Digh featured in Chronicle of Higher Education

What Can Be Done to Diversify Executive Suites?
From The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 28, 2007              

Although the American population is growing more diverse, and colleges are seeking to enroll students and hire faculty members from many different backgrounds, the top leadership at most higher-education institutions remains quite homogeneous. For example, a 2005 Chronicle survey of about 1,300 presidents at four-year institutions, of whom 764 responded, found that nearly 89 percent were white and almost 81 percent were male.

At The Chronicle's second annual Presidents Forum, held in Washington in June, Mickey L. Burnim, president of Bowie State University; Patricia Digh, co-founder of the Global Diversity Roundtable and the Circle Project; and Laura Skandera Trombley, president of Pitzer College, discussed the issue and what can be done to diversify colleges' executive suites. Following is an excerpt of their answers to questions from the session's moderator, Sara Hebel, a senior reporter at The Chronicle, and from members of the audience.

Hebel: How much attention should institutions be paying to the issue of diversity among their top administrators? What can colleges do to hire and promote a wider range of top officials?

Trombley: Diversity has to be a goal of the board of trustees and viewed as a core value of the institution; otherwise, it will always remain on the margins. No one group should serve as an institution's symbol of diversity. It cannot be students; it cannot be staff; it cannot be faculty. Efforts to increase diversity have to involve everyone.             

Trustees must support diversity initiatives, do outreach, and emphasize when they are conducting presidential searches that not only are they interested in a diverse pool of candidates, but also that the institution is ready for that diverse pool of candidates. I have been a candidate where it was clear that I was the "diversity candidate," and everyone was thrilled that their institution was so forward-thinking. But, in my view, if I was such a big surprise, that indicated that more foundational work needed to take place at that institution. Colleges can accomplish that by asking diversity experts to come in and help educate various groups on their campuses.

It is also important to have good institutional data. At Pitzer College, we know, for example, that 45 percent of the faculty members are women and 36 percent are people of color, and that 32 percent of the students are students of color. We have an institutional-research Web site that provides all that information, and that forms the basis for our discussions.              

Hebel: What steps do leaders need to take to make sure that diversity is something that their campuses focus on?

Burnim: I agree that trustee leadership is critically important on campuses, that board members set a tone. To create the right climate or culture, a president must first articulate the value and the importance of having a diverse campus — of having diversity not just within the student body and the faculty ranks, but within the administration as well. Second, the president must walk the walk and make sure that the cabinet and senior leadership are diverse. What one does speaks a lot louder than what one says.              

For example, at Bowie State University, we have spent a lot of time refining the strategic plan. Before we finalize that process, I want to make sure that we explicitly address the notion of diversity and what that means for our campus, and that we have some measurable objectives against which to gauge our progress. We need to put the right accountability measures and standards in place. We must also provide adequate resources, and recognize and reward behaviors that help us reach the outcomes that we want.

Hebel: Ms. Digh, you have described the lack of diversity in university leadership as a "wicked problem" for which simplistic or short-term solutions will not work.             

Digh: The phrase "wicked problems and tame solutions" has come out of looking at diversity issues for about two decades and recognizing lately that I have made the mistake of proposing easy solutions to very complex problems. Racism in this country is a wicked problem. It is attached to a lot of other societal problems, so it is very difficult to say, "If I do A and B, then racism will disappear."

Americans like short-term, quick, linear solutions to issues like diversity or racism, which are long-term, complex issues that don't necessarily have solutions. Every wicked problem is unique. The lessons learned dealing with a wicked problem at one institution are not necessarily ones that can be easily transferred to others. What's more, wicked problems are often solved as well as they can be through group efforts. So you must constantly ask yourselves when you are in a strategic-planning process, for example, who else should be at this table? Are all the people in the room thinking just like me? Do we need different voices?              

The easy way of trying to tame a wicked problem is to simply construct a definition of the problem that obscures its wicked nature and then apply linear methods to solve it. For example, a human-resources person called me to say, "We had some white employees put nooses on black employees' lockers. Could you come help us with this issue? We are wondering if you could conduct a two-hour workshop."

