Is Diversity the Key?

Thomas Evans II tevans1906@yahoo.com GM 591
Leadership and Organizational Behavior
M.Mccarhy

I. Introduction
The home of Tony Romo and a handful of National Football League Head Coaches is what my previous employer and Alma-Mater is most known for to the everyday person. The Eastern Illinois University Athletic Department is rich in history. Eastern Illinois University is a Division I University in Charleston, Illinois. It has a full-time enrollment of about thirteen thousand students and about 500 of those are student athletes. The Athletic Department was first created around 1899 shortly after becoming a fully accredited institution of higher learning. The athletic department has a full-time staff of about 100 employees, 20 interns and graduate assistants, and 20-30 part-time employees that work athletic events.

II. Problem Statement
African-American, Cantonese, Peruvian, Jewish, Catholic, and Baptist, What do all of these have in common? They are all different classifications of people in the world we live in. The world is made up of many different classifications of people. America is one of the most diverse populations in the entire world. According to Webster’s dictionary diversity is “The state of being diverse or a range of different things”. While that definition is sufficient diversity can be defined in a number of ways. The University of Tennessee at Knoxville believes that “diversity is a commitment to recognizing and appreciating the variety of characteristics that make individuals unique in an atmosphere that promotes and celebrates individual and collective achievement.” Examples of diversity include things like age, race, religious background, geographic background, political affiliation, and any other classification or background type you can think of.
Within the Athletic Department of Eastern Illinois University there are not a wide variety of demographics represented. The usual groups like Male, Female, Age difference, and religious beliefs are well represented. Eight of the one hundred full time staff members are considered a minority excluding political, age, gender, and religious differences. Demographics are better represented the lower you go on the totem pole. The number of demographics increases when looking at interns, graduate assistants, and part-time student workers. The lack of diversity is defiantly a problem within the Athletic Department. Ideologies and Strategies within the department are also lacking in diversity. Only recently has the hiring process improved at EIU. The current athletic director Barbara Burke has helped to implement a new process, but the lack of diversity is affecting that as well.

III. Literature Review
Diversity is a pretty hot topic in the world of business and organizations. Finding helpful information proved to be rather easy. I tried to find example of what exactly I’m dealing with. I was able to find examples of diversity action plans implemented at various universities across the country. I was able to find articles that specifically linked diversity and over job performance.
In the fall of 2002 the University of Arizona realized that all departments in their university in addition to the student body and staff were all lacking in diversity. The University’s president at the time Peter Likins formed a board consisting of different members called The Diversity Coalition. He when challenged them to improve diversity in every aspect at The University of Arizona. President Likin and several others at The University of Arizona believed that “Diversity had been a topic of discussion, contention, and confusion at the UA for many years” (Linkin, 2002, p.7). To be specific The University of Arizona was lacking diversity within its faculty. The number of women and minorities were significantly low (Linkin, 2002, p.7).

Soon after that the Diversity Coalition presented the president with a complete diversity action plan. The action plans had key goals with included but were not limited to:

1. Recruit and retain excellent and diverse faculty, staff, students, and administration.
2. Establish equity in every aspect of academic opportunity in our campus community.
3. Incorporate diverse perspectives as a matter of course in every activity on our campus.
4. Become a model academic community that celebrates diversity and excellence.

(Linkin, 2002, p. 3)

According to the coalition The Diversity Action Plan is a living document. What this means is it has been and will continued to be reviewed. Also the document will be continuously revised for improvement. In addition to the Diversity Coalition other committees at the school helped with the drafting of this action plan. It was a campus effort. The diversity coalition as well as the president believed that accountability was “the key to success for any diversity action plan” (Linkin, 2002, p. 4). They believe that a lack of accountability would render the action plan useless.

The Action Plan was broken down into four main categories of actions that included faculty, staff, students, and campus climate. Both short and long term goals were presented for all categories (Linkin, 2002, p. 4). The action plan included five principles that would be used as a guideline during the implementation of the action plan. The principles were:

1. Diversity must become a primary measure of quality and excellence.
2. Diversity is essential for student success.
3. The promotion of diversity has both ethical and practical implications.
4. Diversity benefits everyone.
5. Responsibility for improving diversity at the University of Arizona lies with each of us.

(Linkin, 2002, p. 5)

I believe these principles to be the core of the entire action plan. Without these five simple principles I do not think the action plan would have worked at all. The University of Arizona believed that these five principles matched both the goals of the university and the diversity coalition. This action plan was jam packed with many different solutions the several problems that the University of Arizona believed they needed to fix.

IV. Analysis

V. VI. Solutions VII. Reflection