NTID’s Response/Actions to Ebony Club’s 2015 Letter

Concern #1: 

There is a need for more faculty, staff, and administrators of color hires and retention. We don’t see a lot of faculty, staff, and administrators of color on campus. There are lots of students of color on campus, but they need support by the faculty, staff, and administrators of color. We, would like to establish and serve on the committee that will review each department’s progress in hiring that where create opportunity for progress for faculty of color who has work experience with intersectionality and social justice.

Response: 

  • NTID is committed to increasing the diversity of its faculty and staff and has taken a number of steps in the past several years to achieve this goal.
  • NTID conducts diversity checks at several points in the search process for hiring new personnel—initial applicant pool, qualified applicant pool, and finalist pool. The NTID President does not approve moving on to the next step unless the search committee can demonstrate sufficient diversity (AALANA, female, deaf/hard of hearing) exists at each step or, failing that, that the committee can demonstrate that it has done everything it can to reach out to potential qualified candidates who are diverse.
  • NTID has a close relationship with RIT’s Office of Faculty Recruitment, the mission of which is to build a relationship network with AALANA and women professionals and faculty. We, and the liaisons for the other colleges, meet to discuss these issues on a monthly basis.
  • NTID has participated regularly in the Office of Faculty Recruitment’s Future Faculty Career Exploration Program, hosting AALANA faculty prospects each year.
  • Unconscious bias training already is provided for all faculty searches, and is available for staff searches as well, and NTID will continue to require all search committees to participate in this training.
  • In October 2015, President Destler named NTID as the college winner of the RIT “Changing Hearts and Minds” Award for our record in AALANA faculty hiring over the preceding 12 months.
  • NTID has representation on the Provost’s Unconscious Bias Task Force.
  • Dr. Charlotte Thoms was selected as chair of  RIT’s AALANA Faculty Advisory Council. Her role, in part, is to provide mentoring for AALANA pre-tenured faculty members to help ensure their retention and success.
  • The NTID Diversity Group provides support for NTID faculty and staff members with diverse backgrounds to help ensure their retention and success.

Concern #2: 

All search committees to fill a job vacancy are to include a staff, faculty, or administrator of color and a student of color to ensure that bias does not take place. Additionally, the search committees must go through a training and foster a culture within the committee for everyone to have a safe space to share their inputs and perspectives without being excluded or not taken in consideration.

Response: 

  • Unconscious bias training already is provided for all faculty searches, and is available for staff searches as well, and NTID will continue to require all search committees to participate in this training.
  • In October 2015, President Destler named NTID as the college winner of the RIT “Changing Hearts and Minds” Award for our record in AALANA faculty hiring over the preceding 12 months.
  • NTID has representation on the Provost’s Unconscious Bias Task Force.
  • NTID strives to ensure that each search committee includes members from diverse backgrounds. When appropriate, students are involved in search processes, either as committee members or invited to participate in interviews or public presentations given by candidates for open positions.

Concern #3: 

We want you, NTID, to hire an off campus consultant training service to work with the faculty, staff, and administrators regarding intersectionality, social justice, and multiculturalism. 

Response: 