But such tame solutions, when they are imposed on wicked problems, exacerbate the situation by hiding the fact that it was wicked to begin with. If you have an issue on your campus and do a two-hour workshop on it, you might keep the trustees happy but actually make the situation worse.              

Instead, we should make ourselves step back from our innate impulse to tidiness and ask, "Have I engaged fully in what the problem is? Do I understand the complexity of it?" And, like a Rubik's Cube, "if I change one thing or solve one part of it, will the other parts change?"

Hebel: How can colleges effectively set benchmarks and move forward in a concrete way?             

Trombley: When we went through our strategic-planning process, we talked about what we wanted to see happen at the institution in five years and the areas where we had the greatest concern. Because Pitzer is a small college, we were able to come together and have an enormous amount of discussion — among large and small groups, in residence halls and elsewhere — and come up with common goals that we adopted as part of a strategic plan. I cannot overemphasize the importance of having a dialogue on a continuing basis; it cannot occur only during times of crisis. A lot of the best work happens when you are building relationships and channels of communication so that, if an issue does arise, you can work through it constructively.

Hebel: How do you foster discussions when people hold different views about diversifying the top ranks of the institution?              

Burnim: It is not hard to engage in a discussion on campuses. We are intellectual communities, so whether it is a forum, a convocation at the beginning of an academic term, or commencement, I take the opportunity to teach a lesson or raise a question or issue. That continuing dialogue can take place throughout the campus and the academic year.

Trombley: I do not wait for students to come to me or for faculty members to drop by. I'm always walking around and talking with students and professors. And I tell students about how I had never even seen a woman president or taken a course from a female full professor when I was their age. The only woman I ever met in a leadership position was my mother, who was an elementary-school principal. I talk about how that is now simply part of their experience and how extraordinary it is that we can have such a conversation in my lifetime.             

Hebel: If you are trying to diversify the top ranks, what are some specific ways that you can help build a pipeline of potential candidates and ultimately get a qualified pool of diverse applicants to chose from?

Burnim: It isn't enough for us as presidents to advertise for openings, to try to make sure that we have a diverse pool, and then to choose an appropriate person from that pool. We do not have a lot of people of color, for example, who are coming through the pipeline so they will be in positions to join the faculty and then move through the administrative ranks and ultimately become presidents. So in addition to trying to run open searches and creating a culture that fosters and encourages diversity, we have some obligations to help increase the supply of people who are in position to fill the top spots.              

What can I do as a president to make sure that there are people who are in place to fill those roles? I can encourage people to position themselves for leadership. I can say: "I recognize some qualities in you that I think would make you a great dean or vice president down the road. Have you thought about attending leadership-development programs like the American Council on Education Fellows Program or the Millennium Leadership Initiative of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities?"

Also, when I hire people, I say: "Look, I'm hiring you because you have outstanding credentials and the appropriate experience to perform this job, but I'm interested in your personal development as well. What do you want to do five years or 10 years down the road? I will work with you to see that you have the experiences and the development that will position you to do that." I figure that the person is going to serve my institution most effectively if he or she feels that they are doing something that will benefit themselves as well as me and the institution.              

Hebel: What are some best practices and strategies to diversify the top ranks?

Digh: A friend always says that people do diversity work because of pain, vision, or a combination of the two. The demographics of the country have changed, and if you and your institution are not in pain right now, you will be. You must ask yourself, "What action must I take to make this institution inclusive?"     

For example, I could buy one of many types of running shoes since they are all about the same price and quality, but I buy a certain brand because I know the company's CEO has a foundation that supports abused women. I would venture to say that most students who are now coming to your campuses are also making purchasing decisions based on, "What does this institution stand for?"

If I were a college president today, I would step back and ask: "What is the story that my institution is telling right now about diversity? When you look at my board, is it a white, male-dominated group?" Because that is the story that you are telling and what people are hearing. Change does not happen until an organization and its leader change their story.              

One way to get at that is to teach people how to have a dialogue. We don't know how to do that in this country; we scream at each other a lot but do not necessarily know how to deal with conflict. How do you begin to bring people up in the ranks of your institution who have the skill to hold opposing points of views at the same time — to recognize that any diversity conversation is not an either-or, but a both-and conversation?

