faculty of color in some departments do not feel welcomed by their colleagues and rarely find mentors who will help them navigate their early years at Tufts. These problems are by no means restricted to faculty of color. However, these individuals are particularly susceptible to feelings of isolation on our predominantly white campus. Another goal of this office will be to create ways to assist new faculty of color once they arrive, such as instituting a formal mentoring arrangement between a new faculty member and a tenured professor. Perhaps more informal contacts might be set up if veteran faculty are willing to serve as welcoming hosts to new faculty in a more social setting.

Faculty development in the areas of race and diversity, a critical issue for the classroom experiences of our students, currently is limited to the semiannual workshops on Teaching Diverse Student Populations. Students repeatedly spoke of having professors who were clearly intimidated and ill-equipped to discuss race on any level. This problem has been manifest in several ways. Students of color are frequently expected to speak about issues as representatives of their race, as though an entire racial group would be likely to have a unified view about some issue. The students spoke of having professors who seemed to be afraid to say "African American" out loud. Students of color related anecdotes of feeling singled out by professors who assumed they would be in academic difficulty. Other students of color reported feeling invisible and unacknowledged by their professors. As described in the Academic Experience section of this report (p. 17), new workshops and curricular institutes should be set up to expand greatly on the effort to help our faculty become educated in matters of race and diversity. This office will oversee such programs.

Staff

The staff is a segment of the Tufts community that is often overlooked. The staff interacts with students, faculty, administrators, and each other in myriad ways. Insufficient effort has been made to address issues of race and diversity with them, or how these issues impact them as employees, as the first people students often see in offices, or in their roles as support for departments and other offices. The Office for Faculty and Staff Education and Development, working with the Office of Equal Opportunity and Human Resources, will explore and recommend policy changes and will design educational programs to assist staff in the work of engaging diversity at Tufts. Any such activities in which the staff participates should be factored in at annual performance evaluations.

Additionally, the Task Force did not examine some of the student services offices for their structure and policies relating to students of color. The Counseling Center, Health Services, Academic Resources Center, and Career Planning Center are examples of offices where staff, both exempt and non-exempt in Human Resources categories, interact routinely with students, and sometimes in sensitive or personally-difficult situations for students. This new office can assist staff in these front-line positions in helping our diverse student population, possibly through workshops similar to the faculty workshops.

This new office will work closely with the Office of Equal Opportunity, the Culture Center directors, the academic deans, and the Department of Human Resources, as appropriate. The Task Force recommends that the new positions be Deans, with offices in Ballou Hall, who report directly to the Vice President. Without these qualifications, the office and its positions are likely to be perceived as marginal, less legitimate, and not taken as seriously.

We recommend that the of Office of Equal Opportunity be moved to Ballou Hall.

The current space in Bendetson Hall is inadequate for the multitude of tasks and responsibilities the Office of Equal Opportunity shoulders. Meeting and consultation space is minimal, and the main entry office space is insufficient for a waiting area, for the staff assistant to work comfortably, and for storage of documents and office supplies/equipment. In keeping with the spirit of the recommendation on establishment of the Office for Faculty and Staff Education and Development, we recommend that the physical space for the Office of Equal Opportunity be housed at Ballou, and in proximity to that new Office and to the University Counsel Office. The Task Force is aware of the finite space available in Ballou Hall. We also know the benefit of a more distant location of the Office of Equal Opportunity for those who want to consult the office in anonymity. Nonetheless, disjointed locations of offices dealing with race and diversity institutional issues is problematic. A location in Ballou Hall would assist the OEO officer in maintaining contact with other offices, and (for a new OEO officer) would help him or her get to know the administrators, learn about the culture of the administration, and receive some mentoring from senior administrators.

Administrators should take every opportunity to incorporate themes of diversity, race, and tolerance in speeches.

Throughout the year, many members of the Administration speak at gatherings of students, such as at Matriculation, Commencement, Orientation, and Academic Awards. The President, Vice President, Provost, and Deans have a wonderful opportunity to convey the strength of Tufts's commitment to race and diversity awareness by addressing these themes and keeping them in our consciousness. This also alerts incoming students and the parents of all our students that Tufts values a community reflective of society and will not stand for discrimination or acts of intolerance.

Annual salary review sheets and performance reviews should evaluate commitment to diversity issues and explicitly ask for information about workshops, institutes, or meetings/conventions that the faculty, staff, or administrator has attended during the previous year.

One of the problems with current diversity-related programs for faculty at Tufts is that there is little attention paid to, or reward for, participating in these educational or developmental activities. Faculty who have a personal interest in these issues commit their time to them, but there are no incentives for ambivalent faculty to explore and participate in such programs. Faculty find their time heavily devoted to preparing for classes, advising students, and conducting their scholarly work. It can seem difficult to incorporate other activities into an already busy schedule. However, with incentives the faculty attitudes toward diversity and race issues may change more rapidly to recognize the value of participation in these programs in order to enhance effectiveness as teachers, advisors, and mentors.

Some Chairs are sensitive to their roles in encouraging more effective teaching and advising for our diverse student population. However, many seem fairly oblivious or at least take their cues from the administration, which has not explicitly acknowledged the importance of teaching and advising that addresses the needs of students of color as well as majority students at salary review time. We hope that these workshops or meetings will be regarded in a positive light by the academic deans, an attitude which may be transmitted to the department Chairs. Explicit acknowledgment by Chairs of faculty efforts to engage diversity in teaching and advising is a step in changing the culture regarding race and diversity at Tufts at the intermediate level between the administration and the faculty.

INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSE
TO RACIAL INCIDENTS

A response team should be created to respond promptly to racial incidents on campus. Efforts should be enhanced to communicate the reporting process to students, and the campus reporting process should highlight the President's "no intolerance" policy.

Tufts students of color understand that Tufts, like all other institutions of higher education, is not immune from incidents of racial animus and ignorance. However, our students of color come to Tufts with the expectation that when such incidents occur the response of the Administration will promptly and unequivocally re-state that racism and acts of intolerance violate the spirit of community and civility essential in a community of scholars, students, and staff. Such incidents will be thoroughly investigated and perpetrators if and when identified will be held responsible to the full extent of University policy.

The Task Force has discovered that Tufts students of color perceive that the Administrative response to past incidents of racial intolerance and harassment has been ineffective. As a result, students of color are questioning whether the Administration is willing and able to respond effectively to racial incidents, and this seriously undermines the confidence these students have in the institution's commitment to diversity.

The creation of a response team that will oversee the reporting of racial incidents and the institutional response will address these concerns in a focused way. The response team should be small enough to assemble quickly and, in consultation with the President, Vice President, and other appropriate offices, determine the most effective type of reporting to the community. For some incidents, only the residents of a particular dorm where a minor incident has occurred may be the appropriate community. However, word of even small incidents frequently travels quickly. The lack of a Tufts-wide response is perceived as a lack of commitment to attacking racism, or even as an attempt to minimize or cover up the fact that racial incidents are not uncommon on campus. It is critical that students of color feel that Administrators are aware of these perceptions, and that Administrative responses to such assaults on the feelings of safety, community, and comfort on campus be visible and effectively communicated to the entire Tufts population.

Ways to inform students about their recourse when faced with racist or discriminatory behavior should be instituted, including formal written discrimination complaint procedures.

The Dean of Students, Office of Equal Opportunity, Culture Center directors, Senate Committee on Culture and Ethnicity, and other appropriate individuals should collaborate on ways to inform the student population about what their options are when they experience discriminatory behavior. Although the Administration responds to incidents, the formal discrimination complaint procedures available to students are not widely known or seem intimidating to some students. It became very clear over the course of our investigations that most students do not know how incidents are responded to and feel that nothing can be done to help them. They are told during Orientation, and through printed pamphlets, but information overload is acute in the first few weeks students are on campus.

Specific problems students perceive with the current system include:

The wording of the policy on racial harassment in the Pachyderm seems confusing and vague. Students would like to see a supplemental section or pamphlet that would give examples of possible racial incidents and how students could proceed in filing a complaint.
Students are not generally aware of where to go with problems that involve racial harassment. The Dean of Students office and the Office of Equal Opportunity are common entry points into the process, although the pamphlet entitled Bigotry also identifies a number of other resources. Students have said that it would be helpful to state more clearly that the Dean of Students and the Office of Equal Opportunity are the primary entry points, with the other resources offices and individuals listed as secondary options. Students need to be made aware that the Dean of Students office almost always becomes the pivot in the process.
Students are intimidated at the prospect of discussing an incident with the Dean of Students or the Office of Equal Opportunity. There are apparently two main reasons for this. The first is simply the intimidation of dealing with any dean or administrative official. The second is the worry that once an incident is reported, the student loses all control over subsequent events. Many students are reluctant to report a racial incident because they may have to encounter the accused individual(s) for the rest of their time at Tufts, which can be awkward at best, and even frightening. In fact, the student does have control over what follows after reporting an incident to the Dean and may chose to do little or nothing about it after discussion with the Dean. However, a serious incident or one witnessed by others may be investigated by the Dean even if the student does not want to do this. This process calls for particular assistance to the victim.
Students may feel very alone in the process of reporting and proceeding with some action through the Dean of Students office. They are not always aware that they can have friends and a support network help them through.

These four issues could be dealt with by preparation of a document to complement the information in the Pachyderm. The Bigotry pamphlet was rewritten for 1997 for clarification of some resources and procedures, but student input is essential. The Dean of Students, the Committee on Culture and Ethnicity, and the Office of Equal Opportunity should work to prepare a "user-friendly" explanation of the racial harassment policy and student recourse. Ways to disseminate this information periodically throughout the year should be developed, which may include educational and social programs, a web page, dorm meetings and workshops, and reminders in certain courses, where appropriate.

FINANCIAL AID

We recommend that the financial aid initiatives in the Capital Campaign be aggressively pursued and urge the Development Office to keep this at highest priority in fundraising efforts. Endowed scholarships appropriate for underrepresented minorities should receive special attention.

The absence of a need-blind admissions policy almost certainly compromises the overall academic quality of the student body. Highly qualified students will be admitted with what they perceive is inadequate financial aid and will thus go elsewhere, or will be discouraged from applying in the first place. Of particular relevance to the Task Force, students from underrepresented groups and the special qualities that those populations bring to the university will be underrepresented to the extent that their admissions status is partially contingent on ability to pay. The current situation is that students receive financial aid to fill their demonstrated need. In many cases, students and their parents find that this aid package does not alleviate their burden to the extent they believe they require, and for a similar aid package the student will select a different school they perceive as more desirable or welcoming, or for a much better package select a school not quite as desirable as Tufts.

Lack of Socioeconomic Diversity

One of the themes that was voiced repeatedly by groups of students with whom the Task Force met was the lack of socioeconomic diversity at Tufts among all students. For students of color who are disadvantaged economically, this problem, in conjunction with problems related to race, generated feelings of isolation, inadequacy, and inability to socialize in the same forums as students' peers. Even more than the lack of discretionary money for socializing is the need for such students to work extra hours to be able, for example, to get home for Thanksgiving - a luxury their wealthier classmates take for granted. These students must work for more hours per week than their economically advantaged peers to pay tuition, fees, etc. - in short, simply to be a Tufts student. The time spent working and commuting to the workplace is time not spent studying. This can place such students in academic jeopardy quickly.

