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Consultant assesses SCSU
Penn State-based Sue Rankin was contacted by students to assess SCSU's climate
By Jake Zisla/Contributing Writer
Representatives from various SCSU organizations met with a Penn State-based consultant Wednesday and Thursday to discuss the school’s cultural climate.
Sue Rankin, senior diversity planning analyst at Penn State, visited SCSU at the behest of student government’s Cultural Diversity Assessment Committee, headed by Stacey Flanigan and Stephanie Penn. Rankin’s visit was the latest step in ongoing efforts to formulate an assessment of the cultural climate at SCSU.
Contacted by students last March, Rankin said she was impressed by the level of involvement by SCSU students.
“From the beginning, this has been a student run, student oriented, student funded effort. The administration has not been involved at all,” Rankin said.
Rankin is currently finishing a national study of cultural diversity, comprising about 22 different schools around the country. SCSU was not able to get into the national study, so the Cultural Diversity Assessment Committee contacted Rankin separately.
“Of all the schools I have worked with, St. Cloud State is the first one where I was contacted by students and not the administration, so that has been unique and impressive,” Rankin said.
Rankin also met with representatives from the GLBT, the Women’s Center, the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and other SCSU organizations during her two-day stay in St. Cloud.
Rankin’s consulting firm becomes the fourth such group to participate in an investigative study of SCSU’s diversity. A lawsuit brought by two SCSU professors, a former professor and a student last year accusing the history department of anti-Semitic hiring practices, has touched off a flurry of inquiry into SCSU’s cultural climate.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is currently investigating SCSU and the administration has brought in the consulting firm of Nichols and Associates to conduct a separate survey.
Rankin’s study, however, is fully funded and sponsored by student groups, marking a positive step in student activity in the situation.
While the lawsuit and the controversy surrounding history professor Laurinda Stryker may have sparked the debate over SCSU’s cultural diversity, Rankin stated that her study was not intended to be case specific.
“The intent here is to be as inclusive as possible. Those cases may be an issue, but we do not want them to be the only issue,” Rankin told a meeting of the Cultural Diversity Assessment Committee last week.
The SCSU administration was not involved in contacting Rankin, but Rankin did meet with administration representatives Thursday.
Special assistant to the president, communications, Marsha Shoemaker said the Cultural Diversity Assessment Committee had the full support of the administration in contacting Rankin.
“Since I have been at St. Cloud State, there has been an attitude of ‘If there is a problem, let’s figure out what it is, and not sweep things under the rug,’” she said. “That is why we invited the EEOC in to conduct investigations, and that is why we contracted Nichols and Associates. We are dealing with our issues and not trying to cover them up.”
Shoemaker said that this approach opens SCSU up to undue negative criticism.
“The reason we receive so much negative publicity is because we are so willing to let people come in and look at what’s going on here,” she said. “I think we have done a great job of offering outlets for anyone to air any kind of grievances or concerns they have.”
Shoemaker said she thought SCSU was very unique in its willingness to let outside groups come in and investigate and that the Rankin and Associates study was another positive step.
“I think it’s wonderful that students are taking the initiative on this,” she said.
Rankin and the Cultural Diversity Assessment Committee are close to completing a survey for faculty, staff and students, that will provide a barometer of SCSU’s cultural climate.
Rankin said she hopes to have the survey completed and out to the SCSU population by the beginning of February or the end of March.
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