Andrews University’s campus has, over these last few weeks, undergone much unrest. The Chief Diversity Officer (CDO), which was initially established in July 2017 as the Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion and revised to Vice President for University Culture and Inclusion in August 2021, has been updated yet again. On November 22 of this year, an email was sent out to the student body stating that the title for the new CDO would be the Assistant to the President for University Mission and Culture, prompting much on- and off- campus concern and discussion.
Many students are still unclear, however, about what the exact changes happening to the administration are. In a statement provided to the Student Movement, President John Wesley Taylor V states that the new title is to “help bring consistency to how we describe administrative positions on our campus” and that he is “committed to the idea that this sort of role can and will be an influential position on our University campus.” He also affirms that “what does not change with this position is that the important and essential work of this diversity officer role will be committed to continuing to help move our university forward on issues of diversity throughout all areas of our campus.” A group of students and I had the opportunity to sit down with President Taylor to gain more insight on the specifics of this new role. In our conversation, he reaffirmed that “this is not a change in the diversity officer…. The change is that we have expanded the reach of it to incorporate our mission and core values where diversity is integral.”
However, a graphic comparing the original 2017 CDO job posting and the updated job posting shows that the position has changed substantially. All mention of equity present in the first paragraph of the original posting is gone. Gone, also, are seven of the sixteen original “Duties and Responsibilities:” the new section of the posting does not include any mention of the University Diversity Council (which has been a fixture of the university since 2003), and the new job description has also left out three clauses stipulating the CDO’s involvement in “active leadership and advocacy,” “search and selection processes,” and “secur[ing] external funding.” In place of these sections are clauses on the CDO’s promotion of the university’s mission and core values. In the “Qualifications” section, a clause detailing how the CDO would be involved with “leading efforts relating to institutional access, diversity, inclusion, multiculturalism, and education and employment equity” is gone. Finally, the entire “Interpersonal Interactions” section is gone, which stipulated the CDO’s involvement in “Cultural and Diversity Programming, Disability Matters, Gender Discrimination, Racial and Cultural Discrimination, Inclusive Hiring Practices, Affirmative Action, Age Discrimination, Religious Diversity, Global Diversity,” and “LGBTQ Matters.” Yes, the position is still technically a “Chief Diversity Officer,” but it seems that so much has changed between the original job posting and the recent one that the “Assistant to the President for University Mission and Culture” is a position all its own. When pressed, President Taylor responded that “a job description that is posted is not exhaustive of everything a person does, it is exemplary of what a person does,” but if the exemplary characteristics of this new position exclude so much of what gave the CDO its character, change has been made to the CDO position.
What has further alarmed students is the resignation of Dr. Danielle Pilgrim, who was appointed interim Chief Diversity Officer by former President Andrea Luxton shortly before the latter’s departure from the university. Dr. Pilgrim, in her letter of resignation, says that what contributed to her resignation were “behaviors [that] have eroded trust and psychological safety, creating an environment that fosters a lack of inclusion.” She alleges that “the new chair of the Andrews University Board of Trustees of Student Experience & Faith Development Subcommittee has also engaged in harmful and demeaning practices... His attitude toward me… was dismissive, disrespectful, and somewhat hostile.” Finally, Dr. Pilgrim says that the decision to adopt the position of Assistant to the President for University Mission and Culture could cause “potential harm to individuals at the University.”
Students* across the university expressed confusion and concern** about this new shift and Dr. Pilgrim’s treatment. One senior student thought that the decision to exclude the Diversity Council from the final decision was “ridiculous and very calculating. They wanted to make this decision regardless of what anyone had to say.” A freshman didn’t understand the need for the change. “This is causing an uproar,” they said, “so it’s obviously making the students unhappy. It just seems like the administration is not listening.” Why one of the first decisions “of a new administration that people are already kind of suspicious of would be something that they know that the majority of the student body would not be happy about” was a question a junior had.
On the diversity of the university, a freshman said they don’t know “why they’re taking away that position. Especially because our whole thing is that we’re the most diverse university.”
A senior said that “the university has benefited a lot from having a large number of diverse students, and I think we’re not owning it by having a position that doesn’t say ‘diversity and inclusion.’” A former cultural club president said “I wouldn’t be where I am today without the support of the Office for Diversity and Inclusion, and if that disappears, I would be very sad to see that really pivotal aspect of my college experience also disappear.” A freshman student voiced their concern that this signals “a move towards assimilation and homogeneity, as opposed to celebrating diversity and allowing us to be different.” A junior international student says they can “understand people who come from a similar background as me, international students who come from a different culture and a different experience who need a place to feel comfortable…. By not having a specific person in a specific leadership position that caters to these students, they’re going to end up losing a lot of diversity and a lot of their international students and it’s going to basically sink the whole ship.”
Student responses were not all negative, however. One freshman student definitively indicated that “mission and culture is not a bad thing. I heard one person say that because the position is ‘mission and culture,’ mission is othering…. Yes, there are cases of missionaries doing bad things, but mission is not a bad thing. So, I don’t think that’s a wrong thing to put culture together with mission.” A junior agreed, stating they believed that President Taylor is “trying to do something positive for the school. He’s a very mission-focused, committed Adventist. Honestly, I believe he’s trying to do something good. I can’t question his intentions.”
I asked each of the eighteen diverse students I interviewed if, in their opinions, the university was headed in a good direction with this decision. The vast majority of them indicated that it was not (while many expressed confusion about the exact details of the decision). At the time of this writing, 737 students, faculty, alumni, and friends of the university who feel the same way have signed a petition to “Save the Position of VP for Diversity and Inclusion.” It seems that this on-campus discord has united many strands of the university together in a common cause: they don’t want this change. Only time will tell how the university moves forward in the wake of many students’ and faculties’ concerns; let us hope that all that transpires is for the best.
*To preserve interviewed students’ privacy, their names have been omitted from this article.
**We reached out to offices on campus that might give alternative views but did not receive any responses.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.