  • Upon receiving Ebony Club’s concerns, President Buckley began working with Dr. Kevin McDonald, who at that time was RIT vice president and associate provost for diversity and inclusion, to plan mandatory college-wide cultural sensitivity training. President Buckley invited the NTID Diversity Group and the Ebony Club to assist in this planning.
  • President Buckley mandated that all faculty and staff members add a diversity training component to their annual plans of work.
  • NTID hosted a presentation on civility and collegiality by Bobby Colón, general counsel for RIT.
  • The NTID Diversity Group, working with students from NTID’s Ebony Club, hosted the “First NTID Community Dialogue on Diversity Issues and Intersectionality” on April 29, 2016. Classes were canceled to allow everyone in the community the opportunity to attend the event, which included student and faculty/staff panel discussions and opportunities for Q & A.
  • President Buckley held a number of meetings throughout spring semester of the 2015-2016 academic year with members of the Ebony Club to discuss their concerns and progress toward addressing them.
  • President Buckley formed the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Committee, which includes student, faculty and staff members. This committee is planning a number of events for the NTID community to focus on issues related to diversity.
  • In October 2016, President Buckley asked Dr. Keith Jenkins, interim RIT vice president and associate provost for diversity and inclusion, to present to members of the NTID Administrative Council and department chairs on the topic of “Communicating Across Cultures – Effectiveness in a Cross Cultural Classroom.”  Dr. Jenkins did a presentation on the same topic for NTID faculty and staff in November 2016.
  • On Saturday, November 19, 2016, NTID held an all-day Convocation on the issues of intersectionality and agency. A committee of students, alumni, faculty and staff worked for almost six months to develop this venue where we could come together as a community to seek solutions and common ground. President Buckley asked all members of our community to attend this Convocation, and nearly 350 did. The convocation keynote speakers were nationally known experts -- one in the field of deafness and cross-cultural communication, and the other in student access and achievement and issues of race, equity and diversity.
  • Additional training for faculty and staff related to working with NTID’s diverse student community is being planned by Dr. Alvin C. Merritt Boyd III and Ms. Thomastine Sarchet with support from the NTID Office of Professional Development Steering Committee.

Concern #4: 

Students of color should not have to worry about safety on campus, as they should already feel safe with their surroundings and interactions with people. Examples of surroundings include classrooms, hallways, parking lots, and social events for example. Examples of interactions include a meeting with a NTID Academic Advisor/Counselor, teacher, student conduct hearing, chairperson, and administrators. As we all know that d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals do need to work harder or more compare with our hearing peers, which we all are trying to create equal access. The same applies to faculty, staff, and administrators, to give the same equal access for students of color so they do not need to work twice as hard to prove themselves compare to their peers who have white privileges and faculty creating unnecessary barriers or stereotypes that students of color cannot succeed equally with their peers who are white. 

Response: 

  • NTID and RIT are fully committed to providing an inclusive and safe environment that is consistent with RIT’s and NTID’s goals and values. The administration of RIT and NTID are unwavering in this commitment and will act swiftly if safety becomes an issue or discrimination occurs.
  • NTID and RIT respond to individual and group concerns related to safety and discrimination. RIT’s policy concerning discrimination and harassment is C06.0. Any member of our community may file a complaint alleging violation of this policy.  Complaints should be made in person or in writing to the administrative units identified in C06.0(F). RIT’s Department of Human Resources is charged with investigating all complaints and responding to those involved. Retribution or retaliation for filing a complaint will not be tolerated under this policy as described in C06.0(G). Please see C06.0 for specifics as to how alleged violations are handled.  RIT is fully committed to this policy and all members of the community are expected to comply.
  • As NTID conducts its national search for a new Chief Diversity Officer and an Ombudsperson, we have asked the following individuals to assist us in continuing to ensure that we are a safe space for all members of our community:
    • Dr. Keith Jenkins, RIT Associate Provost of Diversity and Inclusion, will continue to be available to all members of the NTID Community who wish to seek his guidance and assistance.
    • Lee Twyman, RIT Ombuds, will continue to be available to all members of the NTID Community who wish to seek her guidance and assistance.
    • Dr. Alvin C. Merritt Boyd III will increase his plan of work for supporting students, faculty and staff as it relates to his role as Special Assistant for Diversity and Inclusion from current levels to 50%.
    • Thomastine Sarchet, Research Associate Professor and Director of NTID International Outreach, will continue to serve as a point of contact with a special focus on international deaf students. 
    • Dr. Mary Karol Matchett, Assistant Vice President for Student and Academic Services, will continue to be a resource for students needing support and assistance.
  • Each of the above-named individuals will be available to assist faculty, staff and students who have concerns about safe space until we have completed our CDO and Ombuds hiring. They are, of course, but a few of the many RIT/NTID faculty and staff who are committed to ensuring that our community is a safe and welcoming one for all.

