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Hello again, this is Doctor Aviva Legatt.
To my left is Andres Castro Samayoa.
He is the Assistant Director of Assessment at the Center for
Minority Serving Institutions at University of Pennsylvania.
Welcome Andres.
>> Thank you so much for having me.
>> So earlier we talked about your work, and
you're working with Hispanic serving institutions.
Maybe you could just explain what a Hispanic or
minority serving institution is for the audience who might now be familiar?
And maybe an example of how they might look at that sort of issue of diversity
a little bit differently than a predominantly White organization would.
>> Yeah, absolutely, so the history of minorities serving institutions,
let me start with that, is rather varied.
But really briefly, historically Black colleges and Tribal colleges and
universities were established really through laws and
legislations in the country.
And Asian-American Pacific Islander serving institutions and
Hispanic serving institutions were also folded into legislation in the country.
But really emerged as a response to shifting demographics in country.
And political activism that was trying to be responsive to those shifts and changes.
>> And, in your opinion,
how should these organizations be looking at diversity issues differently?
>> So that's one of the really fascinating things as well about the value of and
how much minorities of institutions can actually teach majority institutions,
and really all organizations, is that the way in which questions of race and
ethnicity and other forms of diversity are coded into the fabric of
the institution is largely different.
And I'll use, really just the faculty demographics of these campuses themselves.
Which are, quite frankly,
the most racially diverse faculties in the whole country, right?
And I think that the reason why that happens is because there is a rather
explicit appreciation for how important it is to have shared
identities between mentors and students, right?
So if we're thinking specifically here about how that may apply to other
organizations.
When you're thinking about senior leadership or when you're thinking about
who are the people that those individuals who are entering the professional or who
are in a position where they are aspiring to, I could more experience later on.
If they see role models or
possibility models that share some of their identities, then that makes it
a little bit more likely that Individuals will aspire for that.
Otherwise, it's a little bit hard to connect, right?
And I think that that's something that's very specific that we see in our work is
that concordance between race, gender, and other markers of social difference between
mentors and mentees, or in this case, faculty and students.
>> Mm-hm.
Can you give me example of a couple of behaviors you've seen that unintentionally
marginalize the minority groups in that space?
>> Sure.
They can be relatively small or benign,
like the ways in which you ask questions or how you end up talking to people.
And I think denial is one of the most frustrating things for
those who us were in this line of work, or can also be one of the more debilitating
ones if you're actually trying to enact change.
Whenever you hear people say something like we live in a post racial society or
we have achieved diversity in this organization
because we know we already have some people of color or
we have gender equity or gender parity and representation in our workforce.
That doesn't necessarily mean that then diversity work is over, right?
So, whenever I'm visiting a campus or whenever I'm talking with other peers or
colleagues and then they say, well,
I think we have a really good handle of this.
That for me is a red flag,
because it means that you're closing out the opportunity of ongoing learning.
And I think that that's really important to never lose sight of is that,
if you're committed to trying to do diversity work,
then you're committing yourself to a life long approach of knowing that
it's never going to be enough and that that's actually a good thing.
