Lupe Gallegos-Diaz

Leading for Change: Holding Institutions Accountable
By Lupe Gallegos-Diaz, director of Chicana/Latino Academic Student Development, University of California-Berkeley

Institutions of higher learning around the country are facing challenging times due to constrictions in the national, state, and global economy. This reality seems particularly palpable in California, which even before the downturn ranked in the forties among the fifty states in the percent of higher education spending that comes from state rather than local funds (Congressional Quarterly Inc. 2009). In this climate, California’s state budget cuts will have devastating effects across the academic spectrum—on students’ choices of where and whether to attend school, staff morale, faculty hiring, administrative decisions, and institutional priorities.

How any individual is affected by budgetary cuts depends on where she sits within the institution—her institutional position. On most campuses, when you combine where a person sits with who she is—race and ethnicity, class, gender, citizenship, sexuality, and differing ability—you will discover that resource distribution is not equitable across institutional locations and identities. Unfortunately, inequitable resource distribution often signals a lack of institutional commitment to fostering inclusive environments. But precisely this institutional commitment is necessary if we are to foster any lasting change.

Avoiding False Starts

The University of California-Berkeley recently signaled its institutional commitment to inclusive environments by establishing a new vice chancellor of equity and inclusion. With this appointment, UC-Berkeley’s constituents, especially students and communities that have been historically marginalized (African American, Chicano/Latino, and Native American groups), anticipated a time of growth. These constituents have rarely been included as key campus players or received full funding for their programs, units, and departments. They saw the new appointment as an opportunity to participate in conversations that would address embedded institutional inequalities and make significant shifts toward a more equitable distribution of power. 

But what should have been an opportunity for the campus has been cut short. Instead of a more inclusive campus culture, we are seeing an added layer of bureaucracy that, despite its best attempts, has not been able to address ongoing historical inequalities. Now, with pressures compounded by a constricting economy, frustrations and concerns within new and emerging communities are mounting.

Establishing Accountability

Planning and leading for change starts at home. In order to effect change, issues that exist in one's own backyard must be dealt with before moving outward to affect the larger community. To begin the change process, we must join together within our institutions and ask ourselves: How can we speak of leading for change without institutional leadership that supports an inclusive vision? Without institutional leadership, who will follow our example? And who is holding the institution accountable for a new vision of equity and inclusion?

Establishing and maintaining accountability is no easy task for any large institution. At UC-Berkeley, it is a task that often falls to those without titles and status on campus: students and staff of color. Students are asking the right questions, and staff have been on campus long enough to see that change has been minimal over the years. Faculty of color also make important contributions to this struggle, but they are limited in numbers and often constrained by the multiple demands of "publish or perish," mentoring students and communities, and fulfilling service expectations that often fall to them. Moreover, these students, staff, and faculty of color cannot enforce institutional change alone.

Institutions, too, must hold themselves accountable. All institutions have strategic plans and priorities, and these are the perfect places to underwrite a broad commitment to inclusion and equity. By placing historically underfunded and marginalized spaces at the center of their strategic plans, institutions can reinforce and protect these priorities, no matter what budgetary cuts may materialize.

Leading with Humility

A lack of accountability over the years has left many institutions with numerous and compounding issues related to inclusivity. Complex histories make it difficult but not impossible to find opportunities for inspired and creative leadership. At UC-Berkeley, one such opportunity has appeared in the planned Multicultural Center. Progressive students of color and their supporters—staff, faculty, administrators, alumni, and various off-campus communities—have fought for a center that will validate those who are usually invisible or silenced. They have envisioned a place of celebration where one can join with others to question and challenge institutional spaces, actions, policies, and history. This center would be a place that respects difference and sameness simultaneously. It would be collectively coordinated by students, staff, and faculty, who would leave their titles and statuses at the door. It would be a new space with many doors open to and from the community.

The university has made a good-faith effort to support the center's creation. But university leadership is still working from an entirely different set of values, principles, and assumptions about process. Advocates for the Multicultural Center have often felt invisible, invalidated, and disrespected. The center's advocates hold a very different vision that focuses on historically marginalized and emerging students and communities both on and off campus. In order to create the inclusive spaces we envision—spaces that are welcoming, inviting, and open to stories of exclusion, inequity, and pain as well as accomplishment and celebration—the institution must be willing to engage in inclusive dialogue about those spaces' creation. 

To move forward with initiatives like these, colleges and universities must engage in sincere dialogue and communication—and they must learn humility. They must learn to listen to the needs of students, staff, faculty, and community members, and they must learn to admit past mistakes. They must make exchange a priority, understand the damage they may have caused, and be willing to apologize for their actions. Even institutions can be humble as they look to heal past wrongs. This humility will come with leaders who adopt inclusive institutional values.

The Importance of Visionary Leaders

In order to effect visionary changes, colleges and universities will need to identify leaders who can see beyond the institution’s walls, identify bridges and extend hands, and hold themselves and their institutions accountable for their actions and words. These leaders must value integrity and recognize that respect is something you earn from others, not something you are automatically given.

Some of these visionary leaders will be individuals currently on the margins who understand how institutional structures and priorities have historically divided us, preventing collective partnerships from working toward equity and inclusion. They will operate based on a set of values that begin with the respect and dignity of individuals and communities.

Only a university whose leadership values dialoguing and visioning collectively from different spaces and places will be able to shift campus values and cultures to be inclusive of those on the margins. Only by consistently prioritizing relationships with various communities will positional leaders be able to transform the university. The ultimate test for any leader is the ability to articulate and embed inclusive policies in campus strategic plans and development priorities, even in the face of economic constraint. Such actions will move institutions toward inclusion and equity for everyone. 

References

Congressional Quarterly, Inc. 2009. State and local higher education spending. State and local sourcebook. sourcebook.governing.com/topicresults.jsp?yr=&mrtype=2&sort=624%3A&ctype=1&sub=149&x=36&y=12

Lupe Gallegos-Diaz is a member of the Campus Women Lead Project on Inclusive Excellence. Campus Women Lead believes that women can advance inclusive leadership in higher education institutions by building multicultural alliances. If you want to raise questions on your campus about how to increase engaged education using diversity as a key vehicle for expanding intellectual and practical choices, consider bringing a Campus Women Lead workshop to your campus. For more information, visit our Web site at www.aacu.org/campuswomenlead.