Action Areas

Currently, 60% of employees at Rhodes are white. African Americans comprise slightly over one third of employees. Fewer than four percent of employees are Hispanic, Asian, American Indian or Multiracial persons. The representation of diverse groups across the institution and at different levels of the institution varies greatly.

Given the clear differences in the representation of diverse groups across the organization, tracking hiring patterns and placement patterns is a priority, as is making progress on raising our minimum wage. In Memphis the living wage is $10.75 per hour for a single employee with no children and $21.90 per hour for a single adult with one child. The federal minimum wage and the minimum wage for the State of Tennessee are $7.25. The College has taken steps over the past few years to raise our minimum wage to $12.00/hour. Our current goal is to reach $15.00/hour.

Rhodes remains a predominantly white institution although its student body is becoming increasingly diverse. In 2010-11, non-white students comprised 21 percent of the student body. In 2019-20, they comprised one-third of the student body. Currently, the student body is 9.7% Black or African American, 6.5% Hispanic, 6.5% Asian, 5% international and 5% multi-racial.

Students of color graduate at similar rates as white students. Currently 15% of our student body is Pell Grant eligible and 12% are first-generation college students.

Diverse leadership is crucial for ensuring that Rhodes’s IDEAS goals are accomplished and systematically addressed across the institution. As the College’s first female and first Jewish president, Dr. Marjorie Hass has made diversifying the college’s senior leadership a priority. Inclusive searches and hiring practices have resulted in the most diverse senior leadership team and cabinet in the college’s history. Currently the nine-member senior leadership team includes five women, two of whom are Black.  The fourteen-member cabinet includes six women, two of whom are Black, as well as one Black man and one Latinx man. The Board of Trustees has 28 voting trustees of which seven are white women, two are Black women, and three are Black men. Continued progress must be made to support and retain current leaders and to continue efforts to diversify leadership at all levels of the college and across multiple identities. 
 

The representation of diversity among employees varies greatly within each of the administrative divisions of the college and within each level of the organization. Among White employees at Rhodes, the largest concentration (45%) are members of the faculty. An additional 14% occupy management positions and 14% work in community service, social services, legal affairs or media-related areas. White employees are either under-represented or not represented at all in other occupations at Rhodes.

In sharp contrast, Black employees at Rhodes are over-represented in service-related occupations. The vast majority (65%) hold such occupations campus safety and janitorial and housekeeping staff. The representation of African Americans in other areas is comparatively low – 11% are members of the faculty. Although numbers are quite small, occupational representation among members of other racial/ethnic groups is concentrated within the faculty (64%). An additional 14% occupy management positions and 14% work in community service, social services, legal affairs or media-related areas. Patterns are consistent for Asian American and Hispanic employees. All Asian employees and 78% of Hispanic employees are members of the faculty.  
 

Approximately 78% of our current faculty are white (compared to 88% in 2010). In 2016 the college began an intentional initiative to diversify the faculty.  Since then, all search committees include a member with responsibility for monitoring and advocating for diversity and training has been developed to assist search committees in mitigating unconscious bias in the search process. Current efforts are focusing not only on recruitment but on retention and support.

Responding to concerns raised by students and alumni over many years, Rhodes has instituted annual campus-wide anti-bias training for all faculty, staff, and students beginning Fall 2020.  The initial training will be offered as an on-line teaching and learning module to be completed at the beginning of the fall semester. Training modules include lessons on identities; understanding power, privilege and oppression; being an ally, and creating cultures of respect. Additional training will be offered throughout the academic year.
 

The Bias Education Response System (BERS) was implemented in 2016 as a tool for understanding the types of bias Rhodes faculty, staff and students experience. The BERS process was designed to be educational in nature and to enable Rhodes to be more intentional and systematic in its efforts to address bias and improve the campus culture for all constituents. Since 2016, a total of 87 reports representing 63 incidents have been submitted, representing an average of 21.75 reports and 15.75 incidents per year.  An analysis of BERS reports since the inception of the program reveal recurring trends: 

• Approximately two-thirds of reported incidents involved students perceiving bias by other students. One-fourth involved students perceiving bias by a faculty member. Incidents involving staff – either as victims or as reporters were infrequent.
• Most reports described bias on the basis of race/ethnicity or bias on the basis of sex. Reports of bias based on based on age, religion, gender identity, social class and other characteristics were reported less frequently. 
• Over a third of the reported incidents occurred electronically via social media or online publications.  
• Reports involving faculty members described incidents where a faculty member was perceived to be unable to unwilling to adequately respond to a biased comment made by other students in a class.  Reports also included experiences of feeling unable to express dissenting opinions in the classroom, perceived unfairness of grading policies, and reports of microaggressive comments.  
• Individuals who submitted reports were asked to identify their desired outcomes. In nearly half of the reports, the desired outcome was education, training and awareness either for the offending party or for the entire campus or constituent group. In over a third of the incidents, there was a desire for the offending party to be transformed and exhibit a change of behavior, attitude or knowledge. In only 14% of incidents was there a desire for disciplinary action or a formal investigation. 

