UNL continues to diversify campus despite Initiative 424

Initiative 424 hasn't crushed the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's desire to diversify.

During the Sept. 4 State of the University address, UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman stressed UNL's continued efforts to achieve diversity on campus.

"Notwithstanding the passage of Initiative 424, which wrote a ban on racial, ethnic and gender preferences into the Nebraska State Constitution, we continue to make progress to diversify our campus," Perlman said in his address.

With support from administration, many offices have maintained their goals.

"The UNL senior administration is amazing," said Amber Hunter, associate director of the Office of Admissions at UNL. "They are very committed to these goals and have provided guidance and support along our journey."

The university hasn't had many difficulties with Initiative 424 because most programs at UNL have always been inclusive of all types of people, Hunter said in an e-mail.

Students have always had to meet requirements set by the Nebraska Board of Regents, including college preparatory course requirements and ACT and SAT requirements, to be admitted to the university.

Recruiting a diverse student body, including students from out of state, Nebraskans, international, economically disadvantaged and ethnically diverse students, is still an achievable goal, Hunter said.

While admissions works to create a diverse student body, Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Barbara Couture is helping implement a university-wide program to adopt the best practices to recruit and retain a diverse faculty.

Perlman announced the program during the State of the University address and assured that the program would promote UNL's diversity objectives.

The program will look at research regarding other universities' diversity practices and also will ask professors and deans to come up with ways to implement those practices, Couture said.

"I don't think that anything we will do will in any way come into conflict with 424," she said. "What we're doing is ensuring students a diverse experience through the faculty and staff they encounter.

"At the same time, we are obligated to pick the very best candidate for an open faculty or staff position, which is certainly in line with the intent of the initiative."

Discussions began last year, but the Best Practices to Recruit and Retain a Diverse Faculty Program is just staring up this fall.

"We are very excited about it," Couture said. "We know that it's extremely important that our students have a full experience in college life to make it successful."

The Office of Academic Support and Intercultural Services, OASIS, works to maintain the diverse student experiences on campus.

Since Initiative 424 was passed, not much has changed for the office or for UNL's Culture Center, said Andre Fortune, director of OASIS and the center.

"I would say 424, what it has done, maybe, is force us to look at how we advertise or market some of our programs which, again, have always been inclusive," Fortune said.

"Now, I think our student group titles might change, but that's it." 

The new Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center will open next semester, providing 30,000 square feet for pursuing diversity objectives. On Tuesday afternoon, about a dozen diverse students took it easy in the current Culture Center's lounge.

"It's like this every single day," Fortune said. "We'd love to see some of the students who don't call the Culture Center home now calling the Gaughan Center their home in the future."

OASIS strives to collaborate with several offices on campus to achieve diversity.

"It's very important to have that impact of diversity in your life because we're living in a very globalized society," Fortune said. "Every day, you have students who are working with people from all around the country. Whether it's on campus, whether it's through Web media or just any type of interaction, it's preparing our students to be global leaders."

Diversity includes a wide array of students and staff from different backgrounds, countries and tax brackets. UNL offices continue to run with their diversity goals, jumping over each Initiative 424 hurdle along the way.

However, Perlman said Initiative 424 has the potential to trip up the university by making procedures more expensive and making it difficult to compete with universities who are allowed to use different recruiting practices.

"But I don't think it will (cause problems) in the end," Perlman said. "It certainly won't reduce our commitment to diversity or the momentum we have with respect to making us more diversified."

Courtneypitts@dailynebraskan.com