During Pima Community College’s Diversity and Inclusion Plan “Community Forum” on February 10, 2017 administrators allegedly used international students to thwart an honest conversation about, and lobby for, the International (Global) education program at the College.
The unusual use of students caught the attention of members of C-FAIRR (Coalition for Accountability, Integrity, Respect, and Responsibility). The group, comprised of local leaders, has questioned the wisdom of spending money on recruiting international students while raising the tuition for local students.
In fact, the cost of tuition is so high for the students in the fifth poorest metropolitan area in the country, that College leaders have opted to recruit deep-pocketed international students to keep enrollment up.
Rather than reducing overhead costs, Pima Community College (PCC) leaders have traveled across the globe in search of students.
On February 16, C-FAIRR sent a letter to PCC leaders accusing the College of having “no real intent to have a serious discussion of the draft Diversity and Inclusion Plan.” The group claims that the “entire event was orchestrated “for show,” that is, to give the illusion that there had been community involvement.”
The group called the event a “manipulation campaign” that is “particularly egregious.”
In an interview of the James T. Harris radio show, C-FAIRR member Mario Gonzales said, “The International Program has been around for years now, and they’re in a position where they have a $750,000 budget, and employees of the College take trips to China, to the Philippines, to South Korea; all over the world to recruit students. Yet they aren’t going to the reservations here, they are going to the Pascua Yaqui Reservation, they aren’t going to the Tohono O’odham Reservation, they are not going to the Navajo Nation to recruit. So it’s somebody’s pet. The International Program is somebody’s pet, and they’re getting a lot of money.”
[Listen to C-FAIRR member Mario Gonzales on the James T. Harris radio show here]
In 2016, the PCC Board of Governors voted to increase the tuition of local students. The Board approved a $3 per-credit-hour increase for in-state residents and decreases to per-credit-hour tuition rates for out-of-state non-resident/international, and out-of-state non-resident/international online students.
While the scheme appears to favor international students, a review of PCC’s staff shows a very dramatic racial imbalance as well.
The group asked PCC “how can, or will, we know that we are not being used as pawns so that the college can say that it sought and received community input?”
The group concluded that “had the public been given a realistic opportunity to discuss the draft plan meaningfully, many people would have commented that the “plan,” as presented, was merely a series of assertions. It contained no timelines or measurable outcomes, rendering it impossible to evaluate progress.”
As a result of PCC’s failure to seriously address community concerns, C-FAIRR notified PCC leadership that the group “will back away from the proposed diversity plan,” and refused to endorse PCC’s Diversity and Inclusion Plan.
The letter reads in its entirety:
Dear Chairman Hanna, and members of the board:
This communication is in regard to the Diversity and Inclusion Plan and the “Community Forum” of February 10, 2017, regarding same. As you know from our previous communications and interactions, our organization, C-FAIRR (Coalition for Accountability, Integrity, Respect and Responsibility), has a great interest in the matter of “Diversity and Inclusion” at Pima Community College. Thus, several members of our organization attended the Feb. 10 forum.
By way of background, so as to establish a frame of reference for our comments herein:
1. In the latter part of 2016 the College generated a draft Diversity and Inclusion Plan, which was rejected by the community. At that same time the board had approved the position of Diversity Director and had given approval for the College to proceed with the hiring of same. The controversy surrounding the above plan resulted in the College going back to the drawing board and generating a new, and ostensibly better, plan. PCC administration also decided to hold in abeyance, that is, postpone, the filling of the Diversity Director position.
2. Via the PCC Standing Committee on Diversity, the College solicited comments from internal and external constituencies regarding the revised plan. Twenty-eight (28) responses were received—three (3) from outside the college, one (1) from a student, and the rest from college employees. The document suggests that there were 50-plus pages of comments, but in reality the responses could probably fit in two (2) or three (3) pages. The committee reports that many of the responses took exception to the notion of including the International (Global) education program at the College in a “Diversity” initiative. In the committee’s words (at Page 5 of the draft Diversity and Inclusion Plan):
“Overwhelmingly, the most common criticism of the draft was that it attempted to place diversity and inclusivity on a par with international/global education.”
