Open letter to President Brodhead

Earlier this year, when the Black Student Alliance marched to the Allen building with a list of recommendations to improve conditions for Duke’s black community, a lot of us Latinos noticed parallels between both of our communities’ concerns. In conversations with our peers, we supported BSA’s actions, yet we purposely decided not to run behind them with our own list of demands lest it take away from their momentum. Today, we wish to continue the dialogue with President Brodhead, a leader whose words are closely followed.

As stated in The Chronicle’s March 23 article, “Brodhead assesses Duke’s race relations,” President Brodhead delivered his annual Report of the President to a faculty audience in which he commented on some of the related controversy (research related to African-American students’ choices of major) and spoke of Duke’s efforts to improve in the diversity arena. “This University,” he said, “has had a commitment to making Duke a place of access, opportunity and mutual respect for all.” He “reconfirmed” that his most recent strategic plan aims for just that. We urge the President, however, to reexamine the in/exclusion of Latinos and of Latino/a Studies in his strategic plan.

Over the years, Duke has experienced a growth in the numbers of Latino students and Latino service employees, thus better mirroring our city and state demographics (North Carolina has one of the fastest growing Latino populations). Can the same be claimed about the Duke Latino faculty? The 2011 Faculty Diversity Initiative Update states a count of 448 Asian faculty and 2,472 white faculty along with an increase of black faculty from 44 in 1993 to 142 in 2010. In that same report the faculty count identified as “Hispanic” is 76, and almost half of them operate in the professional schools. How are we Latino undergraduates supposed to feel when we have a minute number of role models in our classrooms? In his speech, President Brodhead also commented on the advances his administration has made, which includes leadership recruits of “two African-Americans, one Asian-American and one woman.” Where are the Latinos? Why were we silently left out of a 24-paragraph address?

In 2004-05, undergraduate, graduate, faculty and alumni organizations, collectively known as El Concilio Latino, met with the President to discuss Latino issues they felt needed to be addressed on campus, several of which were similar to those recently presented in BSA’s Black Culture Initiative. Seven years later in 2012, the work from this initiative is only partially complete.

In the coming days, newly admitted Latino undergraduate students from the Class of 2016 will step on our campus for the 14th Latino Student Recruitment Weekend, during which we will introduce them to Duke. We will highlight some of the University’s existing opportunities such as the service-learning courses with the Durham Latino community, the new perspectives gained from (a limited amount of) courses in the Latino/a Studies in the Global South Program and the activities of groups like Mi Gente and GANO.

But while the recruitment weekends may be great tools for student body diversification, we feel the University is not providing enough support systems for these same students once they arrive on campus in the Fall. This begins with the lack of role models. Why are Latino faculty only 2.4 percent of the total faculty count? How can there be “equal opportunity” when we have few Latino role models in the classrooms and administration? Furthermore, if the University wants to focus on the “crucial preparation for the world our students will be living their lives in,” it is critical that more Latino faculty oriented in the U.S. Latino experiences be actively recruited across all fields.

By no means is this letter intended to pit Latinos against other minority groups; such groups are not even mutually exclusive at times. We also note that there were other groups not mentioned in the President’s speech. However, in the Latino community specified here, there is often a sentiment of not belonging “here, nor there.” We want to be sure that Duke doesn’t foster such an environment as well.

Finally, we recognize that the University has made progress in various areas of diversity and, as the President stated, we should “remember [this] with pride.” He goes on to say that we should acknowledge those areas where there’s still work to do. Today, we ask President Brodhead and the University to include the Latino population in his strategic plan and all plans for diversity improvement. We remind the President that “work teams are more productive when they embrace a variety of viewpoints and make each player feel included.”