The BERS system has been helpful in raising and responding to campus incidents.  But there is a need for on-going improvement in the BERS process. Areas of current focus include: streamlining the process, ensuring that all parties understand actions that have been taken, empowering individuals to respond to incidents, and providing community-based education and opportunities for dialogue. Beginning fall of 2020, Sherry Turner will launch a new microaggressions project that will raise awareness of some of the more commonly reported bias-related types.
 

At Rhodes College, Black lives matter. We unequivocally affirm the value and dignity of every Black life. This affirmation doesn’t diminish the value of other lives or minimize the plight of other marginalized groups. But it does fully acknowledge the specific ways anti-blackness and the perniciousness of chattel slavery and Jim Crow laws, and systemic racism historically embedded in our national state, and local affairs have shaped and continue to pervade American society and institutions. For Rhodes College, this means that we strive to meet the challenge of confronting our past and eliminating structural inequities in our present. While we have taken steps in the right direction, we are fully cognizant that the road to justice is iterative and on-going.
 

Rhodes College is recognized on the Honor Roll of the Campus Pride Index -- the national listing of LGBTQ-friendly colleges & universities. The Campus Pride Index is an overall indicator of institutional commitment to LGBTQ-inclusive policy, program and practice.  The advocacy and leadership of a campus-wide LGBTQ+ working group has been essential in building this capacity and creating an agenda for positive change. Rhodes offers gender-inclusive housing for new and returning student. We are in the midst of developing better practices to support the use of chosen names, and changes to sexual identity. Employee health insurance was updated in 2019 to include hormone therapy for gender dysphoria.  Adding additional gender confirmation services is a current goal.
 

The college’s current strategic plan identifies fostering a culture of belonging as one of our four strategic action areas.  The plan calls for investment in developing an inclusive campus, including the commitment that “as our student body becomes more diverse, we will build a faculty and staff reflective of that diversity.”  The centrality of diversity, inclusion, and equity in our plan for Rhodes’ future is also reflected in the appointment of Dr. Sherry Turner as Vice-President for Strategic Initiatives as well as the college’s first chief diversity officer and the appointment of Dr. Justin Rose as the college’s first Dean for Faculty Recruitment, Retention, and Diversity.  

In 2019, under the leadership of Dr. Sherry Turner, the College began developing a three-year IDEAS plan.  Incorporating priorities and strategies identified in the College’s strategic plan and over several years through mechanisms such as working groups and committees, feedback from stakeholder groups, campus climate surveys and institutional data. An initial draft will be ready to share with committees and stakeholders by October 2020. 

The College has a purchasing policy that encourages representation from minority-owned, disadvantaged, and locally owned enterprises.  We recently partnered with Amazon to identify purchasing options offered by small and diverse sellers. Currently, 23% of our purchases are with diverse sellers.
 

The Office of Alumni Relations supports diverse alumni by offering continued engagement, social, and career networking opportunities through the Black Alumni Chapter (BAC), the EquaLynx chapter (LGBTQ+), and a newly convened leadership group for a Latinx Alumni Chapter (2021). In partnership with Career Services, the Black Student Association and BAC, Alumni Relations is piloting an affinity mentoring program for black students, with plans to expand to other demographics in the future. The membership of both alumni leadership councils, the Alumni Association Executive Board and New Alumni Council, consists of alumni members who represent the diversity of the overall alumni body, with over 30% minority representation in each. 
 

Faculty efforts to diversify the Rhodes curriculum have expanded in recent years. New academic programs include:  Africana Studies, Jewish, Islamic and Middle-Eastern Studies (JIMES), Health Equity, and Urban Education.  Since 2018 all academic departments have been required to report annually about the ways that diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility are incorporated into their respective curriculum and program goals. Currently, our signature Search program and the First-year Seminar are undergoing faculty-led revisions to include more diversity of thought and inclusive pedagogies into their curricula.  
 