Sources of Financial Aid - Cultural Perceptions

One of the important parts of a student's financial aid package is loans. In 1996, approximately 40% of the majority population received loans. Between 40 and 45% of Asian American students and those identified as multiracial had loans included in their aid packages, but 49% of Hispanic Americans and 88% of African Americans received loans.

There are cultural differences in how loans are perceived. Many Hispanic American, African American, and Asian American families are extremely reluctant to allow a student to incur such debt and feel such loans are too heavy a burden. In addition to the cultural tradition of self-reliance and unwillingness to become indebted, there is an aspect related to experience. Those families in particular who are in the lower socioeconomic part of the spectrum, and who see little affluence in their home communities, do not want to have debts totaling tens of thousands of dollars.

ADMISSIONS

Without a critical mass of students of color, the most welcoming campus cannot ease feelings of isolation and cultural alienation. The ability to attract and retain high-caliber students of color depends in large measure on the existence of a supporting community of color in place. This seems like a circular problem, however with Tufts's enhanced reputation and publicity generated from being in the "Top 25" schools, with the increased numbers of applications this has yielded, we ought to be able to make inroads in expanding the diversity of our student population.

Expanding the populations of students of color at Tufts helps spread the burden of working on programs such as SCOPE and of ensuring racial representation on committees and in student governance across a greater number of students. It enhances the comfort level in classrooms for students of color. One of the most challenging tasks that the Culture Centers and student culture clubs face is carrying out their programming and events with a relatively small pool of workers to help and participate in preparation. Greater numbers of students of color helps distribute this work and reduces "burnout" for the actively engaged students.

Specific Enrollment Trends

Using national and Massachusetts percentages of high school graduates as a base, Tufts has two groups of underrepresented students: African Americans and Hispanic Americans. Nationally, African Americans make up a little over 13% of the total high school graduate population and Hispanic Americans over 9%. Because only approximately 27% of the African American high school graduates and 18.8% of the Hispanic American high school graduates enroll in college, the percentages of these groups in the total college applicant pool is actually smaller (3.5% for African Americans and 1.3% for Hispanic Americans). Tufts's 1996-97 undergraduate student body was 4.2% African American and 5.3% Hispanic American. Thirty-eight per cent of the Tufts student body came from the New England states, where percentages of these two groups are less than the national average. In Massachusetts, approximately 7% of the high school graduates are African American and 7% Hispanic American. Asian Americans overall are not an underrepresented group according to national percentages and have applied to Tufts in steadily increasing numbers.

Enrollment statistics for first-year students are presented in Appendix 2, and are summarized here.

Asian American Students: In 1976, only 26 Asian American students enrolled at Tufts. Beginning in 1987, the numbers began to rise dramatically. In 1990, 96 Asian American students enrolled, and the following year 154 enrolled. By 1995, 188 Asian American students entered Tufts, followed by 187 in 1996. The class admitted in 1997 had markedly fewer Asian American students, with only 148.
African American Students: The numbers of enrolling African American students has varied greatly since 1976. From 1977 to 1982, the entering class had between 63 and 89 African American students, but numbers dropped precipitously from 1983 to 1991. With the exception of 1988 (73 African American students), each of these years had low enrollments, from a high of 55 to a low of 31. In 1992, 64 African American students enrolled at Tufts, followed by a decline in 1993 to 36. Since 1993, the number of African American students who have enrolled at has increased every year, to 72 in 1997.
Hispanic American Students: Enrollment of Hispanic American students varied from a low 17 to a high of 31 between 1976 and 1987. The numbers climbed slightly in the interval 1988 to 1991, with from 35 to 64 Hispanic American students entering Tufts. Enrollment increased from 39 in 1992 to 78 in 1995, but has declined over the past two years, to 73 in 1996 and 65 in 1997.

Although the number of enrolling students of color has generally grown over the past six years, the decline in Asian American and Hispanic American enrollment merits careful monitoring to arrest a downward trend. The Administration and Admissions Office must guard against the tendency to get complacent when large numbers of applications from a minority group pour in, and help the populations of color attain and then maintain a critical mass.

Institutional Desirability

The perceived prestige or desirability of the institution is an important factor in a student's decision of where to enroll. The colleges and universities with which Tufts finds itself in competition for African American students, for example, are among the most prestigious and well-endowed institutions of higher education in the United States. High application overlaps exist with Brown, Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, Yale, Harvard, Northwestern, Boston College, University of Michigan, Georgetown, Duke, Dartmouth, Emory, University of Virginia, Washington University, University of Chicago, UC Berkeley, Haverford, and UC San Diego. If we compare the percentages of racial groups at Tufts with those at all these institutions, Tufts is 17th of 21 in African American population and 9th of 21 in Hispanic American population. Among the Boston area schools on the list, Tufts is 2nd to Harvard, with Boston College, Boston University, and Brandeis trailing behind Tufts in regard to African American students and 3rd out of 4 in regard to Hispanic Americans.

Any student, whether a student of color or of the white majority, may have acceptances and equally attractive financial aid packages at several of these "overlap" institutions. When students of color opt to attend another school, however, the impact on enrollment numbers is large because of the relatively small number of students of color who apply to Tufts and are accepted. It is not critical when white majority students select a different institution because of the already large numbers in attendance. When you are dealing with small numbers of students, the enrollment decisions of a few carry significant weight.

Strategies

These facts and concepts are not new to the Admissions Office or to anyone who has worked on attracting students of color to Tufts. The Task Force recommends some modifications of Admissions efforts, as described below. However, one of the biggest hurdles to enrollment of greater numbers of students of color is financial aid. Until financial aid is substantially increased, we will be fighting to attract and enroll students of color. For example, each African American student accepted to Tufts has, on average, four offers of admission and therefore must decide what is his/her best option. In addition to financial issues, an important factor is whether he/she feels comfortable on the campus; this, in turn, has to do with both critical mass and campus climate.

The very fact that Tufts is now in the "Top 25" schools means that our applicant pool may change to a group who now can compete very effectively for admission (and possibly better financial aid packages) to the other high-caliber institutions on the list. Tufts may lose greater numbers of students of color to those other schools. Furthermore, those students of color who apply to traditionally black colleges and universities and to a few of the top tier schools may now apply to Tufts, but reject it in favor of the traditionally black schools where they may feel more welcomed and may, again, receive more comprehensive aid. Tufts may then find itself faced with a wonderful opportunity to recruit a new, very high quality population of students of color, but we will lose because of the financial aid issue and the lack of a robust community of color on campus.

Funds should be available to help ALANA (African, Latino, Asian, and Native American) students interested in attending SCOPE (Students of Color Outreach Program).

The SCOPE program should be supported with increased funding.

Both students and Admissions staff stressed that one of the most effective ways to increase enrollment of students of color is for the students and their parents to visit the Tufts campus. For the families of many prospective students, this is financially impossible. Tufts does provide bus transportation at a cost from some Northeastern cities on SCOPE weekends. Funds to provide free bus transportation and to assist such potential students should be sought. Unfortunately, this strategy cannot reach the major populations of color in Florida, Texas, and California, for example.

During the time the SCOPE students are on campus, meetings with faculty should be encouraged. Perhaps students who have indicated particular areas of interest could be invited to certain departments to meet with faculty and students to give them a feel for the atmosphere of the department. Collaboration between the SCOPE board and academic departments should be encouraged in this or other ways. Benefits accrued from such interaction include the introduction of the students to another aspect of the University in a smaller, more intimate setting, and increasing the faculty's awareness of SCOPE and that they can play a role in welcoming students of color to Tufts.

The Summer SCOPE program for high school students of color should be expanded.

The Summer SCOPE program is now funded by the Admissions Office, and additional funds will be needed to expand it. This successful program brings in new students to campus and allows them to take Tufts courses during the summer. It has attracted a number of students of color who are now attending Tufts. The program provides the benefits of an early introduction to college courses, as well as the chance for the students to familiarize themselves with the campus long before they are actually enrolled in college, increasing their confidence and comfort level.

The Admissions Office should develop additional strategies for establishing relationships locally, regionally, and nationally with high schools with significant minority populations, to be aware and responsive to different cultures. This should be done in consultation with the proposed Office for Faculty and Staff Education and Development, the Culture Center directors, and the SCOPE board.

New strategies directed toward recruiting African American, Hispanic American, Asian American, and Native American students should be articulated and written, and should be priority items for funding.
The Admissions Office should be given the resources to add new staff of color to assist in recruitment efforts.

The Admissions Office clearly has been aware of the need for recruitment targeted at students of color in order to enhance the diversity of the campus. However, different cultures respond to different strategies. For example, the Hispanic culture values the development of a personal relationship with an Admissions representative of an institution, rather than hearing from varying (generally non-Hispanic) Admissions officers. The assignment of a Latino/a staff member to work with guidance counselors from high schools with significant Hispanic populations over the course of many years is likely to attract applicants in greater numbers than if a relationship is not established. This issue is not significant for recruitment of white students in the majority culture, but what appear to be "small" issues have greater impact for other cultures.

Outreach initiatives in the Recruitment Plans for African American and Latino/a students should be re-evaluated regularly, in consultation with the Culture Center directors and the Office of Faculty and Staff Education and Development. Innovative suggestions to attract students of color should be aggressively sought and funded. Center directors should be used early in the recruitment process and be placed in visible roles in meetings with prospective students and their parents. These suggestions are likely to include adding staff of color to work in a targeted way with high schools.

Tufts should renew its membership in the National Hispanic Institute to enhance recruitment efforts encouraging qualified Latino/a students to apply.

This is a small step in developing a recruitment relationship with the population of Hispanic students across the United States, and provides access to meetings and conventions where students are "shopping" for colleges and universities.

Recruitment efforts for Latinos should focus on the underrepresented populations of Puerto Ricans from the mainland and Mexican Americans.

Tufts should make official outreach to the Coalition of Asian Pacific American Youth, Massachusetts Asian Pacific American Educators, and other Asian American student organizations throughout the country to increase exposure of Tufts to Asian Pacific American students from urban areas.

These organizations will help tremendously in the work of identifying deserving Asian Pacific American students who are from more recent immigrant and refugee groups, and whose numbers are extremely low at Tufts.

Alumni of color should be asked to participate to a greater extent in programs to attract students of color. This may be done through existing formal or informal alumni groups, with assistance from the Culture Center directors. This may require the forming alumni groups where none now exist, and funds should be made available to help Admissions, the Center directors, and the Office of Alumni Relations through this process. Such alumni contacts will be beneficial to students of color currently enrolled at Tufts.

One of the tests that students of color apply to an institution they are considering is to talk to current students and alumni. The SCOPE program helps set up contacts with current students, but if the prospective students do not see a vital population of alumni of color they are less inclined to apply or enroll. Alumni who enjoyed their experience at Tufts should be sought to participate in such a program. However, if alumni felt disenfranchised from Tufts while they were here, it will be difficult to encourage them to promote Tufts as a good option for their education. It is likely impossible to convert such feelings, however Tufts should be aware that the current students are our future alumni and should be paying attention to their needs so that in the coming years satisfied alumni can truthfully speak of a positive experience at Tufts.

