On Sept. 28, Chancellor Randy Woodson released a video discussing the racial climate on campus. The video was sent in response to racist GroupMe messages that had been made public.
“It wasn’t just the use of racial slurs that alarmed me, it was the fact that someone mentioned needing a firearm to be around a group of African Americans,” said Kinesha Harris, a senior studying in science, technology and society. “To me that is concerning because there is a huge number of people being shot, particularly African-Americans and nothing is being done to those people”.
An overview of recent events is on the university’s website, listing the events that led up to the surfacing of the issues with the racial climate at NC State.
“I firmly believe that the Racial Climate Town Hall served as a serious outlet for our students to express genuine concerns about the racial climate at NC State,” said Student Body President Paul Nolan, a senior studying materials science and engineering. “Students highlighted flaws and shortcomings of NC State as an institution, and how the system has been inadequate in providing support to our diverse communities.”
Nolan also described exactly what Student Government was doing to help solve the problem.
“Student Government’s original role in the racial climate movement was to spearhead change by collaborating with student and community leaders to enact change,” Nolan said. “I’ll direct you to the series of events that lead to the surfacing of racial tensions at NC State, and how we responded.”
One of the issues raised was the low percentage of African-American enrollment. According to NC State’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions, the 2016 first-year enrollment was down to 5.8 percent.
According to the Office of Institutional Research and Planning at NC State, the percentage of African-American students is at the lowest percent since 1978 when it was 5.7 percent.
“I knew that it was decreasing since I’ve been on campus, I didn’t really know the statistics or the nitty gritty of it but I knew,” said Matthew Wright, a junior studying graphic design, “It’s is kind of hidden or presented to you in a way that doesn’t show the significance of the decrease in regards to the whole university population.”
Woodson has released two letters addressing the racial climate at NC State. One letter was regarding the recent town hall meeting, and the other listed steps for moving forward.
In the letter regarding the town hall meeting, Woodson said that the vice provost of institutional equity and diversity, Linda McCabe Smith, and the senior director of campus community centers, Reggie Barnes, will be will be forming the new Bias Incident Response Team or BIRT.
The new response team will review the recent racist group message incident and will make suggestions on how the university can improve its response to such situations.
Woodson then said that he and other top administrators will be meeting with student leaders next week to discuss how to improve diversity and inclusion experiences at NC State.
In his letter on moving forward, the chancellor acknowledged the drop in African-American enrollment in the last decade.
Woodson said that in order to better ensure transparency and community involvement, the university will be launching a web page outlining the variety of diversity and inclusion-focused meetings, trainings, forums and additional activities.
The chancellor said that he was charging the University Directory Advisory Committee with engaging the campus community and making recommendations about improving cultural competence and the racial climate at NC State.