Also American institutions are largely built around culturally white traditions, and we need to prepare minority candidates to come into what are largely white, male-dominated organizations. We must say to our trustees, "You know, part of the process of diversity work is for you to acknowledge that there are different ways of doing this job." But often, we just graft people from minority backgrounds onto the institution, and then they fail in some significant way because we do not value their cultural norms in terms of how they operate. And then the board says, "I told you it just does not work." But the real problem is that we haven't provided the kind of support that people need.              

Hebel: Let's take some questions.

Question: I just spent the last year coordinating a successful presidential search that resulted in our first black president in 60 years. What do you do with folks who have never had to work for a black president? What might we do to make sure that we have the kind of welcoming, nurturing environment for a minority CEO that will help him and the institution to succeed?             

Burnim: As part of the transition, you might hire a consultant and ask that question: How can we best prepare the institution for this new leader? That would be beneficial because, no matter what the characteristics of the new leader coming in, a new president represents change for the institution, and that always requires some adjustment.

Trombley: I would suggest taking the administrative cabinet and the president on a retreat, perhaps with a consultant, where people spend the night off the campus so they do not have to try and juggle two or three things at the same time. I would also try to make it a safe space where people can ask honest questions. And at the conclusion of the retreat, I would try to come up with some common goals that unite everyone.              

Digh: An acknowledgment that, "Yes, a black president is coming into our institution" is important. We dance around these issues. We bring in people from a wide diversity of backgrounds, but then we say, "We are not going to notice the fact that they actually are different from us." We need to have a conversation about why we so often mistakenly equate simply acknowledging difference with making a value judgment about a person — that they are better or worse than we are.

Question: I have studied the pipeline on the national level using data from the American Council on Education and found that different minority groups appear at different stages of the pipeline. For example, there may be people at the level of department chairman who are of Chinese and Indian descent, but how many chief executives are of Chinese and Indian descent? I am the chairman of the Asian-American committee at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. The number of public-university presidents from China, India — indeed all of Asia — could sit comfortably in a very small room. How do we look at different groups, whether it is women or different ethnic minorities, that may appear at different levels of the pipeline?              

Trombley: If you look at the pipeline, the typical path to the presidency is to become a department chair and then to become a dean and then move to the provost's office, and so on. But if you look at the percentage of deans who are people of color or women, then you see some startlingly small numbers.

What needs to happen at the departmental level is for administrations to actively promote people or think of alternate ways in which people can reach the presidency. I was never a department chair. My first administrative position was as an affirmative-action officer, and I had people across the college warning me not do it because they thought it would end my career. But I ignored them and went ahead and became an assistant provost and then went on to become dean of the faculty at a different institution.              

But you have to be mindful of the pipeline. You need to determine how to exist within the system, and if it does not look as though that advancement is possible, then you should figure out alternatives.

Digh: Also, there is a difference between first-order and second-order change. First-order change is what I hear in most conferences and most conversations about diversity on campuses. We will just tweak things, make some adjustments. With first-order change, the system itself remains unchanged. Over time, it will self-correct and go back to where it was before.              

Second-order change transforms the system. So if you are a college leader looking at diversity at your institution, you should ask yourself, "Is this a first-order change that I'm putting into place, or is it something that is going to go deeper?"

For example, Dean Ornish, author and founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute, does a lot of work with heart patients and how they change their lives to become healthier. We all think that change has to happen incrementally: "I could lose 20 pounds, if I just drink one more glass of water per day." But Ornish says that huge, massive change is the way to do it, because if you just start eating better in small incremental ways, you are not going to get the immediate health benefits that will keep you on the right path. So, whether as human beings or as institutions, we should make sweeping changes. We should make them big and systemic.              

Burnim: Systems do need big change, but personal action is also required. Presidents individually should do a lot of self-assessment and ask themselves: "Am I doing what I can do to make a difference? Yes, faculty members, department chairs, and deans who are from China or India work at my institution. But have I encouraged them and offered to provide for their development and support?" That kind of introspection is something that we should not overlook.

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i05/05b04801.htm
Section: Diversity in Academe
Volume 54, Issue 5, Page B48