Even if alumni, based on their experience, do not feel that they can promote Tufts as a welcoming place for prospective students of color, they may be willing to mentor current students or develop and maintain contacts with the Culture Centers. Some of this type of cooperative effort with alumni is currently in place, but it tends to be ad hoc.

ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE

The subgroup met regularly in the spring of academic year 1996-97. Activities engaged in during our investigations included: talking with students and faculty about the content of the curriculum and pedagogy in the classrooms; talking with faculty on the Ad Hoc Faculty Recruitment Committee on the recruitment and retention of faculty of color; reviewing departmental course offerings and course offerings of the Experimental College over the past six years; and reviewing course syllabi.

NEW FACULTY POSITIONS IN
RACE AND ETHNIC STUDIES

One of the issues of concern to the subgroup throughout its meetings was the need to broaden the curriculum in the areas of race and ethnic studies. In conversations with students and faculty, there was a strong sense that a major movement of intellectual and scholarly investigation was developing in the United States in the area of race and ethnic studies, and that Tufts was far behind other institutions in its recognition and validation of these areas. In part, the analysis of race and ethnic identity is part of the broader developing field of cultural studies, but the Task Force subgroup was most interested in these areas as they exist within the context of American (United States) culture and society. They pointed to student demand for courses in African American, Asian American, Latino/a, and Native American studies, all growing and important fields of scholarship.

To create an intellectual climate that acknowledges the importance of issues of race and ethnicity and that meets the interests of an increasingly diverse student body, the subcommittee strongly recommends - in addition to encouraging faculty to incorporate United States race and ethnic content in the existing curriculum - the addition of at least three new tenure track positions in American race and ethnic studies, that these positions be split positions between the existing American Studies program and home departments, and that faculty of color be sought for these positions through focused recruitment searches.

American Studies houses a group of senior faculty historically committed to the field of American race and ethnic studies who could help mentor new tenure track faculty members. At the same time, appointments would be made within existing departments, so new faculty could have the advantage of mentoring from senior faculty in their home departments as well. These appointments would clearly strengthen and give shape to American Studies and should be the base for interdisciplinary minor programs, e.g., minors in Asian American Studies, Native American Studies, African American Studies, and Latino/a studies.

We recognize that in committing to these new positions, the institution may be called on to make hard choices of not replacing existing positions when they become vacant. We recommend that every effort be made to connect the need for additional faculty in race and ethnic studies with other existing staffing needs, for example, in departments with large student enrollments.

Below we list specific concerns related to the establishment of these new positions.

Location of home departments

While the location of home departments will be determined by the deans in consultation with American Studies and departments, the subcommittee recommends that planners keep in mind the common grounding areas of study generally required for coherent programs of study in race and ethnic study (history, sociology, literature, cultural psychology). As foundation courses for coherent programs get established, we recommend that planners continue to expand the scope of race and ethnic studies beyond humanities and social sciences to include the natural sciences and engineering.

Priority of areas of concern

Based on existing and projected demographics and on demonstrated demand, we recommend that priority be given to locating scholars in Asian American, Latina/o, and Native American Studies. This in no way is intended to diminish the need for expanding the number of Tufts faculty who teach African American studies, and Tufts should strive to recruit such scholars. However, there are currently some courses in the regular curriculum taught by tenure-track and tenured faculty on African American studies or with a major focus on African American issues, whereas there are few or no comparable courses for Asian American, Latino/a, or Native American studies.

Ranks of new positions

We recommend hiring faculty at a number of levels, with at least one position dedicated to a senior candidate.

Managing split appointments

One danger here is the nature of split appointments, which asks faculty members to meet the demands of two "homes". In the past year at Tufts some of these split appointments have proven very difficult. We recommend that, at the point of hire, explicit expectations of faculty be included in their contracts.

Preserving the richness of existing American Studies personnel

We recommend that any new re-configuration of American Studies not displace the existing personnel, many of whom are non-tenure track and part-time teachers, and not disrupt the good working relationships in the program.

BUILDING A MORE DIVERSE FACULTY

In our conversations with students, one of their repeated concerns was the low numbers of faculty of color. They pointed out that there are departments that do not have any faculty of color. In other departments, students perceived faculty of color to be in token positions, that is, one in an all-white department. Asian American and Latino/a students, in particular, discussed that they felt they had extremely few Asian American or Latino/a faculty to turn to for general or specific mentoring, and for help in Asian American and Latino/a scholarship. Asian American students pointed out that most of the Asian/Asian American faculty who are here and who continue to be hired at Tufts tend not to identify as Asian American (many identify as Asian nationals) and are not willing or available to address issues of Asian America in higher education or to serve as role models to Asian American students. Students also felt that instructors of color, especially those who had expertise in race and ethnic studies, tended to be one-time or part-time individuals. They were not part of the permanent structure of Tufts, and courses they taught were not part of the ongoing curriculum. They felt this state of impermanence diminished the importance and legitimacy both of these topics as ones worthy of study, and of the instructors. Given the already significant number of Asian American students at Tufts and growing numbers of Latino/a students, concerns related to these populations are acute. Also, Tufts should not further marginalize the areas of race and ethnic studies by relying on the hire of part-time or visiting faculty as a measure to enhance faculty diversity.

In addition to supporting the efforts and commitment of the administration and department chairs to increase the diversity of the faculty at Tufts, and reaffirming the 1992 faculty resolution on minority hiring, we would like to endorse the Focused Recruitment Search as the most productive way of increasing the diversity of Tufts faculty. In addition, we recommend the following measures:

Furthering majority sentiment at the Chairs' meeting of April 29, 1997, we recommend that Tufts be given the freedom to hire senior faculty (i.e., at the Associate or Full Professor level with tenure) in order to attract and retain distinguished minority faculty, and we urge the administration, pending faculty review and amendment of the by-laws concerning hiring, to make this a priority in current and future consideration of new appointments.
We recommend that increasing the number of minority faculty, through endowed chairs and at the junior level, be included as an explicit goal of the Capital Campaign, if it isn't already.
We recommend that Tufts design and implement a number of proactive faculty diversity initiatives, including, but not limited to, dissertation fellowship programs and underrepresented postdoctoral fellowships as a way of diversifying the curriculum and campus and of attracting scholars who might then be recruited to the Tufts faculty. Such scholars could teach one or two classes a year and be present on campus in other ways. Associated with CIS (Center for Interdisciplinary Studies) and perhaps a department or program, they would be part of our intellectual community.

FACULTY TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

Our discussions with students and faculty have revealed an overwhelming need for development and training of faculty that prepares them to work effectively as teachers/advisors with an increasingly diverse student body and with rapidly emerging new scholarship on creating inclusive curriculum and pedagogy. The seriousness with which Tufts addresses faculty development, training, and support in the area of engaging multi-racial, multi-cultural audiences and material makes a powerful statement about our commitment to transforming our academic culture.

We recommend, in addition to continued annual offering of the existing Faculty Workshop on Teaching Diverse Populations, the establishment of a faculty development and training program for Curricular and Pedagogical Transformation for An Inclusive Academic Environment no later than the summer of 1999, and that involves participating faculty making commitments to attend:

a three- to four-week-long faculty Institute for curricular and pedagogical transformation one summer out of the next four summers where the crucial aspects of faculty training in the area of diversity (knowledge of students, knowledge of self, curriculum content, pedagogy) can be given adequate attention. Participation in the annual introductory Faculty Workshop on Teaching Diverse Populations will be a prerequisite to applying for the Institute. Faculty applicants will be asked to make a contract to conduct a piece of transformative work they wish to develop: design a new course, revise an existing course, introduce a piece of innovative pedagogy, etc., and will receive a stipend (commensurate with some current stipends offered in summer faculty workshops, e.g., writing across the curriculum, interdisciplinary course design in American Studies and CIS, etc.).
a regular monthly brown bag discussion group of faculty who have attended the summer Institute, for sharing questions and ideas and for honing skills as they apply their Institute learning during the academic year. This is a model currently employed by Writing Intensive courses.
a "special topics" speaker/discussion series during the academic year, for example, effective approaches to issues of diversity in the sciences and math; racial identity development and its impact in the classroom; etc.

As of May 1997, thirty tenured/tenure track and thirty non tenure-track faculty members in LA&J have participated in the current two-day workshops for Teaching Diverse Student Populations. Faculty in this veteran group would be given preference for the proposed institute.

RACE IN UNDERGRADUATE
EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS

The Tufts Arts and Sciences Mission states that one of the philosophical underpinnings and key features of the educational research mission of Arts and Sciences is "to foster a diverse community reflective of the world in which we live".

At present, the Tufts World Civilization requirement is designed to ensure that our graduates have engaged in course work that considers a non-Western civilization or the interaction of non-Western and Western civilizations. While this enterprise helps our students gain some appreciation for the diversity represented by a global society, it fails to expose students to racial and cultural diversity and their meanings present in the United States.

Based on our evaluation of how our current curriculum fails to address the outstanding needs of students to learn about racial and cultural diversity and its implications for U.S. society, and our firm belief that it is as important for students to learn how to engage domestic issues of diversity and social equality as global ones, we recommend the establishment of an American Race and Cultures requirement. We further recommend that:

courses that satisfy this requirement focus on themes or issues in U.S. history, society, or culture; address theoretical and analytical issues relevant to understanding race, culture, and their relationship to social differences and equality in our society; take substantial account of groups drawn from at least three of the following: African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino/a, European Americans, and native Americans; and are integrative and comparative in that students study each group in the larger context of American society, history, or culture. The courses also provide students with the intellectual tools to understand better their own identity and the cultural identity of others in their own terms.
that courses taken to satisfy this requirement may also satisfy other requirements, e.g., Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, and major requirements, etc.
that a committee of Tufts faculty and other consultants with expertise on the study of race and social equality be created, with input from the Office for Faculty and Staff Education and Development, to establish formal criteria for the requirement and to determine which courses satisfy the requirement.
that faculty choosing to offer these courses are urged and given priority admission to the faculty summer institutes for curricular and pedagogical transformation, designed to address the demands stemming from this requirement.

We recognize that at present we do not have enough courses in the Tufts curriculum to service this requirement. We recommend that the requirement be scheduled to begin three years from now, so that a critical number of new and revised courses can be developed.

Race Awareness workshops might grow into actual courses for credit through the Experimental College (this was done in the past), but then should be incorporated into regular course offerings through a department to affirm the legitimacy of such courses. We see a great need for reaching out to majority students with options for exploring these issues without putting additional burdens (either educational or activist) on minority students. A course in Race Relations and Community Building might draw interested students. And, as in so many things, if it proves successful, word of mouth will bring in more.

RACE IN THE OVERALL
UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM

We recommend that a thorough and systematic review of the undergraduate curriculum be conducted to determine how students' needs for education to engage diversity in the United States are met or not met at the moment. Foundation, distribution, and major requirements need to be scrutinized, and gaps as well as opportunities in educating for diversity outlined. We recommend that reviewers be given assistance in review design by individuals that have expertise in American race and ethnicity in the curriculum.

