Stephen Wellman

Members of the University of New Hampshire Black Student Union seized the office of President Joan R. Leitzel and demanded more quotas for black students and faculty. The president of UNH then signed an agreement on November 10, outlining eleven points of "necessary" change in the university’s policies. These many points include a quota requiring a "black student population of 300 students by the year 2004"; a quota requiring a minimum of "10 black tenure track faculty by the year 2003"; the establishment of "a full-time minority student recruiting team"; mandatory sensitivity training ("prejudice reduction training") for all "faculty, staff, and administrators" and all university police officers; and "a written admission of the university’s failure to fulfill the commitment to a diverse campus and curriculum."

The agreement was viewed by many on campus to be a capitulation on the part of President Leitzel and her administration. They, however, do not see it this way. Leitzel and other administrators deny that numbers in the agreement are quotas. They prefer the term "goals."

"We sat around a table and we talked about the issues students wanted agreement on," said President Leitzel in an interview with Campus Report. "They seem to me to be the right goals for the university. We have positioned ourselves to meet our goals."

Commenting on the nature of the "goals," Leitzel defined them as being "stated in terms of people of color." On the issue of other minorities, she explained that the goals "are not stated in terms of different ethnic, racial groups." She admitted that the black population of New Hampshire was "very small" but insisted that "these goals [of increasing the size of the black student body] are good goals." She was unable to comment on the proportion of black students to the rest of the student body when compared to the population of the state.

"Forty percent of our students are from out of state…we have a pretty good mix. But, we do not have a good racial mix," replied Leitzel when asked about the diversity of the university’s student body. The president also repeatedly refused to elaborate on the distinction between these "goals" and quotas. "No, they are not [quotas] …They are goals." "There is a difference between quotas and goals," she added. "You know what it is. What is your point?" She latter offered that "goals" are "less binding" than quotas.

Leitzel also denied making an apology about the university’s previous practices. "It was not an apology because I was not here" when earlier promises of diversity were made four years earlier. She described the statement as "recognition that the institution had at that time and still has not met its own goals."

During the 1997-1998 school year, Leitzel endorsed a similar plan that would mandate campus-wide gender sensitivity training, an equal number of males and females studied throughout course curricula, and the denial of promotions and raises for those judged to be against "women-friendly pedagogies." The "Vision 2000" program seeks to "utilize institutional research capacity to produce the data necessary to raise consciousness, instigate action and monitor progress."

Patricia Gormley, the university’s Affirmative Action Officer, described some of the current, race-based plan’s action items for increased minority enrollment. She noted the creation of a new office, the Vice Provost for Enrollment Management, whose job is to increase "not only African-American enrollment" but also "all minority enrollment." For further details, she deferred to that newly appointed officer, Mark Rubinstein.

Gormley defined the "prejudice reduction workshops" as "a set of diversity and sensitivity workshops." She did state that they were not mandatory, but noted that they are "accessible." She also added that the workshops do not follow any single format.

She, too, denied that the "goals" instituted by the agreement are quotas. "We don’t do quotas." She said that these targets are "goals" and not quotas "because we are perfectly realistic …We might do better, we might do worse, but without a number it can be hard to focus your aim."

When asked about the mandatory "prejudice reduction training," University Chief of Police Roger Beaudoin insisted that "we have already done that." "We do not understand the basis for that statement [the agreement requiring the university police to undergo additional ‘prejudice reduction training’] being said as it was." He added, "We pulled in an expert...and we had 16 hours of training with him. We as a department do not understand that statement or the validity or merit of it."

Beaudoin seemed puzzled that the Black Student Union would demand additional training for the police officers. "I have made attempts to speak with the President of the BSU and I have had no response." He insisted that the Black Student Union had never filled a formal complaint with the department.

He was unable to comment on the process by which the students went about receiving their demands. As a final comment on this specific reprimand, he stated simply that "the dialogue [with the BSU and the administration] is just not there."

Responding to the question about whether or not the "goals" are quotas, Rubinstien said "No." He went on to explain his duties in relationship to these "goals": "I am not fixating on the numbers. I am fixating on the process, whether or not we as an institution have addressed those issues that are going to be of concern to students."

He described the goals as a "process as opposed to a target." Explaining the mechanics of expanding black enrollment, he divulged that the "process" was still in the development and that he had only recently taken this position.

Rubinstein, illustrating the importance of the black student protest, stated that students "raised the questions and we have undertaken the efforts to respond…The students had an agreement four years ago that the institution was not acting on." He disputed the notion that the recent sit-in and the administration’s subsequent granting of the students’ demands amounted to "mob rule," asserting that the administration’s reaction carried "no sense of capitulation."