There’s a rumbling going on at college campuses across this nation. Racial tensions are high. For years, students have complained about racism and the lack of diversity in both the student body and faculty at the nation’s institutions of higher learning, only to have their concerns fall on deaf ears. So they have taken to the streets. There have been protests at Yale, Ithaca College and Claremont McKenna, where the dean of students recently resigned.Their voices are finally being heard, or so it seems.At Yale, for example, the university has pledged $50 million to increase the diversity of its faculty.The world is watching the tense situation at the University of Missouri, which recently appointed an African-American former administrator, Michael Middleton, as interim president of the university system. But for years, minority students had complained of racial incidents. When a swastika drawn with feces was found on a campus wall, the students said enough was enough. A group of protesters calling themselves Concerned Student 1950, in reference to the first year African-American students were admitted to the university, finally decided to stand their ground.Graduate student Jonathan Butler went on a hunger strike, and Mizzou’s mostly black football team threatened to boycott games until the school’s president resigned. Indeed, on Nov. 9, University of Missouri President Timothy Wolfe stepped down. A day later, Chuck Henson, associate dean for academic affairs and trial practice at the University of Missouri School of Law, was appointed interim vice chancellor for inclusion, diversity and equity—a newly created position—at the school.“Everyone who is in this community is working very hard to move our relationship with each other forward,†said Henson in a teleconference with a group of reporters.Henson says that his first step in the new role is just to listen.
To complete the reading of this article please visit the link below.
Source: New Diversity Chancellor at University of Missouri Vows to Listen – The Root