This year, the annual university Assemblies Advance, on Aug. 31 in the Robert Purcell Community Center, focused on the campus climate. Participating were more than 100 members of the Employee Assembly, Student Assembly, University Assembly and the Faculty Senate, along with administrators and other guests. After addresses by President Hunter Rawlings and by guest speaker Edgar F. Beckham, senior fellow at the Association of American Colleges and Universities, advance participants had group discussions and developed recommendations around the topic "Laying the Groundwork for Change."
The following is excerpted from the prepared text of President Rawlings' address that day to the joint assemblies:
"I am pleased that so many could join us for this annual Assemblies 'Advance.' This used to be called the Assemblies Retreat. I like 'advance' much better. It conveys the right direction for the assemblies to be headed in at the start of the academic year.
"I am especially pleased that you've chosen to focus on the campus climate tonight. This is a topic of great importance to the campus -- and it relates to how we deal with difference in our own community and in the larger world.
"From its founding, Cornell has placed a high value on our racial, cultural and ethnic diversity, and on understanding and respecting difference.
"Ezra Cornell's vision of 'any person, any study' argued for a university open to individuals of talent from both sexes and of all races, religions and economic circumstances.
"Andrew D. White shared that vision of inclusiveness. In response to inquiry as to whether any blacks were enrolled at the new university, White replied that although no such students were then enrolled, if even one such a student should present himself and qualify for admission, the university would admit him gladly -- even if all the 500 other students were to withdraw on that account.
"We continue to be inter-related by our desire to learn and to be respected for who we are.
"Cornell students, staff and faculty members come from virtually every state in the nation and from some 125 other countries. Some grew up in large cities, some in suburbia, some on ranches or farms. They encompass a remarkable range of economic circumstances, racial backgrounds and religious and lifestyle preferences, and yet they are all part of the community of Cornell.
"The current Scholarship Challenge Campaign, which we hope to complete successfully by Dec. 31, will ensure that we can continue to recruit top students from a wide range of backgrounds -- regardless of their economic circumstances. And through the Residential Initiative, which will enable us to house all freshmen on North Campus by the fall of 2001, we will be better able to help new students bond together as a class, while learning to appreciate differences.
"Increasing diversity is a priority for faculty and staff as well. In the 1998-99 academic year, there were 1,539 faculty members at Cornell: 312 of them, or 20.3 percent, were women; 169, or 11 percent, were members of under-represented minority groups. A decade ago, women accounted for only a little more than 15 percent of the faculty and only 7.9 percent of the faculty came from under-represented minority groups.
"The value of diversity, which Cornell has appreciated for many years, has been confirmed in recent studies. Last fall, William Bowen, past president of Princeton, and Derek Bok, past president of Harvard, released "The Shape of the River," a study of the records and experiences of some 45,000 students at 28 elite colleges and universities over the past 20 years. Bok and Bowen found that students admitted affirmatively to those institutions earned lower grades while enrolled and graduated at a lower rate. But -- and here is the interesting part -- after graduation they achieved notable success. They earned advanced degrees at rates identical to those of their white classmates. They were even slightly more likely than whites from the same institutions to obtain professional degrees in law, business and medicine. And they became more active in civic activities than their classmates.
"Those finding were supported by the findings of the Civil Rights Project, whose finding were released this summer. ('Diversity and Legal Education: Student Experiences in Leading Law Schools,' reported in ACE Higher Education and National Affairs Newsletter, Aug. 9, 1999). The report noted that white students, in particular, were enriched by interaction with other races and ethnic groups because they were less likely than others to have had much interaction with nonwhites prior to college. Eighty-nine percent of Harvard Law School students and 91 percent of Michigan Law School students reported that diversity had a positive impact on their total educational experience.
"Yet, as we all know, diversity and the appreciation of differences presents challenges nationally and also at Cornell.
"Last year, in response to incidents of racial harassment across the campus, the Student Assembly, the Employee Assembly and the Faculty Senate passed resolutions condemning the incidents and urging the campus community to take steps to become a safer and more open campus and one that is committed to inclusion and the acceptance of difference. Dean of the Faculty Bob Cooke then established a Campus Climate Committee, chaired by Professor Bob Harris of Africana Studies, to look broadly at how individuals experience differences on campus -- in the hope that we can gain a new tolerance and awareness on the campus that will prepare us for a more diverse society and workplace. The Rev. Bob Johnson, director of University Ministries, serves as the committee's vice chair.
"As I have said on previous occasions, 'It is incumbent upon all of us to promote a climate of civility, decency and respect for others on campus. There is no place for racist attitudes in a university that espouses the enlightened use of reason to pursue humanistic understanding and scientific truth.'
"Whatever our differences -- racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, social or political -- we belong to an intellectual and ethical community that we shape every day by our words and our actions. There is a need in universities for 'informed and patient discourse' and careful consideration of issues that often evoke angry responses from narrow interests across the campus.
"And as I stressed in my 1996 Statement on Civil Discourse: 'As a center of reasoned thought, we should be more capable than most institutions of sustained discussion about the divisive matters that occupy much of our society's attention. We should be able to avoid the superficial and simplistic responses so characteristic of political campaigns and instead engage in deeper consideration of the complex questions that surround us. It is our responsibility as a leading university to develop capacious minds that resist easy answers, take multiple perspectives into account and arrive at hard-won conclusions. ...'"
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