Individual schools within Chapman work to diversify the campus

The Dodge College of Film and Media Arts and Wilkinson College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences have been at the forefront of Chapman’s push for diversity and inclusion initiatives. Panther Archives

After faculty and student petitions called for the university to reiterate its commitment to diversity and inclusion, President Daniele Struppa released an email Aug. 19 detailing the efforts of individual schools within Chapman.

Highlighting 11 schools and colleges within the campus umbrella, Struppa pointed out that despite “incidents of division and justice happening within our community,” which may be a nod to law professor John Eastman’s opinion piece in Newsweek, steps to foster an inclusive environment are being made even if they’re not publicly announced.

“Imagine any community, in which because one of the members of the community espouses a racist view, the community is labeled as racist,” Struppa told The Panther Aug. 17. “I’m just disappointed that people aren’t able to look at the actual concrete action that is made, rather than focus on punishing professor Eastman because of his views.”

In the Aug. 19 email, Struppa highlights the achievements such as the Dale E. Fowler School of Law’s “most diverse class with underrepresented populations” sitting at 52%, the Wilkinson College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences film and lecture series on the significance of race, the 15 full scholarships for students in “low-income” and “underrepresented” backgrounds at the Fowler School of Engineering and the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts employing 16 new part-time lecturers of color.

Even prior to Struppa’s email, individual schools on campus took clear stances against Eastman’s piece. Dean of Dodge College Stephen Galloway and Dean and Associate Dean of Wilkinson College Jennifer Keene and Stephanie Takaragawa both released emails Aug. 17 championing Kamala Harris’ vice president nomination as a woman of color, while also restating some of the initiatives undergone by the schools.

“Wilkinson College is moving with determination to ensure that we offer more than lip service to the values of diversity and inclusion as we strive to create an anti-racist campus culture,” read Keene and Takaragawa’s email.

Since his recent appointment in late March, Galloway has been extremely active toward initiatives of diversity and inclusion. Dodge College has hired one full-time Black professor and 16 part-time lecturers of color – nine of whom are female. Additionally, he’s set in place three different mentorship programs within Dodge, involving the partnership of incoming first-generation students with current students, placing student mentors in high schools with BIPOC communities and test-running a peer to peer program between upperclassmen and lowerclassmen.

“Mentorship will be the film school’s brand,” Galloway told The Panther. “This is what will separate us from every other film school. You will come here and somebody will hold your hand from day one; nobody will be left behind.”

Perhaps due to Galloway’s initiatives, Dodge has risen up one spot to No. 6 in The Hollywood Reporter’s national film school rankings. However, Galloway isn’t content enough to simply stop and smell the roses. 

“This is just the beginning. This is not the end … this is not even the beginning of the end,” Galloway said. “Achieving something takes a battle, and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose – but in the long run, we will win.”

Keene, meanwhile, noticed she was continually bringing up a singular phrase in speeches about Wilkinson – saying it was “the heart and soul of Chapman.” She told The Panther that despite the university’s rapid expansion into other disciplines, it shouldn’t lose sight of the liberal arts education at its core, a statement echoed by Takaragawa. To establish that importance, Wilkinson created a program called “Engaging the World: Leading the Conversation on the Significance of Race,” a five-semester-long initiative that raises conversations about specific cultural issues, and which is also the title and theme of the reformulated First-Year Focus course for incoming students. 

Additionally, Keene and Takaragawa mentioned they were extremely excited at the recent hiring of Co-Director Angelica Allen who will oversee the new Africana Studies minor officially launching this fall. They noted that Black faculty are still not represented on campus and more work certainly needs to be done with diversity and inclusion, but Wilkinson College and Chapman as a whole are taking tangible steps towards progress. 

“Having been here now 17 years, I would say that (Struppa) coming out in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, actually stating ‘Black Lives Matter,’ is a big moment,” Keene said. “That’s change. And I know it’s hard to see sometimes; I understand people’s impatience and I understand the frustration.” 

One theme present in the administration’s statements across Chapman, ever since Eastman’s piece, has been the desire for free discourse. Despite many faculty condemning Eastman’s opinion, those same faculty also express the importance of free speech and open dialogue at Chapman as a path toward an ultimately well-balanced education. 

“If you end up with only one perspective and everybody around you reinforces that belief, it doesn’t ever actually allow you to grow or to think critically about everything,” Takaragawa said. “That’s not to say I agree with anything John Eastman says.”

Pete Simi, a Chapman sociology professor who specializes in white supremacy and extremist groups, indicated similar disagreement on the basis that Eastman’s piece is filled with conjecture and no factual basis. Simi told The Panther free speech is essential, but it should not prevent administrators from condemning bigotry and hatred. 

“(Eastman) is well within his rights to express (his opinion) as a part of academic freedom. But that doesn’t mean others don’t have academic freedom to dispute and to criticize,” Simi said. “That doesn’t mean administrators can’t be more clear on denouncing racism and conspiracy theories related to birtherism.”

Lori Cox Han, a presidency scholar and political science professor at Chapman, echoed the sentiment and noted that despite the major setbacks Eastman’s piece imposes on the institution's public reputation, the university as a whole is truly pushing for reform.

“I’m hoping that the backlash is helping to reframe the narrative. I’ve long been concerned about a couple voices on campus that are very loud and have incorrectly identified us as a conservative school,” Han said. “I’ve been saying this since I got here in 2005: we are not a conservative school. I don’t want us to be seen as a liberal school either. I want us to be known as a good school.”