UA helps further Diversity Action Plan

A day after its executive board announced that the Undergraduate Assembly had been found guilty of hazing and alcohol policy violations, the UA met for a regularly scheduled meeting on Sunday night and passed a resolution in response to the University’s ongoing Action Plan for Faculty Diversity and Excellence.

The resolution — which was approved 28-1 — provided the University with a list of actionable items to further the Diversity Action Plan, which was released this past July.

With the passage of the resolution, each individual school at Penn will be held more accountable in the drafting of their individual diversity plans, said Engineering junior and Asian Pacific Student Coalition Chair Michelle Leong.

“The Diversity Action Plan has been a priority for the administration and we used this opportunity to give students input on the plan,” added College junior and UA Treasurer Jake Shuster, another co-author. “We want to show undergraduate support for more equitable policies that more equally represent the community in the faculty and in the student body.”

For Wharton and College junior and United Minorities Council Chair Juan Carlos Melendez-Torres, the resolution opens up a necessary dialogue about the need to better represent Penn’s LGBT community in the policies created by the individual schools.

“This resolution helps correct the lack of representation of the LGBTQA community at Penn in the Action Plan for Faculty Diversity and Excellence,” Melendez-Torres said.

The UA also urged each school to “create a clear base line to evaluate progress in diversity” and provide the University community with a public update before or in March 2012.

College and Wharton sophomore Abe Sutton, the UA’s academic affairs director, added that the equitable policies will “let students have role models in the faculty that they can look up to and that they can emulate.”

“This will encourage students stay in academia and go into academia,” he said.

However, Wharton junior and Latino Coalition Chair Angel Contrera pointed out that there are still goals that need to be met.

“There will still be more to do,” he said. “One of the things that this university needs to continue to work on — that isn’t addressed by these plans — is the issue of retention of Latino faculty.”

Leong added that student participation in implementing these plans will be essential.

“We want to work with individual schools and increase student participation in drafting these action plans,” she said. “The next step is action.”

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