Headway made in hiring new vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion

Chapman University is actively recruiting candidates to fill the newly created position of vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion, which the provost’s office is spearheading. Graphic by HARRY LADA, Art Director

Soon to retire his title as provost at Chapman University, Glenn Pfeiffer grinned as he reflected on the legacy he established in promoting inclusivity on campus. 

From creating the Office of Diversity to his year-long commitment assembling a task force to curate a job description and qualifications for the impending vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion position, Pfeiffer is now facing his final semester in the provost’s chair. He told The Panther he is determined to maximize his work in order to bring the new provost and vice president on campus as soon as possible. Hopefully, he estimated, this will come to fruition by the end of the spring semester.

The position was previously regarded at a director level, but has since been granted expansive authority in the form of a vice president role. This means the new hire would report directly to the incoming provost and serve as a peer to both the provost and Lawrence Brown, the vice provost for Academic Administration and presidential adviser on Faculty Diversification. 

“I have five offices I have to oversee and Diversity is (only) one of them,” said Joe Slowensky, who currently leads Chapman’s Diversity Project and works as chair of the search committee for the vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion position. “As much as I will be sad to see it go from my office, I’m excited on behalf of the university about what this means and about the importance that it takes on to have it as an autonomous office with a vice president at the helm.”

The job description, compiled by Pfeiffer and the Vice President of Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Committee, was approved by President Daniele Struppa in December 2020. It encompasses priorities such as diversifying students, faculty and staff, collaborating with the Office of Research to perform relevant diversity studies, fostering relationships within the community and ensuring the vice president has a background in higher education.

“It’s going to be very partnership oriented,” said Brian Powell, the presidential adviser on Staff Diversification and as a member of the search committee. “This is honestly the first major investment at the vice presidential level for a voice for diversity, equity and inclusion (at Chapman).”

Pfeiffer shared with The Panther what that “investment” may look like, revealing that the administration is planning on funneling several millions of dollars into the new vice president’s efforts. A Feb. 17 issue of the newly created Chapman newsletter, Our Voices, reported that more than $1.5 million is allocated specifically to faculty diversification, an initiative which will ultimately be led by Brown and the new vice president. 

The push for diversity among staff and faculty comes after years of fairly stagnant demographics within the institution in terms of Black representation. In fall of 2018, 1.9% of full-time staff was composed of Black individuals, while full-time Black instructional faculty was as low as 1.55% of the total faculty count. However, these numbers have likely changed after this recent administrative push to hire more diverse faculty, as no additional statistics indicating progress have been released past 2018.

“One of the things that we emphasize in the first Strategic Plan (for Diversity and Inclusion) is reaching out to and trying to increase our reach to the Latinx community,” Pfeiffer said. “But in the process of doing all that, we kind of ignored the Black community a little bit, and it wasn’t that we didn’t care, it was just that we were focused so much on what is the main minority community in Orange County … We basically came to the conclusion that we can’t ignore (the Black community) any longer.”

A 2019 study of race and Hispanic origin in Orange County by the U.S. Census Bureau categorizes Hispanic or Latinx individuals as 34% of the total population while Black individuals represent 2.1%, though both demographics are considered minorities in comparison to the 71.1% white majority. As such, Pfeiffer told The Panther that one of the first priorities for the incoming vice president will be to develop a new five-year Strategic Plan for Diversity and Inclusion with Black allyship at its core and to provide annual updates on diversity progress at Chapman.

“I want to give the new person a clean slate in terms of strategic planning,” Pfeiffer said.

The university partnered with a national search firm called Diversified Search Group for professional assistance in individual outreach, sifting through resumes and advertising for increased awareness of the position. The firm will forward a consolidated list of candidates to the university, of which only three or four will make it to the final interviewing round in front of Chapman’s own search committee. 

Slowensky said he expects to be working closely with the Student Government Association to compile a group of students from a wide range of organizations around campus to speak to potential candidates and offer input in the decision making process. The search committee will utilize all of the information compiled to formally recommend a candidate to the provost, whether it be Pfeiffer or Pfeiffer’s replacement.