CAMPUS LIFE

The quality of life outside the classroom constitutes a critical part of the Tufts student's four years. For students of color, having chosen Tufts over other colleges with, perhaps, a more welcoming atmosphere or greater resources, a sense of our commitment to working toward and achieving a better racial climate at Tufts is essential.

We need expanded support for students of color, and we need a greater sense of unity and communication among all students at Tufts. We do not see these goals as contradictory. In fact, we see them as interdependent. We cannot pursue one effectively without pursuing the other. We do believe we must strike a careful balance, however, so as not to expect students of color to do more than their fair share of the work. To that end, we must educate majority students to understand that race is a factor all of us have in common, that it demands work from all of us, and that it cannot be ignored by any educated person. Our charge is to find ways, large and small and in all arenas of campus life, to facilitate this educational process, to open new opportunities for coming together and for strengthening those of us who feel, to whatever degree, disempowered at their own university.

The problems of attracting students of color to enroll at Tufts and of low retention rates among some students of color are inextricably linked to the quality of their classroom experience and the sense of comfort and belonging they feel on campus. The circularity of the problems (low numbers of students of color leading to a low level of satisfaction with the campus life, leading to low numbers of applications by students of color...) can only be broken by ratcheting up the efforts toward making the campus a welcoming place.

Students spoke of "having your P.C. up" as though the notion of "political correctness" was some sort of act. We believe the time has come to assault the backlash caused by such overused terms as "P.C." and replace them with concepts that should be natural and eternal: politeness, consideration, accuracy, honesty. There is difference between "correctness" (which implies someone else's dictation) and "accuracy" (which implies a search for truth); we must get this across to students. By the same token, although we speak of "diversity," we should stop praising ourselves for having so much of it when we at Tufts do not truly reflect the diversity of society. Students will respond much more positively when the hard truths are before them. They all know we are not as diverse as we like to portray ourselves; they all know that socioeconomic diversity here is a scarce quantity indeed.

In the following pages, we will outline some specific points we believe may be steps toward a higher quality of life for all Tufts students.

ORIENTATION POLICIES

It is clear that in the short space of time allotted to Orientation it is difficult to do anywhere near the amount of work we would wish for incoming students, and so we believe a calendar of activities, designed for first-year students, should be promoted as a form of extended Orientation, which would have the further benefit of allowing the new class to build a sense of its own identity and unity. Planning for Orientation goes on all year. We recommend that the Orientation Committee restructure Orientation to infuse race and diversity awareness throughout the week, including better utilization of Centers in Orientation, and ways to highlight minority contributions to Tufts and opportunities for students of color.

In orientation week itself, existing programs need adjustment:

The individual culture centers offer open houses for their constituencies, which are well-attended. A separate open house program should be implemented that is well-publicized as an event for all new students. Indeed, the role of the centers as resources and not as clubhouses needs to be better established. How new students are introduced to the centers will set the tone.
The student panel presentations in Many Voices, One Community have been very well received and should continue with the possibility for expanded discussion afterwards. This past year's experiment with small groups after the panels proved somewhat unworkable: the entering students were ready to head home. The panel should be scheduled for an afternoon time, or when there is sufficient time for followup discussion. Small discussion groups involving the entire first year class after the panel should be integrated into the overall program design. Faculty and staff facilitators will be trained, as they were this year.
So much of Orientation depends upon the advising system. How individual advisors present issues of race (along with other diversity issues) is very important. As it now stands, only a small number of advisors receive even minimal training. The sensitivity and skill of the advisor in setting the most productive tone for incoming students may be our best way of reaching students. Extended training for advisors should be offered and, in some way, made a requirement. It may be possible to offer an incentive to advisors to attend the spring advising workshops, perhaps by providing access to funds for books or other materials for scholarly activity.
The programs for introducing the departments should be revised. Faculty who are describing the departments should be encouraged to include information that addresses how they engage diversity in their curriculum, programming, and what their student/faculty diversity is. This part of the program should be studied by the Orientation committee, the Culture Center directors, and the new Office for Faculty and Staff Education and Development to determine how to encourage such a changing emphasis without dictating what the department representatives must say.
The Dean of Students office is very aware of diversity issues in Orientation programming. It is important to stress that student performing groups chosen for Orientation week must reflect some of the diversity on campus. In general, the more indirect ways of showing rather than telling who we are, the better.
We believe that a calendar of activities for first-year students, after Orientation, should be instituted to showcase diversity, especially in the performing arts. These activities might include:
During the first two weeks of the semester, there could be a concert-revue of singing groups of every sort, somewhat like the Super Show; dance groups, too, might be included.
Scenes from theater performances from the previous year might be offered; or the individual performing groups could work up sketches of the sort of work they do. Both this event, and the musical one mentioned above, would serve the double function of interesting new students in joining the existing groups and in encouraging the groups to work together on a project.
A large lecture, which might be part of a series, on a topic relating to diversity should be offered specifically for first-year students. It should be an administration-sponsored event of some magnitude offered in the first month or so.
An all-college semi-formal or an all-college dance at Homecoming should be instituted as a way of bringing the new class into campus life and spirit. It is important to provide for a range of music tastes and styles; in fact, that could be the selling point of such a dance.
The implementation of such programs remains a significant question. Financial priorities must be re-considered, and offices such as the Dean of Students and Student Activities must have access to additional funds, where necessary. This points again to the need for a central office capable of coordinating efforts or being a clearing house for these efforts.
A network of upperclass students of color might be created to help incoming students from other parts of the country deal with the culture shock they experience here in the Northeast part of the United States. Students of color, especially those who are also economically disadvantaged, have the additional bewildering experience of adjusting to New England/Northeast attitudes, both on and off campus. African American students, in particular, have reported that the surrounding communities are very unfriendly to them. The Peer Leader program works effectively to help students adjust to college life, but the cultural adjustment to the Northeast is not always handled well in a group - students have said they would have liked more individual attention in dealing with this problem. Just a few phone calls and occasional personal visits after classes start could alleviate some of that anxiety. This network might be coordinated through the Culture Centers, with input from the Dean of Students office and Admissions. Tufts should also investigate the creation of Host Family relationships for out-of-state students of color.

STUDENT ACTIVITIES

From our meetings with representatives of numerous student organizations, we have distilled their recommendations and suggestions which may point the way toward new policies. We will list them, with some discussion of each, by subject area. The implementation of such points, once again, requires the existence of a central clearing house to monitor and assist such activities.

Sports

Coaches should receive diversity training; there should be conversations in the Department of Athletics about race and how to engage diversity.
A summer mailing and postings in dorms (or in Orientation packet) should be done to introduce new students to new sports in an attempt to reach as wide a group as possible.
Tryouts should be more widely publicized. It should be clear that the tryout times (in September) are genuinely that: a time to play with a team and see how it goes, with no final commitment required.
The early meeting in the first semester should be better publicized; this is when all the sports are introduced to new students.
A confidential way for students to evaluate coaches regarding racial attitudes should be implemented, perhaps along the lines of course evaluations for academic classes. There is anecdotal evidence of discrimination in play-time allotments in past seasons.
Sports teams can be ideal microcosms for mixing people of different backgrounds; can that sense of camaraderie and unified purpose be made more evident to the campus at large, i.e. team members as spokespeople? Discussions of race in the team setting should be implemented, with appropriate facilitators to run such discussions.
Casual sports on campus also have potential for people meeting on common ground. We recommend there be more informal sports facilities about campus.
We recommend increasing opportunities for intramural organized sports events as providing further common ground for students.

Arts

There should be a chance, once a semester, for members of arts groups to get together and discuss common concerns, under the auspices of the Senate or of Student Activities. This could encourage collaboration between groups, both in scheduling so as not to conflict and in joint programming, reciprocal advertising, and guest appearances.
In order to make auditioning a more welcoming and comfortable experience, the past history of diversity within groups should be demonstrated. Photographs and group histories should be posted.
The university should invite a variety of groups for performances at official events, perhaps on some rotating system.
The theater groups should discuss the subject of non-traditional casting, i.e. casting roles across racial (and even gender) lines. Such a discussion might grow out of the once-a-semester meetings. Other such subjects might include: expanding styles of repertory, possibilities for previews and profiles in the campus media, ways of reaching out to broader audiences.
Along the lines of the lecture proposed in the Orientation section of this report, we also recommend that performing artists of color be invited to campus to present their work or offer a master class. Individual academic departments, such as Drama/Dance, Music, and English have insufficient funds at present to do more than minimal programming.

Media

Tufts is perhaps the smallest institution in the country with both a daily and a weekly newspaper, as well as a number of other publications of humor and opinion, and their leaders demonstrate the seriousness of their commitment by meeting their publication deadlines regardless of other factors.

We affirm the importance of an uncensored free press to a university, which places special value on the pursuit of knowledge and freedom of speech. Yet, as in the larger society, the right of a free press in a college community is balanced by an obligation of responsibility to the multiple constituencies who constitute the paper's readers and to the time-honored professional standards of journalism.

Tufts has no journalism major, and no advisors for publications or broadcast media. The student organizations work autonomously and what they produce is determined by their own editorial staff. Each confronts decisions about what stories to cover, how to cover them, what stances to take, what and how it will criticize the actions and views of some within the community, and whose side it will take in a dispute. We have followed coverage of issues involving or of importance to non-majority constituents and conclude that the treatment of issues raised by non-white individuals and groups is frequently harsh and insensitive, not only in columns of opinion but even in ostensibly objective news stories. Better adherence to the rules of professional journalistic standards would greatly reduce the incidence of such treatment, which may be attributable to a lack of appropriate training currently engaged in by the student media as a whole.

The T.C.U. Senate has shown admirable restraint, avoiding, as many college governing bodies have not, efforts to interfere with the content of college media, despite that without its funding most publications could not exist. This restraint is also obligatory, since court cases have repeatedly affirmed the freedom of collegiate press. However, it does not infringe on such a freedom to require that to be eligible for funding their leadership participate in some minimal amount of training in objectivity.

Therefore, we make the following recommendations with the intent of preserving the autonomy of campus publications, but increasing their reliance upon professional standards to guide their decisions:

That the T.C.U. Government or ALBO require that all student media, to be eligible for recognition or for funding, must participate in a training for those on their mastheads as often as those officers change (once or twice an academic year).
That the training be carried out by on-campus, alumni/ae, or local members of the journalism profession in a variety of roles, and that the training take place at the beginning of the academic year and shortly after new officers are chosen during the academic year.
That the training consist of basic topics of importance to those who publish, broadcast, write, or edit: issues of liability (as they apply to individuals and to the medium), defamation, privacy, objective reporting, reporter protocols, verification of facts, treatment of diverse constituencies in news coverage, dealing with complaints, use of retraction and apology, the role and responsibility of the editor, and other topics determined by professionals to be important to those in leadership roles in campus media.
That the membership of the existing umbrella organization, the Media Advisory Board (MAB), be expanded from its current membership of student media and a representative of Student Activities and the Communications and Media Studies program to include additional membership by faculty or administrators with professional experience in the media.
That the newly constituted MAB sponsor and participate in the training for media members.
That the MAB receive training in how to adjudicate complaints against individual constituent organizations brought by readers and not resolved at the level of the individual medium.

