Office of Academic Affairs

The Racial & Ethnic Diversity Initiative at SPU

Diversity Initiative Updates Presented to President's Staff

May 19, 2003

University Wide Projects


Ames Scholars Program
Our Ames Scholars program is doing well despite losing a few of our scholars. We do not believe the loss of these students is due to any campus issues. This year we had over one hundred applications for five Ames scholarships which is wonderful and challenging news. University Communications has just finished a brochure on our multicultural efforts that includes an application for the Ames Scholarship.

Joe Snell continues to do a wonderful job of coordinating faculty and staff mentors for these students; these mentors are essential to the success of the students.

University Advancement was successful in raising additional money for these scholarships and continues to be very intentional in seeking dollars for both scholarships and program.

Partnerships
Following President Eaton's December visit with a SPRINT Team to Jackson, Mississippi, we have been pursuing a partnership with the Perkins Foundation. This partnership would allow us to send students to Jackson on internships and to send faculty for development opportunities. With the partnership, John Perkins and his staff would assist us as we develop a more hospitable campus and assist us with developing local community partnerships.

We are also working with Harvey Drake at Emerald City Outreach Ministries for a key community partnership.

A Theological Mandate
We continue to prioritize the racial and ethnic diversity initiative because it is clear that the Kingdom of God includes all of God's children. This initiative is important as we work out a clear statement on this theological mandate.

Office of Student Life and Residence Life

  • For the past two years, OSL has taken substantive steps to support the university's diversity initiative as set forth in Education Plan by restructuring to reflect this priority. They have:
  • Moved ethnic student support under the Office of Student Programs as well as enlarged functions of this office.
  • Created a three year position through support of the Lilly grant to manage pre-college summer programs for minority high school students.
  • The Office of Student Life has attempted to infuse the diversity initiative in all of their departments. To achieve this goal, they have:
  • Incorporated diversity goals in their assessment plan for all of their departments.
  • Worked closely with student leadership in ASSP and the MOSAIC cadre to advance the initiative.
  • Worked with faculty through the Ames scholarship to provide programming such as the “Africans in America ” series last year.
  • Initiated a "Bridges" floor in Emerson Hall.
  • Begun discussions to initiate a diversity newsletter.
  • Continued to assess their goals by meeting with Campus Ministires, faculty members and Human Resources.
  • Are interested in moving toward more cooperative work between curricular enterprises and Admissions.
  • Are eager to flesh out the theological heart of why we are engaging in this initiative.

School of Psychology, Family and Community

Undergraduate Psychology

  • Don Holsinger and Micheal Roe hosted Ismail Ahmad (Religious Advisor of the Islamic Center of Seattle) on campus last quarter. He spoke in classes and provided a faith/learning forum.
  • In Micheal Roe's Cross-Cultural Psychology course, students were required to read authors from at least five different cultural backgrounds; they were required to worship in non-dominant cultural settings (most often these were ethnic minority churches); they were required to participate in community activities sponsored by non-dominant cultural groups (e.g., Native American Pow-Wows).
  • In Micheal Roe's Test and Measurements course, students confront issues of cultural bias in testing, and experience culturally specific tests in which they are the outsiders at a disadvantage (e.g., tests developed within African American cultural settings).
  • Micheal Roe is participating on a task force exploring the possibility of an Ethnic Studies minor at SPU.
Marriage and Family Therapy

  • MFT has instituted clinical training for practicum students on Asian families, sexual minorities, and children in poverty.
  • They are meeting with a consultant to discuss cross-cultural competency and the MFT curriculum.
  • They have day-long clinical supervision training by national expert, Dr. Ken Hardy, on Diversity and the Self of the Supervisor.
  • They participated in a two-day faculty retreat that included discussion of enhancing cultural diversity discussion (e.g. by case studies and reading materials) for each MFT course.
Degree Completion Program
DGP infuses issues of diversity and cultural issues into every course in the curriculum, as well as the relationship of faith and learning. Specific activities include:

  • CPY 7280 - Diversity and Cultural Issues in Psychology is being taught this quarter. It is a required course for all students in the program.
  • They have a number of students, both practicum and interns at the different satellite clinics of Seattle Mental Health, which treats a large population of minority and disenfranchised population. SPU students, in fact, constitute the core of the treatment staff for that agency, the largest in Seattle.
  • DGP manages the clergy renewal portion of the Lilly grant. This year DGP has planned a clergy couples forum focusing on the impact of urban ministry on clergy family life. The majority of pastors and spouses invited to the forum, to be held June 27th, represent ethnic minority congregations.
The University Counseling Center

  • UCC manages Bridges Counseling Center, a multicultural counseling center in the heart of the Rainier Valley. Bridges has two staff therapists, both African American. Bridges has been working with the African American community, primarily, but has sought this past year to expand services to the Asian community as well.
  • UCC has sought to offer services to a diverse clientele in the Seattle community, especially with regard to socio-economic status, for those who could not afford traditional counseling services. The UCC offers therapy on the basis of a sliding scale or ability to pay.

School of Education

  • One of the School of Education's five strategic goals deals with creating a welcoming atmosphere and increasing diversity among students, staff, and faculty.
  • The School of Education's Diversity Committee meets every month to discuss strategies to promote the diversity initiative within the School of Education. They have:
  • Met with Alex Gee regularly to discuss strategies.
  • Completed a “poster project” in which posters were hung throughout the School of Education. They included large portraits of people from a wide range of racial/ethnic backgrounds who have achieved at a high level. These portraits can be found in classrooms, hallways, and stairwells in Peterson Hall.
  • Sent two of our faculty to the annual conference of the Washington Association of Black School Educators.
  • Discussed how to place a statement on diversity in their course syllabi.
  • SOE has hired a professor from Zimbabwe (Nyaradzo Mvududu) to teach in the Curriculum and Instruction Program.
  • They have hired an Asian American (Joyce Bhang) staff member.
  • SOE has sent over 60 of the education students to a seminar on “How to Teach African American Children” held at T.T. Minor Elementary School.
  • They offer a 25% discount on tuition for graduate students of color who are enrolled in a graduate degree program. The School of Education makes up the difference in their budget.

School of Health Sciences


School of Health Science's accrediting body, CCNE, has a position paper on diversity in nursing that is a foundation for the school's approach to diversity. As a profession, nursing has addressed diversity for many years because of their responsibility to serve diverse health care populations.

Nursing uses a “population based” approach to Nursing care whereby they use “evidence based practice” to guide assessment and care delivery specific to various ethnic and cultural groups of patients. For example, there is data to support the prevalence of high blood pressure, prostate cancer, and diabetes in certain patient populations. SPU students learn to attend to assessment of those diseases among patients that they take care of. This is a scientific approach that uses national data banks to determine culture specific Nursing care. As part of our curriculum, nursing teaches our students to access and use the databases.

SHS has made many other moves to work on the diversity intiative:

  • SHS has awarded an ARG to Kathy Stetz to support her review of diversity content in their curriculum.
  • In regard to welcoming and working with diverse students in our school, SHS has attempted to enhance the welcoming image and messages in the school by incorporating images of people of color and other diverse groups (men in nursing!) as art work in their hallways.
  • Also, as an outgrowth of Kathy's ARG, SHS has funded a recent focus group of students of color to determine their perceptions of how SHS treats diversity. An external consultant conducted the focus group with expertise in working in the area of diversity. The report is pending.
  • Next year, they will institute an Ethnic Fest in order to begin to celebrate an important cultural dimension of our diverse student group. There are at least 9 ethnic groups among their students and faculty and expect there will be more with the addition of next year's students.
  • SHS is developing a School of Health Sciences Celebration Calendar to honor various ethnic and cultural events such as Chinese New Year, Yom Kippur and other holidays of importance to their students.