Concern #5: 

We will like to see that NTID provide courses that focus on intersectionality of identities that represents different cultures (Black, Latin, Asian, etc.), gender, ability, sexual orientation, additional disabilities, and others in order to help students of color develop their identity. Those courses are to be developed, implemented, and taught by faculty of color and have strong knowledge and experience in these areas.

Response: 

  • NTID offers a course called Multiculturalism in the Deaf Community (NHSS-270), which is designed for associate degree students. That course has historically be taught by a faculty member who is a person of color. Here is the course description:
    • Introduces students to multiculturalism in the Deaf community. Students learn about facts and stereotypes related to race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and physical challenges. The cycle and internalization of biases (attitudes) and discrimination (action) will be studied. Recognition of similarities and differences related to disability, medical, racial, ethnic, social-minority, and cultural models will be explored to understand perceptions of disabled vs. able bodied individuals.
  • NTID also offers a course, currently designed for associate level students, called Intercultural Communication (NCOM-202). A proposal will be submitted to the NTID Curriculum Committee in Spring 2017 to change the course name to Communication Across Cultures. The staff in NTID’s Communication Studies Department wants to expand the course to include students of all degree levels and to get approval for the RIT Global Perspective designation. Here is the course description:
    • This course is intended to provide students with an introduction to the concepts of culture, communication, and intercultural communication as they relate to face-to-face communication. The students will learn about the relationship between culture and communication and how to reduce potential conflict. Knowledge gained and skills learned in this course will apply to communication in everyday situations, a diversified workplace and interactions in a global society.
  • Under the quarter system, NTID offered a course called The Black Experience (0882-210) which was developed and taught by two faculty who were POC. This course was not converted to a semester course, but some of the content is included in the multiculturalism course described above. One of the faculty members who previously taught The Black Experience has expressed some interest in converting the course to a semester course. Here’s the course description from when it was taught under the quarter system:
    • This course helps students pursuing an AOS or AAS degree, gain an understanding of the experiences of Black people from hearing and deaf communities in America.  The course offers a historical and modern-day perspective of Black people from their origins in Africa to their settlement in America.  This perspective includes the period of slavery, the reconstruction period, the civil rights struggle, and modern day race relations among Black people (hearing and deaf) and other groups in America. 
  • RIT’s College of Liberal Arts has a variety of relevant courses, particularly in sociology, that are open to AAS, AS, BS, BFA students. 

Concern #6: 

Have staff, faculty, and administrators, of color who can volunteer or serve as an on-call consultant when a student of color meets with a teacher, chairperson, or student conduct, for example, to provide additional perspective and advocacy per the student’s request. The majorities of individuals within NTID are not familiar or have a limited knowledge of the real history and cultural influence prevents them from having the insight to understand students of color and their testimonies. 

Response: 

  • As NTID conducts its national search for a new Chief Diversity Officer and an Ombudsperson, we have asked the following individuals to assist us in continuing to ensure that we are a safe space for all members of our community:
    • Dr. Keith Jenkins, RIT Associate Provost of Diversity and Inclusion, will continue to be available to all members of the NTID Community who wish to seek his guidance and assistance.
    • Lee Twyman, RIT Ombuds, will continue to be available to all members of the NTID Community who wish to seek her guidance and assistance.
    • Dr. Alvin C. Merritt Boyd III will increase his plan of work for supporting students, faculty and staff as it relates to his role as Special Assistant for Diversity and Inclusion from current levels to 50%.
    • Thomastine Sarchet, Research Associate Professor and Director of NTID International Outreach, will continue to serve as a point of contact with a special focus on international deaf students. 
    • Dr. Mary Karol Matchett, Assistant Vice President for Student and Academic Services, will continue to be a resource for students needing support and assistance.
  • Each of the above-named individuals will be available to assist faculty, staff and students who have concerns about safe space until we have completed our CDO and Ombuds hiring.  They are, of course, but a few of the many RIT/NTID faculty and staff who are committed to ensuring that our community is a safe and welcoming one for all.