The Academic Affairs office offers faculty members a variety of opportunities to develop additional skills, cultural competencies, and knowledge.  Areas of focus include the ability to historically contextualize structural racism, lead difficult conversations within the classroom; engage in self-care, and become an ally. Training for faculty includes webinars and presentations on topics such as inclusive pedagogy, trauma-informed teaching, racial battle fatigue, and ways to practice anti-racism.  An on-line resource list has recently been made available. In collaboration with the Associated Colleges of the South, Rhodes sponsors participation in an annual institute, Faculty of Color Uniting for Success and is preparing to sponsor a series of anti-racism workshops for faculty.

In Spring 2019, Academic Affairs began to encourage faculty to form affinity groups to promote networking, mentoring and professional development among faculty with shared backgrounds or interests. So far, groups have been established for Black, parenting, women-identified, and later-stage career faculty. 

Rhodes has recently become a member of the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity which provides faculty members with access to additional resources for support and success. 
 

The need for appropriate physical space dedicated to cultural organizations remains a persistent problem at Rhodes. Whereas all of the traditionally white sororities and fraternities have individual lodges, none of the NPHC organizations do. Currently, none of the six NPHC organizations have a lodge, nor does the new Latina sorority. 

In 2015, the college repurposed a modular building, “The Annex”, that had served as a home to Career Service and later Residence Life, as a home for VOICES (the coalition of student cultural organizations).  In 2019, that structure was completely replaced and newly furnished. Student concerns about The Annex continue however, because of the building’s out of the way location and pre-fabricated construction.

During the fall of 2019, the fourth floor of Burrow Hall was repurposed and updated to create the religious life suite.  This area houses the office of the college chaplain as well as programming space for registered student religious organizations. During that same semester, a new lounge area was constructed for the Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) on the third floor of Burrow Hall.

Dr. Meghan Harte Weyant, Vice President for Student Life, and Dr. Darrell Ray, Director of Special Projects, have begun working with students to develop a space plan to better meet the needs of student cultural groups.  While the initial focus has been on responding to immediate needs by Spring 2021 when the campus re-opens, longer term solutions are also being identified.

Rhodes provides a variety of cultural organizations that affirm the identity; promote academic, leadership and career success; and support the needs of its diverse student body. The following student organizations support students from marginalized identity groups at Rhodes.

As the student body grows in diversity, we are identifying additional ways to support members of groups whose identities have historically been marginalized at Rhodes.  As with all student organizations, new organizations may be formed out of student interest and desire to align with students who share their identities. Student Life professionals, student government representatives, and others are available to provide support to organizations that support students from marginalized identity groups.

Currently, disability and physical difference at Rhodes remains primarily hidden in that the majority of the caseload have conditions that are not visible.  Student Accessibility Services partners with a number of campus groups to raise awareness and promote advocacy:

• Disability Awareness Week (co-sponsored with Kinney Disability Advocacy) & active/passive awareness programs with campus partners
• Advocacy groups on campus (Active Minds, ASL & Deaf Culture Club, Lynx Club, Best Buddies, Kinney Disability Advocacy)
• The Rhodes Accessibility Awareness Project
• The Lynx Cart Service

In 2016, the College made a commitment to ensure that the entire campus would be ADA accessible with physical accessibility to all buildings and elevators on campus. The campus has worked with the community to identify those areas that still present access difficulties and has rectified many of those areas in the last two years, including building access to Southwestern Hall, Barret Library, and two gates on the perimeter of campus. 

The college’s Office of Accessibility Services supports students and provides training to faculty on academic accessibility and accommodation issues. A “distraction-free” testing environments is available for students. 
 

The number of registered students at Rhodes has grown and continues to grow.  During 2000-01, Rhodes had 4% registered students with disabilities or physical differences, compared to 14% registered students with disabilities during 2017-18.

In 2019, 16% of Rhodes students were registered with Student Accessibility Services. 

• 50% of these students were registered for 2 or more conditions
• 30% of these students were diagnosed for the first time in college

Students registered with Student Accessibility Services (SAS) experience a variety of documented conditions.

• Learning and Attentional Disorders
• Psychiatric Impairments
• Chronic Health
• Mobility Impairments
• Sensory Impairments
• Brain Injuries
• Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Temporary Impairments

SAS offers resources and coordinates reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities, physical differences,  and temporary conditions. Housing and academic accommodations are available. Additional campus resources include distraction-limited spaces, ADHD testing and coaching and Kurzweil learning software.