Additional points concerning the student media:

Editors should be encouraged to balance the Viewpoint or Op-Ed pages; it is difficult in a paper such as the Daily to achieve a balanced effect in every issue, but the perception that the newspaper is not an organ for the entire community surely undercuts its role.
There is a need for both newspapers to cover a broader range of student events, aside from sports. There could be more reporting of on-campus events, in the form of previews, profiles, and reviews.
Attention should be paid to instituting regular features (columns, etc.) that give voice to various constituencies.
There could be more efforts made to reach out to underrepresented groups to encourage participation. In short, the papers can still be exciting and controversial, perhaps more so, if a wider range of student is reflected in their pages.
There should be an immediate response from the administration if an evident misrepresentation or malicious report is published in the student media without appropriate commentary. An example of such a response might be the commendable letter from the Dean of Students office after the Daily published a series of op-ed pieces by an alumnus who attacked gay and lesbian events on campus, without editorial comment or attempt to balance or rebut the argument. The letter reaffirmed the university's support of the gay and lesbian community.

Student Government

The Senate faces a problem of student apathy in regard to student government. Aside from dispensing money, its role seems minimal to many students. The administration should make public responses to senate resolutions, so that the student body perceives that they have a voice in campus affairs and may partake in a dialogue. Additionally, steps should be taken to investigate whether the current senate structure, policies, and procedures are appropriate for an increasingly diverse student community.

RESIDENTIAL LIFE

Many students told us that residences can be, on the whole, the best venue for social mixing and for establishing a good fellow feeling. The R.A.s we spoke to agreed unanimously that the training they now receive is not enough to aid them in establishing the best atmosphere for all students nor in assisting them when troubles arise. Although common sense and character have as much to do with being a successful R.A. as particular training, we do believe that there should be a more extensive training available for all R.A.s on issues of racism, and that it might be ongoing, in terms of focus groups or brush-up sessions. R.A.s need to feel comfortable with all the real tensions that will arise around them and not be limited to formulaic phrases to get them by. Because this is such a subtle business, it seems a high priority for us to do much more for R.A. training.

All agreed that more congenial common space in the residence halls is a necessity. Right now, the residence halls have quite unequal facilities. Effort should be made to improve the least comfortable spaces first. One of Tufts's strengths is the number of living options available to students, but this does create difficulties of equity. It must be recognized that students, with a right of free association, should not feel compelled into social groups of someone else's choosing. However, perceptions of social grouping can be better understood. There is the oft-cited example of white students noting that "all the black students sit together" while never noticing that "all the white students sit together in even greater numbers." Sometimes, the intelligent raising of such an observation in the right context can change minds. With that thought, we recommend that residence hall discussions should be conducted in the regular course of semester activities, not only in response to racial incidents, by which time feelings may be roused in unproductive ways.

Other topics in campus social and domestic life include:

The need for lower cost party spaces on campus. At present, only the fraternities have been able to offer the sorts of social gatherings that draw students regularly. Instances were reported of other groups' parties on campus shut down early by police.
There should be required meetings in the residence halls for first-year students on issues of racial harassment, discrimination, and intolerance along the lines of the Public Safety meetings. This might appear onerous; such meetings could be worked in, more naturally, to regular residence hall life.
A student-staffed group, such as Sex Talk, might operate as a model for community building discussions, either in residence hall meetings or in classes.
Anti-racism workshops should be made available for students, just as they are for faculty. This is particularly important for majority students, who may feel the need and desire to do some work on their own. We talked to many such students in the course of the year.
The Greek System is currently governed by the Inter-Greek Council and the Pan-Hellenic Council. They are separate because the Pan-Hellenic groups are city-wide and do not have to conform to Tufts rules. There might be an intermediate status, however, that would allow the two councils to work in liaison and bring more co-ordination between their efforts, without implicating Pan-Hellenic's independent status.
To make the Fraternities more welcoming, the regulation requiring a guest list for parties should be adhered to, while making clear the party is open, by the announcement that people "should stop by the house and put yourself on the guest list" ahead of time.
In some instances, a given Fraternity may represent a better mix of diverse students than the campus at large; the loyalty to the brotherhood seems to transcend differences (though we hasten to add that this loyalty may not extend to different sexual orientations). But the question was raised "do minority brothers feel entirely comfortable about the racial factor?" Once again, the need for the availability of sensitivity training workshops is evident.
Campus Police need further racial awareness training, judging from certain instances that occurred last year, including the targeting of minority students for questioning on party nights.
The Food For Thought program, and other residence hall-centered programs, might be venues for further discussion, if skillfully handled.
There must be an immediate response from the administration when racial incidents occur. This is not to interfere or pre-empt the adjudication of the incident, but the student community, especially in a residence hall, needs some assistance immediately.

CULTURE CENTERS AND HOUSES

In almost all of the Task Forces deliberations and in every conversation with students that we have sponsored, the Cultural Centers and program residences have emerged as a central factor in the discussion and a critical factor in the experience of students of color on the Tufts campus. There is, however, a wide perception that the Culture Centers have been the objects of benign neglect and administrative apathy, but the Centers are the key to much of the student-to-student relations that have taken up much of the Task Force considerations.

The Culture Centers and Houses form the most visible part of the commitment of the University to serving the communities of color on campus, yet they are surrounded by misperceptions and incorrect assumptions.

The Centers and Houses are often and mistakenly regarded as interchangeable and one and the same. In fact, they are separate entities. This misperception has likely arisen because the African American Center is located in Capen House (a residence), and the Asian American Center is in Start House, which is also a residence. The Directors run the Centers, but Residential Life is responsible for the Houses.
The undergraduate admissions bulletin for perspective students should be rewritten to clearly articulate the distinctions between the Culture Centers and the Culture Houses.
There is a widely-held view that most or all of the students of color live in the Houses. In reality, a very small number of students live in the Houses, and they include some white majority students. The Houses are dorms that all Tufts students may live in and complete projects, as well as focus in others ways on the culture(s) of an American minority group. This, of course, is exactly what, under other circumstances, we would be crying out for - a program that promotes cultural understanding through a living and learning immersion experience.
There is a sentiment that white students and faculty are not welcome at the Centers and Houses. This is one of the more insidious myths, for it subtly promotes the separation of students of color from the rest of the community. The Centers are a rich resource of information, and they are happy to see anyone from the Tufts community attend programs, receptions, and cultural events. Pamphlets describing the missions, services, and activities at the Culture Centers should be circulated to all students, especially prospective and incoming students (both students of color and white students). As this is information about important resources for all students at Tufts, the Centers should be furnished with the funds to produce such pamphlets.

The Centers and Houses need to be "demythologized" in the eyes of the white community at Tufts. When those who have these beliefs described above are told that they are not true, they ultimately state that the real problem is that they just don't feel comfortable going to the centers or their programs. Recommendations elsewhere address ways to encourage visitors and to educate students about the goals and activities of the Centers. Educating the faculty will require a different tack. We recommend that a bimonthly newsletter be distributed, perhaps through the Office of Faculty and Staff Education and Development, devoted to information about race issues and the role of the Centers on campus. Headlines and topics that would attract faculty attention would have to be written to draw in readers, but the newsletter could function as a clearing house for information about the Centers, or for discussion of diversity in science and engineering courses, for example.

Students of color value the existence of the Culture Centers, and feel strongly that Tufts should not move in a direction to consolidate the Culture Centers into a single, multicultural unit. At the same time, structures that bring together students who are looking for a multicultural unit need to be created within the Culture Centers. For example, joint racial group programming directed at cross-racial audiences should be increased and then well-publicized. The Task Force supports the present independent structures of the Culture Centers. At Tufts, each Center has its own unique history, style of outreach and involvement, and problems on the campus. An overview of each of the Centers follows, prepared by the Center Directors, focusing on their individual structures.

Asian American Center

The Asian American Center was established in 1983 after a racial incident on campus raised concerns about the unmet needs of Asian American students and the necessity for resources for both the Asian American community and the entire campus community. The Center addresses the following goals:

To serve as a resource for the entire University community and to function as a resource, liaison, and advocate for the Asian American student community.
To offer support via counseling and advising on academic, personal, and career issues, and to advise the Asian student clubs and groups on campus.
To provide educational and cultural programs related to the Asian American experience for the Asian American constituency, specifically, and for the entire University community.

With these goals in mind, the Center strives to provide a supportive and positive living and learning environment for the Asian American students and other undergraduates.

The Center is located in one room on the first floor of Start House. The House is one of the cultural theme houses under the direction of Residential Life and houses 8 students in 5 rooms on the second and third floors. The two living rooms on the first floor are part of the House and are used by the Center during the day. The Center is staffed by a full-time director. A staff assistant who serves five program directors, including the Asian American Center director, works out of 55 Talbot Avenue. There are presently seven student workers hired by the Center, including three student coordinators for the Peer Leader Program and Asian American Month, one student office assistant, and three door monitors.

The physical space limitations continue to be a problem for the Center, but its prime location on Latin Way and its existence in a cultural theme House are significant benefits. The Center and House provide a safe space for students to sit and "hang out" with friends. It is an informal meeting place for many. The student traffic in and out of the House provides the director with constant student interaction. While some students may schedule appointments for various reasons with the director, many students often drop in to ask questions, make requests, or just sit and talk. Also, since there is no staff person (other than the director) present, the director is the "front-line" person and must handle all issues and concerns directly with the students.

Over the years the Center director has been underutilized as a resource. The current director has been asked to serve on various committees or to speak to faculty or programs/offices. However, it appears that the effort to include Asian American student issues in various discussions and venues, for example, tends to be more a result of who the chair or director of the committee is, and is a function of their openness to learning about and including the Center or Asian American student issues. Except for programs under the Dean of Students Office, the Center clearly is not utilized sufficiently as a resource by those outside of the Asian American community.

The Center director is available for advising/counseling on academic, personal, and career concerns. While many students utilize the Career Planning Center for more specific needs, some have sought additional support and guidance with resume-writing and letter-writing, with mock interviews, and for discussions around careers and plans after Tufts. The director also serves as an informal advisor for the Asian clubs and, depending on the officer group, may be used on a regular basis for advice on club-related matters.

Programming coordinated by the Center mainly focuses on the Asian American community and the Asian American experience, although a program may focus on a particular ethnic group. As there appears to be a tendency to associate Asian Americans only with Asians from Asia, an effort is made to educate the Asian American students and the general Tufts community about the issues and concerns for Asians in America (or Asian Americans). As it is difficult to sponsor costly programs due to budgetary constraints, the Center generally will coordinate smaller programs throughout the year. The problem with doing this is that limited program visibility does not draw a large audience that includes majority students and other students of color. Depending on available funds, the Center may coordinate a program with more "name recognition" (for example, last spring, film maker Freida Mock spoke and brought her film "Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision") or use funds for an activity or event solely for the Asian American student community (alumni program focusing on careers). Developing programming for the campus community becomes a challenge when the bulk of the Center's budget is used for indirect costs (i.e. office maintenance), publicity of events (Daily ads were over 20% of the overall Center budget last year), or miscellaneous costs for smaller programs (e.g. Dining Services/food costs). The Center has never had sufficient funding to address adequately the need for larger campus-wide programming.