The committee reports that the draft Diversity and Inclusion Plan was shared with local and national experts in the field and with officials of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU). Neither the local and national experts nor the HACU officials were identified. Members of our organization had a chance to speak to the HR director of HACU, and she had no record of receiving, reviewing or commenting on the draft Diversity and Inclusion Plan.
3. In January of 2017 certain members of our organization were notified that a community forum was scheduled for February 10, 2017, and that a draft Diversity and Inclusion Plan would be posted on the College’s website on February 3, 2017, a week prior to the forum. Believing that we would be discussing and inputting into the plan, we downloaded the plan and noted suggestions, comments and corrections. It must be said, however, that some of us were not told of the draft plan until the day before the scheduled forum.
4. The substantive part of the forum (i.e., after Registration and lunch) was supposed to run from 12:00 to 1:30 P.M. To our (and many others’) dismay, a mere 40 minutes was set aside in the agenda for discussion of the draft Diversity and Inclusion Plan. The agenda, which was built around a detailed timeline, featured six (6) speakers preceding the discussion of the plan. Combined, the speakers were allotted 20 minutes. One speaker, a University of Arizona administrator, was totally superfluous (as one person put it: “Where is the value of him taking a bunch of time to tell us the schools he has worked at and tell allegedly funny stories about a storekeeper thinking he was a beer-drinking Jesus Christ?”). Every single speaker went over his/her allotted time, such that the speakers used up 40 minutes rather than their allotted 20.
Per the agenda schedule, there was now only 20 minutes to discuss the draft Diversity and Inclusion Plan. As a result, the table facilitators announced that the full plan would not be addressed. Rather, each table was to choose two (2) goals to discuss. That announcement engendered discussion, which ate up even more time, as a result of which it was determined that each table would be allowed to focus on only one (1) goal. Aggravating matters was the fact that the goals were not available in written form. The facilitator read the goals, which ate up more time in that inevitably some people asked for the goal to be repeated.
The above leads us to conclude that there was no real intent to have a serious discussion of the draft Diversity and Inclusion Plan. The entire event was orchestrated “for show,” that is, to give the illusion that there had been community involvement.
5. Participants were preassigned seats at particular tables. Numerically, PCC personnel dominated. At some tables (that seated 10 people) there were only 2-3 non-PCC people. At every table there were at least two International students. In and of itself this is not an issue or a problem. However, after the event members of our group spoke to some of the international students and were informed that (a) the seating of the students at each table was orchestrated by PCC officials (probably to make discussion of the international/global portion awkward), and (b) the students were instructed to lobby for and “protect” the International (global) portion of the plan and make sure it would not be removed from the plan.
The above speaks to an attempt to manipulate the so-called “community forum.” Using students in this manipulation campaign is particularly egregious.
Going forward, next time we are invited to participate in a college event that has to do with substantive matters, how can, or will, we know that we are not being used as pawns so that the college can say that it sought and received community input?
For the above reasons, be informed that C-FAIRR will back away from the proposed diversity plan. We hereby go on record that we do not endorse PCC’s Diversity and Inclusion Plan.
Two other points that we wish to make that informed the decision we articulate above:
1. Had the public been given a realistic opportunity to discuss the draft plan meaningfully, many people would have commented that the “plan,” as presented, was merely a series of assertions. It contained no timelines or measurable outcomes, rendering it impossible to evaluate progress.
2. Upon our request, staff provided us with the ethnic breakdown of all PCC employees. The lack of ethnic minorities in PCC’s staffing is beyond disappointing. We demand the board take immediate action regarding this egregious pattern of discrimination. We also request you hold senior administration accountable for this shameful situation. We fully understand that this did not occur overnight, but we also know that in the last four years the present administration has not contributed to the amelioration of this grave problem.
Respectfully yours,
/s/ Delfina Alvarez
/s/ Fred Montes
/s/ Jesús Rico