School of Business and Economics


The School of Business and Economics has spent time with Alex Gee each quarter he has visited SPU. Alex has worked with the Dean on strategies as well as selected faculty members and an all-faculty workshop.

College of Arts and Sciences


CAS has initiated a conversation among various faculty and OSL staff on campus (and with Admissions) regarding the development of an ethnic studies minor. They have just begun to discuss particular issues regarding the minor, including title (ethnic studies or cross-cultural studies), where the academic home would be, what would make the minor coherent and integrative (e.g., an introductory course such as History of American Ethnic Groups and a capstone or internship). The women's studies minor seems to be a model.

School of Theology
  1. Alex Gee attended one SOT meeting in the fall, and one of the topics discussed was recruitment and retention of ethnic minority faculty.
  2. Alex Gee was the guest teacher in Kerry Dearborn's THEO 4495: Capstone: Lewis, Tolkien & Friends and in Rick Steele's THEO 3510: Christianity and Society class during his winter visit. Both sessions were extremely well received by students and faculty alike, and if the decision is made to bring Alex back again next year, SOT will do what they can to put him in front of as many SOT classes as possible.
  3. SOT taught many courses that addressed issues of diversity. They included:
    • Rick Steele's THEO 3510: Christianity and Society is devoted to the study of the racialization of American society, via a study of the Emerson and Smith book, Divided by Faith .
    • Delia Nuesch-Olver's THEO 2620: Intro to Global and Urban Ministry, Multiethnic Ministries, and THEO 4620: Interpreting the City.
    • Tim Dearborn's THEO 3610: Living in Another Culture
    • Miriam Adenay's THEO 3640: Cross-Cultural Communication and THEO 4602: Latin American Christianity
  4. SOT has also added courses which contribute to gender diversity:
    • THEO 3303: Christianity in America, Rick Steele
    • THEO 3331: Women in Christianity, Kerry Dearborn
    • WST 2350: Intro to Women's Study, Priscilla Pope-Levison.

Dean of the Chapel/Office of Campus Ministries


OCM has sought to contribute to our university's commitment to enriching the campus community and culture with multi-ethnic competencies in multiple ways.

  1. Most of the 275 students involved in UI are engaged in some kind of cross-cultural encounter.  The mentoring and reflection components that are being added to the UI experience through funds from the Lilly Grant are enhancing what students are gaining through this.
  2. Latreia, Urban Plunge and the Refugee project, at varying levels, are also deepening students' multicultural exposure and understanding.
  3. SPRINT is exposing nearly 100 students a year to multiethnic, cross-cultural settings.  The Living in Another Culture class is providing significant opportunity for competency development, and reflection.
  4. OCM's partnership with Young Life is focusing students at urban, multi-ethnic schools.  Currently there are 20 students engaged in ministry through YL in multi-cultural settings.
  5. Tali Hairston's leadership as Central Area Director for Young Life is creating an avenue for our students to be engaged as volunteers with him.
  6. Tali's overall presence on our campus; his relationships with faculty, staff and students; and his wise input into OCM staff and programs have been invaluable this year.  In addition, his administrative assistant Joana Ewing is guiding the UI student leaders in the development of their programs and their training resources to enhance their multi-cultural sensitivity.
  7. A major priority for OCM's programming has been to bring speakers to campus who could enhance and challenge our students multiethnic awareness.  This year they have brought the following speakers to campus:
    • Ellis Casson
    • John Perkins
    • Alex Gee
    • Brenda Salter McNeill
    • Cal Uomoto
    • Vinay Samuel
    • Jonathan Kuttab
    • Vishal Mangalwadi
  8. The New Staff Seminar, which OCM coordinates, incorporated a new session this year on ethnic diversity.  Randall Hashimoto and Joe Snell provided excellent guidance and leadership for this.


Back to Diversity Home