The Center coordinates Asian American Month, which is celebrated at Tufts in November. While a student coordinator is hired to work on the Month, the Center provides minimal programming at this time due to lack of funding and human resources to handle larger programs. The Center, which pays for the overall publicity of the Month, encourages the Asian clubs and departments/offices on campus to sponsor or co-sponsor events instead. This has not been a problem over the years because of the number of Asian clubs on campus.

Aside from the one-time event/program, considerable time is spent by the director on program development, mainly with the Peer Leader Program. Weekly, the director supervises two student coordinators and facilitates a training session for twenty Peer Leaders throughout the year. While this has been a time-consuming program, the benefits to the community have been significant. The Peer Leaders not only serve as peer supports and resources for first-year students, but they become student leaders in the Asian American community and visible role models for the other Asian American students. In many ways, the student coordinators and the Peer Leaders become "liaisons" for the Center. Through the Peer Leader Program, an orientation event is organized and various activities are coordinated throughout the year for first-year students.

Some other programming currently taking place this year (or in the past) includes:

Weekly study groups, led by upperclass students, for Bio 13, Chem 1, and math. This fall the Center has a very successful Bio 13 study group which has been meeting weekly since the third week of September.
An ESL volunteer program to tutor adult learners through the Asian American Civic Association in Chinatown. This program will resume in the spring.
Discover Boston, a community learning activity, held during the extended Orientation period, where students learn about Chinatown, one of Boston's ethnic communities, by visiting agencies serving the Chinatown population. Faculty are always invited to participate, and in the four years of Discover Boston, 22 faculty have done so.

Some of the concerns about the Asian American students include a gender imbalance, where for the last three years nearly two-thirds of the entering classes were women. Socioeconomic differences can create difficulties for students. Those who are struggling financially, because of insufficient financial aid resources, and those who receive a substantial amount of financial aid, often express feelings of isolation and a lack of support from their peers who are not on financial aid. These feelings are compounded with those of being already marginalized by race. Also, students from more economically-privileged backgrounds may not be sensitized initially to issues of race and racism within the Asian American community, and this can create strains in the student group.

The tremendous ethnic diversity within the Asian American population leads to strong ethnic bonding, which leads to greater challenges in creating a strong unified Asian American community. Because Asian Americans as a group are not underrepresented, it is easy to become complacent about this population. However, as noted in the Introduction to this report and in the section on Admissions, the numbers are not rising and in fact have declined. This leads to reduced numbers of some groups, such as Vietnamese Americans, which places stress on this student population to maintain its cultural identity.

Hispanic American Center

The Center was created in 1993 when the increasing number of Hispanic students on campus made clear the need for increasing resources. La Casa Hispana was also established during this period. Prior to 1993, the Hispanic students were part of the International Center, the International Club, and the Latin American Society as resources. Hispanic students, however, have grown up in the United States and these organizations could not deal effectively with the issues these students were facing at Tufts. The Hispanic students could not always relate to the Latin American (international) students who had no idea what it was like to grow up as a minority, subject to discrimination and racism. Issues of class, race, and language still divide these communities to a certain extent.

The mission of the Hispanic Center is to provide support for the Latino/a students on campus, to help train leaders within the Hispanic community, to advocate for students within the University structure, and to help educate the Tufts community about Hispanic culture and about issues related to Hispanics both at Tufts and in the United States. In 1993 and 1994, the director of the Center occupied a half-time (17.5 hours per week), nine-month position. In 1996, the position was expanded to full-time, but still just for nine months of the year.

The Center is not located in the Hispanic House, so students do not use the space as a place to hang out with friends. Programs and access to information are what draw students to the Center. Student leaders use the space for meetings, and the director uses the room for outreach to students who are in academic difficulty, or who may want to meet for advice on jobs, internships, or scholarships.

October is Hispanic Heritage Month. The Center coordinates programs that include concerts, speakers, debates (e.g. Embargo on Cuba), student art exhibits, film festivals, and many other cultural activities. It also sponsors the Latina Women's Group (with the Counseling Center), and coordinates the Latino Mentoring Program where Tufts students mentor Latino students at Somerville High School.

The Center selects ten students as Hispanic Peer Leaders in the Spring. These students participate in training sessions in the spring, during Orientation, and once a month during the Fall semester. Peer Leaders are matched with 'advisees' from their geographic region, with whom they keep in touch during their first year at Tufts. In addition to efforts to reach out to current students, there has been significant effort to maintain contact with alumni. Given the newness of the Hispanic Center, most alumni had already graduated by the time it came into existence, and thus they do not have a history of experiences with it as the current students do. However, for the past two years the Center has sponsored an Hispanic Alumni luncheon with current juniors and seniors. This luncheon has been successful in establishing a network for students and in laying the foundation of an Hispanic Alumni Association.

The director and many students have expressed a number of concerns about the current situation for Hispanic students at Tufts. Despite intense efforts by the Center and students working in the SCOPE program, the enrollment of Hispanic students has declined over the past two years. The community is small, and often feels "invisible" on campus. Also, many of the Latino/a students are on financial aid and feel a great deal of pressure surviving at this university. The last retention study in 1992 showed that Latina women (and African American men) had the lowest retention rates at Tufts. This is troubling as the Hispanic community here is more than 65% women.

There are few role models at Tufts who are Hispanic. Tufts lists thirteen Hispanic faculty, but considers professors from Spain and Portugal as Hispanic. There are very few, if any, professors from Puerto Rico although the majority of the students Hispanic population is from Puerto Rico. As with Asian International faculty who cannot relate well to issues of Asian Americans, International Hispanic and Spanish and Portuguese faculty do not understand the problems faced by Hispanic students from the United States. The low numbers of faculty translates to few courses that deal with Hispanic culture. At this time, only one permanent course addresses Latino culture, but only during the last part of the semester.

African American Center

The African American Center was established in 1969 as a result of student demands and the institution's recognition that specific attention and resources were necessary to improve the quality of life for black students. It was the first and is the oldest cultural center on campus. The African American community at Tufts now is small, which is not good for the establishment of a critical mass of students; however, the director gets to know the individual students over their time at Tufts.

The African American Center, as other Culture Centers, has multi-faceted missions which include:

on-going assessment of the needs of the constituency of African American students,
critical examination of policies, programs and practices that affect the quality of life and academic achievement of those students,
strong advising and advocacy for individual students and student groups,
providing programming that reflects the cultural and social needs of

the constituency and that augments the educational mission of the institution, and
acting at large as consultants on and promoters of multicultural education and understanding.

Of these, the most important is advocacy. We live in a country where the complexities of race are evident in most (if not all) facets of our lives. One of the great burdens placed on students of color is the expectation that they be explainers and defenders of their race, their culture - their existence. They are daily expected to be racial and social theorists, political activists, cultural theorists, cultural psychologists, political scientists, and advise on policy.

Black students' social interaction on campus is hindered by the necessity these students feel to spread their low numbers into representation on many critical student organizations and governing boards. These students actually meet each year to decide how they must distribute themselves to try to maintain enough of a presence to ensure their concerns are heard and needs are met. Certainly black students can participate on the boards and committees that make decisions about speakers and entertainment, and that govern these and other student issues. However, the dynamic of being a student of color on a predominately white campus dictates that those students must make 10 or 20 times the effort to be significantly represented on these committees because they are so few in number. They are forced to have a disproportionately active student life - many black students are serving on several committees at once - which greatly hinders to their academic achievement.

It also burdens the one or two students who serve on one of these committees or governing bodies with being regarded as the definitive or monolithically representative voice of an entire community. They also face the very real possibility with such small numbers that they could, in a "democratic" process, be shut out of many critical decision-making bodies altogether, or that their opinions or votes could be effectively nullified on issues most important to their community. If this occurs the community is then faced with the frustrating dilemma of accepting their lack of empowerment (in which case they feel increasingly separate and divested from the institution) or speaking out as a community (in which case they are labeled as trouble-makers). The perceived result is that it is less likely that they will be included on these bodies or that their opinions will be regarded seriously by students and administrators if they speak out in the future.

The expectations of these students affect their social and academic development in profoundly detrimental ways. Identity and racial politics, the politics of representation, questions of racial and ethnic authenticity, racial and cultural validity and legitimacy - all become added parameters for students of color in the complex re-negotiation of identity that all late-adolescents experience. Students of color are having their identity, their legitimacy, and their cultures questioned at the very time when they are questioning their own identities and interrogating the values and ideas that they grew up with. In order to do this successfully and maintain their studies they must be well-supported. They must have an advocate who can clearly and aggressively articulate and interpret their concerns and ideas so that they are not forced to take on inappropriate roles. The director works to provide this support, and through the Center, seeks to empower these students in several ways.

The director attempts to alleviate the burden of having to be "expert" cultural authorities or representatives for students not trained and often not desirous of such a role.
For students who do have a great interest in the culture and history of black people, stimulating and educative programming is provided.
The director can combine expertise about the experience of students of color on predominately white campuses with knowledge of cultural history, heritage, and practices and with understanding of the administrative process and institutional practices to advocate for students. The goal is to create for students of color a more seamless integration and investment into the university environment without having to sacrifice or compromise the uniqueness and the integrity of their cultural identities.

Much of the budget of the Center goes towards basic operations and equipment. Computers must not only be purchased but also maintained and have software purchased for each machine. Copying, phone costs, faxes, office supplies, advertising, equipment rental and maintenance, library acquisitions, etc., all add greatly to the yearly cost of running the Center. All of this comes before programming may even be considered. The most important program that the center produces each year is the Black Student Orientation Retreat. This program has proved highly successful in preparing new students for the Tufts experience. In surveys conducted by the center this program is considered to be most important to students and highly successful in completing its goals.

One of the symptoms of the "benign neglect" toward the Centers is the lack of printed information about them produced by the administration and available to students. The last brochure for the African American Center was produced in 1975. At that time, the number of black students on the Tufts campus made up about 10% of the total student population. There are no materials that can be used for recruiting purposes by the Admissions Office. There is little material in the Residential Life office that would clarify the mission, function, or eligibility of students to participate in the program dorms. These facts are all made more problematic by the fact that the African American Center is the only dedicated resource for black students on Tufts campus. Many if not most institutions have multiple offices that serve the needs of these students. Along with cultural centers they will usually have a Minority Affairs office, or a Multicultural Admissions officer focusing some attention to these students' needs. At Tufts, the African American Center is the only administrative resource that focuses primarily on the needs of black students.

In recent years, the Center's programs have become more widely known across campus. Many more white students visit and utilize the services and programs of the Center and Capen House. Many offices and classes seek the consultation and expertise of the Center director on a regular basis and outside of crises. The black student community is healthier and happier than it has been in many years. The average G.P.A. of black students is the highest in the history of the institution. The number of black students on the Dean's List is also the highest it has been in the history of the institution. A disproportionately large number of black students is receiving Dean's Awards for high academic achievement this year.

These positive developments have occurred in the shadow of proposed budget cuts to the Center.

As it stands the Cultural Centers do not have sufficient funding to be able to bring to campus relevant speakers and other forms of programming. This is problematic for a number of reasons. For example, student organizations are allotted only $500 per speaker, so they are unable to do such programs themselves. This means that the only way that they (or the Centers) can have significant speakers is by requesting funds from student government groups. This essentially means that programming initiated by the African American Center for the year will be predicated on the sensitivity, willingness, knowledge, and charity of a handful of students who (even though well-intentioned) often don't know who the speakers are, or may not have issues of culture or diversity as a high priority.

