VCU’s Staff Diversity

In late 2006 VCU conducted the Climate Survey to determine how pleased the staff, faculty and administration is with diversity among their colleagues.

Over all the survey was quite positive, but there were outliers within minority groups and the staff.

To get a better understanding of these outliers, the Equity and Diversity Committee conducted a series of three focus groups. The first was made up of faculty and staff, the second, black faculty and staff, and the third was full time staff.

The findings were startling.

The study found that adjunct faculty feels unappreciated, women aren’t as easily promoted as men, and black faculty feels that the university discriminates.

The EDC realizes that this could be a few upset staff members, but they want to address these issues to make sure they know why someone would feel this way and to insure that no one else does in the future.

They are developing a five-year diversity plan in the hopes to attract more minority administration and therefore more staff.

Richmond school system grads not going to VCU

In the 2007 school year Virginia Commonwealth University enrolled nearly 4,000 students, the school’s highest total in its 40 year history. However, only a fraction of those students came from public  high schools in the city of Richmond.

Just 51 graduates from Richmond city schools enrolled at VCU this past year.  VCU President Eugene Trani, told the Faculty Senate that he believes those numbers are too low.

VCU’s Vice Provost of Admissions, Delores Taylor, believes the city’s small high school population and graduation rates are both factors.

“Compared to some school systems, the numbers of students who are graduating from the high school within the public schools in Richmond are low,” said Taylor.

Not only are the graduation rates low, but Taylor has found an even simpler problem with Richmond and VCU, and that is proximity.

“Many students will decide, for example, that they’d like to go away to school. Many students will decide to go away from home and they may feel that VCU is a little to close to them,” Taylor said.

Mother Against Drunk Driving helps Navy fight alcohol

During a recent trip to the Nofolk Naval Station, our crew met up with Kaye and Bob Walsh. Kaye and Bob are the Norfolk branch of the orgainization Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the Navy has reached out to them to help deal with alcoholism.

The Stats

Officals at the Naval Saftey Center in Norfolk belive that the problem with alcohol in the navy is worse now than ever before.