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Campus Climate Summit Aims to Warm Campus Environment

By Andy Elder, Student Affairs Writer

When more than 100 students, University administrators, academic leadership personnel, faculty, staff, alumni and community leaders gathered at the Penn Stater in early October for the Campus Climate Summit, it wasn't to talk about the weather.

Rather, as co-chair Mary Beth Crowe, assistant dean for undergraduate education, said, "The summit engaged a variety of stakeholders in important dialogue about our climate for diversity."

In an ongoing and concentrated effort to create a more inclusive, caring and diverse community at Penn State, those stakeholders convened for a six-hour meeting. For some, six hours might seem like an inordinately long time to meet. For an event of this magnitude, it may not have been enough.

"There were two concerns related to the six-hour time limit of this first summit meeting," said co-chair Philip Burlingame, assistant vice president for student affairs. "People need some time to develop enough trust with each other to speak openly. We attempted to deal with that concern with the use of facilitators and small groups for participants. Some of the group facilitators were struggling with the challenge of ensuring that everyone was fully heard. I think everyone would agree that more time would have been helpful, but the participants all have very busy schedules."

Penn State Vice President for Student Affairs Vicky Triponey said the summit accomplished the stated goals.

"I think it did," she said. "I was very pleased with the nature and richness of the conversation. We knew it was just a beginning and there was no way to solve all of the problems and reach a consensus. This was intended to start a dialogue. Based on what I heard and feedback I received, we really did accomplish that."

Burlingame confirmed Triponey's assessment and said that the informal reports he received were positive, too.

"Our facilitators have not summarized our formal evaluations as yet, but informally, I have heard generally positive reports from the student, faculty and staff participants," he said. "It is also fair to say that a few student leaders are now interested in the next steps and are concerned about how the reports from the summit will be used to inform policy and future action."

Some of those student leaders have a vested interest because of their participation in an open student forum - entitled "Creating a Community of Difference" - held a week before the Campus Climate Summit. That forum was designed to give students a voice in the summit.

"The two facilitators we had at our town meeting - Dr. Felicia McGinty and Sue Rankin - did a great job briefing the entire group. They did a nice job of sifting through all they heard and putting those thoughts under some themes," Triponey said.

And not all of the themes centered on problems or concerns. Penn State has been and intends to be a leader in creating and maintaining an inclusive, caring campus environment.

"We have a good foundation," Triponey said. "We need to take that foundation and the dialogue from that night and start incorporating that into the fabric of what we do every day."

Part of that process will be triggered by the release of a focused, detailed report of the summit's conclusions.

"We are waiting for the summary report from Dr. Harold Cheatham, the summit's main facilitator," Burlingame said. "We may schedule future open forums on more specialized topics related to campus climate and we will continue our research and assessment efforts to understand more about the experiences of our students."

Triponey said the move forward will be a campus-wide initiative from Penn State President Graham Spanier to every student to everyone in between.

"This is a shared commitment. The message from me was that this is not something simple that you can point to a single administrator and say, 'fix it.' We all agreed to make improvements," she said.

"The committee is working to develop themes and get them out to the people who participated. There are lots of places we can incorporate those themes to drive our decision making. We can give them to the student leaders I meet with once a month. We need to determine what piece is their responsibility. Also, we will take a look at what to do at the President's Council. We're all sifting through these pieces to figure out where we can make a difference."

The challenge to an initiative this comprehensive is that each year a new set of students comes to University Park.

"We always have new students coming in and it's almost like starting over," Triponey said. "But we're trying to make changes to the culture so that when new freshmen come in, it's not like starting over. We need to have a basic understanding of how to treat each other.

"It all depends on how we set a tone. It's part of being a leader. From President Spanier to me to our offices and residence halls we hear things like 'I belong here' and 'I'm proud to be here and proud to belong here; it's a good experience.'"

When you're dealing with more than 40,000 students, staff, faculty and administrators, changing the climate is a daunting challenge. But, those involved in the summit sound determined to meet that challenge.

"It's an ambitious task, but I believe we have a great foundation. When you look at other large research institutions, they are big, impersonal, bureaucratic places. They say, 'we're big and that's just the way it is.' We try to buck that sterotype. 'We Are Penn State' does say something special here," Triponey said.

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