This also means that the Center can not program very far in advance for the semester and that control of all aspects of the program is taken from the Center if the student government does decide to fund it. If the students on one of these committees does not recognize or agree with the politics of someone that the Center is trying to get to speak on campus, they will not fund them. This is not a reasonable way for the Center to have to operate. At the very least, the Center's budget should not be cut, and in fact it should be augmented to allow the necessary autonomy for programming and promotion.

Native American Student Needs

A program to provide Native American students with faculty mentors who have experience in Native American culture should be initiated.

The small number of Native American students on campus has left these students with no formal Center or any dedicated resources. Native American students must be acknowledged, included in discussions of race, diversity, and community, and provided with some form of support and institutional resources. We have a few tenured faculty members who have expertise in various aspects of Native American studies. These faculty should be asked to serve as informal advisors or mentors to these students to ensure that they have resources to help them negotiate issues of race at Tufts.

Culture Center Resources

The Culture Centers should be strengthened and supported so that they can enhance their work at developing community among the students of color, as well as among all students at the University.

An administrative commitment towards modifying the very culture and ethos of the institution is needed to support resources for students of color. A written recognition of the concerns of these students without the requisite monetary support is not real support. Tufts is not a rich institution, but funds are designated each year for areas that are considered a priority. A statement of understanding that is contradicted by a lack of support demonstrates a lack of priority for these students' needs and concerns. The Cultural Centers must be well-funded in order to carry out their missions and support students of color.

Staff should be added to help the single staff assistant that serves five of the Centers.

The critical role that the Centers play in the lives of our students of color has prompted several recommendations that enhance the visibility, programming, and informational services of the Centers. This work is accomplished by the Directors. However, they suffer time constraints as the situation stands now. In order for the recommendations to be implemented effectively and in a realistic time frame, it is essential that staff be added to take on some of the administrative and logistical burden that the Directors will face.
Funding for more cultural programming and speakers should be increased for the Centers, to produce larger programs that would have more of a draw for the entire Tufts community.

The administration should increase the Centers' budgets so that they can plan events and programs without extensive reliance on other groups. As is it now, many smaller programs are attended only by the students of color from the particular Center.
Operating budgets for the Centers should be increased so that more personalized Orientation activities can be implemented. These activities should include efforts at welcoming students prior to arriving on campus, and for programs during "extended Orientation", as described in the Orientation section.

The large fraction of the Centers' budgets that must be spent on mundane office costs, including telephone, photocopying, and computers, distracts and detracts from the direct interaction of the Centers with students of color and with the community at large.
Center directors should be included in discussions and programs developed to address race issues. The Office for Faculty and Staff Education and Development should work with the Center directors to find ways for academic departments to work more collaboratively with the Centers.

The Center Directors' roles in diversity programming across the University and in collaboration with departments should be clarified by the Dean of Students. The directors need to feel secure that such efforts are appropriate in their "job descriptions", and also need to have the resources and time (provided through recommendations above) to participate in such activities.
Visibility of the Centers should be enhanced through co-sponsorship of events funded by the Vice President's office and other Tufts administrators, such as bringing a major speaker to campus who will talk about issues of race and diversity.
The Centers will need improved space, if efforts to expand the community of color and to enhance work on racial and diversity issues on campus work effectively.

All three of the Culture Centers are operating under conditions of inadequate or barely adequate space now. This is a difficult problem, because the locations of the Centers are ideal, and the atmosphere of the buildings in which they are housed (except possibly for the shared space at the Hispanic American Center) are inviting to students and provide a safe, welcoming atmosphere. The directors are not enthusiastic about moving to larger, though possibly less hospitable quarters. The Administration should make the need for the Centers to expand a priority. Consultation and communication with the directors will need to be maintained.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

There remains, and always will, a good number of suggestions and recommendations to be considered. What we have learned most of all from our year of study is that this issue of race brings forth as many questions as answers, as many problems as solutions. We have to face that reality and not let it discourage us, because we truly believe that race as a factor in all of our lives will only be allowed to take an enriching and heartening role if we are honest enough to look at it and engage it as deeply as we can. It is important to note that engaging race and diversity are not equated with "harmony". Deep engagement with differences result in occasional discomfort, anxiety, conflict, and contradiction. To avoid these experiences as they related to race and racial issues in our society is to avoid race and the engagement with racial diversity altogether. This kind of avoidance, whether conscious or habitual, robs us of opportunities to learn how to thrive in a racially diverse world.

The recommendations that the Task Force has proposed will require re-evaluation of the priorities that the institution has established over the years. New resources and funding must be identified and aggressively sought to implement the recommendations. We must realize much of our efforts and programming are incremental, and we must not abandon promising approaches too easily. Reasonable people know that they will not be implemented all at once, or over a very short time period, and also realize that the recommendations alone will not transform Tufts into a utopia of racial harmony. However, the status quo will be broken and the capacity to educate all our students and faculty, both people of color and white majority, will be enhanced.

Tufts faces the task of encouraging real engagement with racial differences, rather than minimizing them and applying subtle pressures for people of color to conform to the white Euro-American norm. This is an important and crucial step to making diversity itself meaningful beyond mere numbers and categories, gathered in one place. The white experience is not that of students of color, but certain aspects of it - such as a sense of safety, of empowerment, of belonging - should be the experience of all Tufts students. Recognizing that the world beyond Tufts exerts strong influences in the form of ingrained and ongoing attitudes, we must recommit ourselves to fashioning a more respectful and welcoming campus quite unlike the Tufts of even a decade ago, a Tufts grateful for its range of constituents, eager to achieve a yet broader range, realistic and honest with itself in confronting the inevitable difficulties, and striving for a community where everyone truly hears and understands each other's voice.

APPENDIX 1

Priority 1 Recommendations

An oversight panel of faculty, administrators, and students should be formed to oversee the implementation of the Task Force's recommendations. (P. 4)

All administration personnel, including the President, Vice Presidents, Provost, Academic and Administrative Deans, Budget and Fiscal Officer, Head of Human Resources, and Assistants and Assistant Deans, should participate in a workshop that deals exclusively with issues of race awareness and diversity. This workshop should be a two-day commitment, that may be modeled after the Teaching Diverse Populations workshops. (P. 4)

A newly defined Office for Faculty and Staff Education and Development should be created that will develop initiatives to promote race and diversity awareness. (P. 5)

We recommend the Office of Equal Opportunity be relocated to Ballou Hall. (P. 7)

Administrators should take every opportunity to incorporate themes of diversity, race, and tolerance in speeches. (P. 7)

To create an intellectual climate that acknowledges the importance of issues of race and ethnicity and that meets the interests of an increasingly diverse student body, we strongly recommend - in addition to encouraging faculty to incorporate United States race and ethnic content in the existing curriculum - the addition of at least three new tenure track positions in American race and ethnic studies, that these positions be split positions between the existing American Studies program and home departments, and that faculty of color are sought for these positions through focused recruitment searches. (P. 15)

We recommend, in addition to continued annual offering of the existing Faculty Workshop on Teaching Diverse Populations, the establishment of a faculty development and training program for Curricular and Pedagogical Transformation for An Inclusive Academic Environment no later than the summer of 1999. (P. 17)

We recommend that the financial aid initiatives in the Capital Campaign be aggressively pursued, and urge the Development Office to keep this at highest priority in fundraising efforts. Endowed scholarships appropriate for underrepresented groups should receive special attention. (P. 9)

We recommend that the Orientation Committee restructure Orientation to infuse race and diversity awareness throughout the week, including better utilization of Centers in Orientation, and ways to highlight minority contributions to Tufts and opportunities for students of color. (P. 20)

A calendar of activities, designed for first-year students, should be promoted as a form of extended orientation, which would have the further benefit of allowing the new class to build a sense of its own identity and unity. The events should be selected to showcase the diversity of students on campus. (P. 20)

The university should invite a variety of (student performing) groups for performances at official events, perhaps on some rotating system. (P. 22)

There should be an immediate response from the administration if an evident misrepresentation or malicious report is published in the student media without appropriate commentary. (p. 24)

A response team should be created that is responsible for promptly responding to racial incidents on campus. Efforts should be enhanced to communicate the racial incident reporting process to students, and the campus reporting process should highlight the President's "no intolerance" policy. (P. 8)

Ways to inform students about their recourse when faced with racist or discriminatory behavior should be instituted, including formal written complaint procedures. (P. 8)

There must be an immediate response from the administration when racial incidents occur. This is not to interfere or pre-empt the adjudication of the incident, but the student community, especially in a residence hall, needs some assistance immediately. (P. 26)

Campus Police need further racial awareness training, judging from certain instances that occurred last year, including the targeting of minority students for questioning on party nights. (P. 25)

Tufts should not move in a direction to consolidate the Culture Centers into a single, multicultural unit. (P. 27)

The Culture Centers should be strengthened and supported so that they can enhance their work at developing community among the students of color, as well as among all students at the University. (P. 33)

Funding for more cultural programming and speakers should be increased for the Centers, to produce larger programs that would have more of a draw for the entire Tufts community. (P. 33)

Operating budgets for the Centers should be increased so that more personalized Orientation activities can be implemented. These activities should include efforts at welcoming students prior to arriving on campus, and for programs during "extended Orientation", as described in the Orientation section. (P. 33)

Visibility of the Centers should be enhanced through co-sponsorship of events funded by the Vice President's office and other Tufts administrators, such as bringing a major speaker to campus who will talk about issues of race and diversity. (P. 34)

Pamphlets describing the missions, services, and activities at the Culture Centers should be circulated to all students, especially prospective and incoming students (both students of color and white students). As this is information about important resources for all students at Tufts, the Centers should be furnished with the funds to produce such pamphlets (p. 26)

The undergraduate admissions bulletin for perspective students should be rewritten to clearly articulate the distinctions between the Culture Centers and the Culture Houses. (P. 26)

There should be a more extensive training available for all R.A.s on issues of racism, and it should be ongoing, in terms of focus groups or brush-up sessions. (P. 24)

Priority 2 Recommendations

We recommend that as administrative position openings occur, energetic efforts are directed toward increasing the diversity of the Arts and Sciences administrators. (P. 5)

A program to provide Native American students with faculty mentors who have experience in Native American culture should be initiated. (P. 32)

In Orientation, the student panel presentations in Many Voices, One Community have been very well received and should continue with the possibility for expanded discussion afterwards. (P. 20)

Extended training for pre-major advisors should be offered and, in some way, made a requirement. (P. 20)

Funds should be available to help ALANA (African, Latino, Asian, and Native American) students interested in attending the SCOPE program. The SCOPE program should be supported with increased funding. The Summer SCOPE program for high school students of color should be expanded (P. 12-13)

The Admissions Office should develop additional strategies for establishing relationships with high schools locally, regionally, and nationally with significant minority populations to be aware and responsive to different cultures. This should be done in consultation with the proposed Office for Faculty and Staff Education and Development, the Culture Center directors, and the SCOPE board. New strategies directed toward recruiting African American, Hispanic American, Asian American, and Native American students should be articulated and written, and should be priority items for funding. The Admissions Office should be given the resources to add new staff of color to assist in recruitment efforts. (P. 13)

