ECU creates Office of Equity, Diversity and Community Relations

As the university adjusts to the budget, restructuring and changes on campus are bound to occur.

Sometimes, such changes dictate the need to eliminate related offices on campus so they no longer run as separate entities, and instead combine them in hopes of managing budget restraints and perhaps increasing efficiency.

This line of thinking has lent itself to the creation of an entirely new office on campus: the Office of Equity, Diversity and Community Relations. According to Dr. Marilyn Sheerer, provost and vice chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs, the new office used to run as three separate bodies: the Office of Institutional Diversity, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Equity and the Ledonia Wright Cultural Center.

Associate provost for the new office is Dr. Taffye Benson Clayton.

She said in a letter to university community members on the office's Web site, "Over the course of the next three months our new office will undergo an internal, preliminary review period to determine our organizational capacity, the scope of existing programs, projects and initiatives and strategies for maximizing efficiency and synergy across each functional area…"

They said that while most of the programs will continue as they have, some will be "revamped and retooled."

Former student administrative assistant for the Office of Institutional Diversity, Kyndall Peele, expressed concerns about this "revamp" stating that the OID "provided a comfort zone for students and gave students opportunities to express how they feel." It also gave students a place to put those ideas into action.

She said that while the office is still functioning as a place to advocate for diversity at ECU, it is now more research based in ensuring that the university continues to meet its goals of diversity.

Chief diversity officer, Kimberly Baker-Flowers, said she doesn't think the students have missed out by having the offices combined, and having all three of them as one office will help to cut down on confusion.

The restructuring into one office will hopefully make it easier for students and faculty to know where to go with issues of diversity on campus since it eliminates issues potentially being addressed to the wrong office.

While some students have expressed concern for the future of the formerly separate offices and how the consolidation will affect them, Dr. Clayton's letter states, "The purpose of (the) preliminary review period is not to diminish current momentum but rather to strategically position the newly configured office for greater collective impact."

Considering that the new office is still in its three-month review period, it may still be a while before the results of the consolidation and how it will affect the university and its students can be seen.

In the meantime, while a one page Web site has been created for the new office, the sites for the formerly separate offices neglect clearly stating anything about the consolidation, which may only help to increase confusion until a clear plan is laid out after the review period.

This writer can be contacted at news@theeastcarolinian.com.