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.