Tufts should renew its membership in the National Hispanic Institute to enhance recruitment efforts encouraging qualified Latino/a students to apply. (P. 14)

Recruitment efforts for Latinos should focus on the underrepresented populations of Puerto Ricans from the mainland and Mexican Americans. (P. 14)

Tufts should make official outreach to the Coalition of Asian Pacific American Youth, the Massachusetts Asian Pacific American Educators, and other Asian American student organizations throughout the country to increase exposure of Tufts to Asian Pacific American students from urban areas. (P. 14)

We recommend that Tufts be given the freedom to hire senior faculty (i.e., at the Associate or Full Professor level with tenure) in order to attract and retain distinguished minority faculty, and we urge the administration, pending faculty review and amendment of the by-laws concerning hiring, to make this a priority in current and future consideration of new appointments. (P.17)

We recommend the establishment of an American Race and Cultures requirement. We further recommend that

courses that satisfy this requirement focus on themes or issues in U.S. history, society, or culture; address theoretical and analytical issues relevant to understanding race, culture, and their relationship to social differences and equality in our society; take substantial account of groups drawn from at least three of the following: African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino/a, European Americans, and Native Americans; and are integrative and comparative in that students study each group in the larger context of American society, history, or culture.
that courses taken to satisfy this requirement may also satisfy other requirements, e.g., Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences, and major requirements, etc.
that a committee of Tufts faculty and other consultants with expertise on the study of race and social equality be created, with input from the Office for Faculty and Staff Education and Development, to establish formal criteria for the requirement and to determine which courses satisfy the requirement.
that faculty choosing to offer these courses are urged and given priority to be involved in faculty summer institutes for curricular and pedagogical transformation, designed to address the demands stemming from this requirement.

We recommend that the requirement be scheduled to begin three years from now so that a critical number of new and revised courses can be developed. (P. 19)

Student performing groups chosen for Orientation week must reflect some of the diversity on campus. (P. 21)

A calendar of activities for first-year students, after Orientation, should be instituted to showcase diversity. (P. 21)

Coaches should receive diversity training; there should be conversations in the Department of Athletics about race and how to engage diversity. (P. 22)

A confidential way for students to evaluate coaches regarding racial attitudes should be implemented, perhaps along the lines of course evaluations for academic classes. (P. 22)

Discussions of race in the team setting should be instituted, with appropriate facilitators to run such discussions. (P. 22)

There should be a chance, once a semester, for members of arts groups to get together and discuss common concerns, under the auspices of the Senate or of Student Activities. This could encourage collaboration between groups, both in scheduling so as not to conflict and in joint programming, reciprocal advertising, and guest appearances. (P. 22)

The administration should make public responses to senate resolutions, so that the student body perceives that they have a voice in campus affairs and may partake in a dialogue. Additionally, steps should be taken to investigate whether the current senate structure, policies, and procedures are appropriate for an increasingly diverse student community. (P. 24)

Priority 3 Recommendations

We recommend that a thorough and systematic review of the undergraduate curriculum be conducted to determine how students' needs for education to engage diversity in the United States are met or not met at the moment. We recommend that reviewers are given assistance in review design by individuals that have expertise in American race and ethnicity in the curriculum. (P. 19)

We recommend that Tufts design and implement a number of proactive faculty diversity initiatives, including, but not limited to, dissertation fellowship programs and underrepresented postdoctoral fellowships as a way of diversifying the curriculum and campus and of attracting scholars who might then be recruited to the Tufts faculty. Such scholars could teach one or two classes a year and be present on campus in other ways. Associated with CIS and perhaps a department or program, they would be part of our intellectual community. (P. 17)

We recommend that increasing the number of minority faculty, through endowed chairs and at the junior level, be included as an explicit goal of the Capital Campaign, if it isn't already. (P. 17)

During Orientation, a separate open house program should be implemented that is well-publicized as an event for all new students. The role of the centers as resources and not as clubhouses needs to be better established. (P.20)

In order to make auditioning in performing groups a more welcoming and comfortable experience, the past history of diversity within groups should be demonstrated. Photographs and group histories should be posted. (P. 22)

The theater groups should discuss the subject of non-traditional casting, i.e. casting roles across racial (and even gender) lines. Such a discussion might grow out of the once-a-semester meetings. Other such subjects might include: expanding styles of repertory, possibilities for previous and profiles in the campus media, ways of reaching out to broader audiences. (P. 22)

We recommend that the T.C.U. Government or ALBO require that all student media, to be eligible for recognition or for funding, must participate in a training for those on their mastheads as often as those officers change (once or twice an academic year).

That the newly constituted MAB sponsor and participate in the training for media members.
That the MAB receive training in how to adjudicate complaints against individual constituent organizations brought by readers and not resolved at the level of the individual medium.
That the training be carried out by on-campus, alumni/ae, or local members of the journalism profession in a variety of roles, and that the training take place at the beginning of the academic year and shortly after new officers are chosen during the academic year.
That the training consist of basic topics of importance to those who publish, broadcast, write, or edit: issues of liability (as they apply to individuals and to the medium), defamation, privacy, objective reporting, reporter protocols, verification of facts, treatment of diverse constituencies in news coverage, dealing with complaints, use of retraction and apology, the role and responsibility of the editor, and other topics determined by professional to be important to those in leadership roles in campus media. (P. 24)

Priority 4 Recommendations

Annual salary review sheets and performance reviews should evaluate commitment to diversity issues and explicitly ask for information about workshops, institutes, or meetings/conventions that the faculty, staff, or administrator has attended during the previous year. (P. 7)

The Orientation programs for introducing the departments should be revised. Faculty who are describing the departments should be encouraged to include information that addresses how they engage diversity in their curriculum, and programming, and what their student/faculty diversity is. (P. 20)

We recommend that the membership of the existing umbrella organization for the media, the Media Advisory Board (MAB) be expanded from its current membership of student media and a representative of Student Activities and the Communications and Media Studies program to include additional membership by faculty or administrators with professional experience in the media. (P. 24)

A network of upperclass students of color from the Northeast part of the United States might be created to help incoming students from other parts of the country deal with the culture shock they experience here. (P. 21)

More congenial common space in the residence halls is a necessity. (P. 25)

We recommend that residence hall discussions about race be conducted in the regular course of semester activities, not only in response to racial incidents, by which time feelings may be roused in unproductive ways. (P. 25)

Anti-racism workshops should be made available for students, just as they are for faculty. (P. 25)

To make the Fraternities more welcoming, the regulation requiring a guest list for parties could be adhered to, while making clear the party is open, by the announcement that people "should stop by the house and put yourself on the guest list" ahead of time. (P. 25)

We recommend that a bimonthly newsletter be distributed, perhaps through the Office of Faculty and Staff Education and Development, devoted to information about race issues and the role of the Centers on campus. (P. 26)

Center directors should be included in discussions and programs developed addressing race issues. The Office for Faculty and Staff Education and Development should work with the Center directors to find ways for academic departments to work more collaboratively with the Centers. (P. 33)

Staff should be added to help the single staff assistant that serves five of the Centers. (P. 33)

The Centers will need improved space, if efforts to expand the community of color and to enhance work on racial and diversity issues on campus work effectively. (P. 34)

We also recommend that performing artists of color be invited to campus to present their work or offer a master class. (P. 22)

Alumni of color should be asked to participate in programs to attract students of color. This may be done through existing formal or informal alumni groups, with assistance from the Culture Center directors. This may require the formalization of alumni groups where none now exist, and funds should be made available to help Admissions, the Center directors, and the Office of Alumni Relations through this process. Such alumni contacts will be beneficial to students of color currently enrolled at Tufts. (P. 14)

A summer mailing and postings in residence halls (or in Orientation packet) to introduce new students to new sports in an attempt to reach as wide a group as possible. Tryouts should be more widely publicized. The early meeting in the first semester should be better publicized; this is when all the sports are introduced to new students. (P. 22)

We recommend there be more informal sports facilities about campus. (P. 22)

We recommend increasing opportunities for intramural organized sports events as providing further common ground for students. (P. 22)

We recommend required meetings in the residence halls for first-year students on issues of racial harassment, discrimination, and intolerance along the lines of the Public Safety meetings. (P. 25)

APPENDIX 2

ENROLLMENTS OF FIRST-YEAR
STUDENTS OF COLOR

	Asian American	Hispanic American	African American
1976	26	25	42
1977	46	31	84
1978	34	17	89
1979	46	25	69
1980	52	25	76
1981	58	27	68
1982	53	24	63
1983	57	28	46
1984	60	21	37
1985	60	20	50
1986	49	28	55
1987	84	28	49
1988	93	52	73
1989	98	44	41
1990	96	35	32
1991	154	64	31
1992	129	39	64
1993	145	61	36
1994	166	55	41
1995	188	78	54
1996	187	73	62
1997	148	65	72

Michaele Whelan
Assistant Dean of Arts, Sciences, and Technology
in the Office of the Vice President
617-627-3018

FINAL REPORT TASK FORCE ON RACE

Tufts University December 5, 1997

TASK FORCE ON RACE MEMBERS

INTRODUCTION

BREAKING THROUGH TRADITIONAL VIEWS OF RACE

International Students of Color

TASK FORCE LOGISTICS

INSTITUTIONAL POLICIES AND PRACTICES

ADMINISTRATION POLICIES AND STRUCTURE

Faculty Recruitment, Retention, Education, and Development

Staff

INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSE TO RACIAL INCIDENTS

FINANCIAL AID

Lack of Socioeconomic Diversity

Sources of Financial Aid - Cultural Perceptions

ADMISSIONS

Specific Enrollment Trends

Institutional Desirability

Strategies

ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE

NEW FACULTY POSITIONS IN RACE AND ETHNIC STUDIES

BUILDING A MORE DIVERSE FACULTY

FACULTY TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

RACE IN UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS

RACE IN THE OVERALL UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM

CAMPUS LIFE

ORIENTATION POLICIES

STUDENT ACTIVITIES

Sports

Arts

Media

Student Government

RESIDENTIAL LIFE

CULTURE CENTERS AND HOUSES

Asian American Center

Hispanic American Center

African American Center

Native American Student Needs

Culture Center Resources

CONCLUDING REMARKS

APPENDIX 1

Priority 1 Recommendations

Priority 2 Recommendations

Priority 3 Recommendations

Priority 4 Recommendations

APPENDIX 2

ENROLLMENTS OF FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS OF COLOR

FINAL REPORT
TASK FORCE ON RACE

Tufts University
December 5, 1997

BREAKING THROUGH
TRADITIONAL VIEWS OF RACE

Faculty Recruitment, Retention,
Education, and Development

INSTITUTIONAL RESPONSE
TO RACIAL INCIDENTS

NEW FACULTY POSITIONS IN
RACE AND ETHNIC STUDIES

RACE IN UNDERGRADUATE
EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS

RACE IN THE OVERALL
UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM

ENROLLMENTS OF FIRST-YEAR
STUDENTS OF COLOR