A campus culture of community depends on seven attributes, says Sallye McKee, associate to the president for diversity, who is working along with others on the Ad Hoc Campus Climate Committee announced Jan. 3 by President Stephen Jordan.

“Transparency, open communication, building trust, caring and compassion, honing conflict resolution skills, practicing civility while striving for accountability, and hope for better outcomes are the essential elements that we all must begin working on,” McKee said.

The first group to tackle these elements as they relate to their area is Information Technology, which McKee compliments for having the courage to confront the issue of gender equality.

“The flashpoint for IT on campus climate is gender,” McKee said.

Interim IT Vice President George Middlemist concurs. “There are 40 men and eight women in IT,” he said, “which sends the wrong message. IT, just like all the other areas at the College, has gone through a lot of changes in the past few years. Behaviors become more noticeable.”

Jo Sanders, a nationally recognized consultant on gender equity for educators (www.josanders.com), has been hired to work with IT. Sanders and her colleague Daniel Brown have begun the process by conducting assessment interviews with IT staff. They will meet with the Ad Hoc Campus Climate Committee on March 1 to discuss what they’ve learned and their plans for four workshops that will be held in March, April and May. The first workshop, which will be an all-day session, will be attended by President Jordan and all the vice presidents in addition to IT staff.

Middlemist said that the workshops will allow people to develop requisite tools, such as listening skills, for working with one another as professionals.

“It’s not that anybody is ‘bad,’” he said. “We learn some of our behavior at an early age. I try to be as open as I can. I think all of us in IT do—men and women. But there’s some stereotypical behavior on both sides. I think what we’ll learn about ourselves in the workshops will open our eyes.”

Boy or girl?
One way the consultant will point out this type of behavior is through a video that she and Brown produced with the help of IT Director of Server Support Rick Cisneros—and a 9-month-old boy. The group went to Aurora Mall on Jan. 5 where they dressed the child in clothes that would be considered male and then an outfit that was female. Without revealing the baby’s gender, they asked people to describe the child, how they thought it was feeling, and what kind of toys they thought it would enjoy. The responses were very stereotypical, according to Cisneros. When the baby wore blue, they assumed it was a boy and used words like active and alert to describe him. They thought he’d like toys such as footballs and action figures. But when the baby was in pink, the description changed to shy and quiet to describe “her.” They thought dolls would be the appropriate toy.

“When the interviewees who thought the child was a girl were told that it was a boy, they were close to embarrassment,” Cisneros said. “They all had had stereotypical answers and they’d been caught. Some were shocked.”

Middlemist believes that what IT learns from the video and workshops will provide lessons to everyone at the college as the campus climate initiative proceeds in the other divisions.

Down the road, McKee, EOO Executive Director Percy Morehouse and Interim Human Resources Director Judith Zewe will be meeting with the other division heads to ascertain what they believe the challenges in their areas are.

“We want each division head to consult his or her staff on what the critical issues are,” McKee said. “Then we’ll go from there with a new ad hoc committee with representatives from their area. To paraphrase a popular aphorism, 'We believe that we (our Metro State family) are the ones that we have been waiting for to take us to the next level of excellence.

“We want to make sure that people in the divisions where the greatest challenges lie are given the greatest possibilities for solutions.”

Editor’s Note: Ken Gurule, a professional III in IT, is also a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on Campus Climate that was announced Jan. 3.