Last week, UNCW Chancellor Aswani Volety issued a press release, laying out the broad strokes of what ending DEI at UNCW would look like.
That includes removing the chief DEI position — held by Dr. Donyell Roseboro, who will return to her faculty position but no longer serve as a cabinet-level advocate for DEI issues. It also includes reorganizing, and reducing staff at, four student cultural and identity centers: the Upperman African American Cultural Center, Centro Hispano, the Mohin-Scholz LGBTQIA Resource Center, and the Asian Heritage Cultural Center.
But many of the details and ramifications of UNCW's efforts to comply with new state guidance which "reaffirm the university system’s commitment to nondiscrimination, equality of opportunity, institutional neutrality, academic freedom and student success," remained unclear.
Chancellor Volety has declined interview requests to discuss the issue, but Dr. Christine Reed Davis, vice chancellor for student affairs, agreed to sit down to talk about the changes on campus. Davis started at UNCW at the beginning of this year, after over two decades at UNC-Charlotte. Her department will oversee the reorganized student centers.
You can hear our full interview here:
Some have criticized UNCW’s approach compared to other state schools, like UNC-Chapel Hill or NC State. Reed Davis said each university had to craft its own approach, and defended UNCW’s.
"Each institution has its own community and staffing, and so they've all had to look at it from their own perspective. And I don't know of everyone's plan, but I know that we very carefully looked at our institution, our constituencies, in assessment with the policy, and tried to make the plan that was best for UNCW," she said.
There’s also been criticism of UNCW’s reduction in staffing for four student centers: the Upperman African American Cultural Center, Centro Hispano, the Mohin-Scholz LGBTQIA Resource Center, and the Asian Heritage Cultural Center.
With over a dozen employees moved from DEI roles to elsewhere in the University, and a new semester about to stop, Reed Davis acknowledged the situation could be challenging.
“I think it will be challenging in the sense that people may come in with a lot of anxiety about what is happening, what is different, what stays the same,” Reed Davis said. "I have heard from students that they are concerned that one person in the center, when maybe there were a handful of other people — you know, how is the human impact going to be?”
Reed Davis said her team is continuing to evaluate students’ needs — and could discuss additional staff down the line.
She also noted that, while the new policy prohibits the student centers from directly playing a role in organizing protests — like the social justice movements in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 murder — they can still provide indirect support to student groups who want to take up political issues.
“So the center cannot organize a protest or some activism around a piece of legislation, but they can provide guidance and support to student organizations or students who are doing that in their role as students, because the policy does not require students or student organizations to fall under the institutional neutrality," Reed Davis said.
Another challenge will be addressing UNCW’s longstanding underrepresentation of Black students.
"Looking at the recruitment and admission pipeline of our historically underrepresented students, we're creating a new program unit of pre-college programs so areas that are academic pipelines or summer bridge programs that are reaching out to and connecting with historically underrepresented populations: Black, LatinX, LGBTQ populations on in our region and across the state. So those programs will be bolstered by being centralized in one unit under Academic Affairs," Reed Davis said.
Dismantling DEI on campus also means removing the university’s chief DEI officer, Dr. Donyell Roseboro — who will return to a faculty position, but no longer serve as an executive-level advocate for DEI issues, including not just race, but military or veteran status, disability, pregnancy and other protected classes.
Reed Davis said that advocacy now needs to be a collective effort.
"This is all of our responsibilities. I think the chancellor would say it's especially his responsibility, as the leader of the university. And so as a cabinet member myself, I will be holding my other cabinet members accountable for those things, and that's what we should be doing together. So instead of relying on Dr. Roseboro as the one person, it is all of our responsibilities, and that's how we're going to move forward," she said.
The new policy requirement of institutional neutrality means the University can’t weigh in on "political issues of the day" — but it also means it needs to provide balance when it comes to public speakers and forums. Reed Davis said that will happen in a number of ways.
“I think from an administration perspective, we'll be like, 'Okay, let's think about, are there other opportunities for us to provide another point of view? Does that come in the form of a speaker? Does that come in the form of a lecture or a book series or different kinds of things?' I also think it comes from the students up," she said, adding the university would respond if students had concerns about a speaker or program.
But, are there bright-line issues that shouldn’t — and won’t — be given a counterpoint, like the reality of climate change, or the history of the Holocaust, or slavery?
Reed Davis acknowledged that those conversations could be challenging, but said she felt the university would be able to navigate things on a case-by-case basis.
“I would imagine that there would be some conversations related to, what are topics that may not be on the table for us as an institution to host," she said. "There's not an official list, so don't be don't go looking for an official list. I think that's organic conversations based upon, you know, our community and the feedback from our community, and how we want to create an environment that is educational but also welcoming.”
UNCW has about two weeks left to file a mandatory report to the state, detailing its efforts to wind down DEI, and there are still a lot of unknowns — including the impact on student morale, diversity, and enrollment, and the university’s budget.
