The college diversity committee, at times in
collaboration with the international committee, has been active the
past year and a half along with a number of individuals in the CVM
and on the main campus. This would be a good time for a brief
update. The committee members this year are Jim Coffman, Hans Coetzee, chair,
Meena Kumari and Sanjeev Narayanan.
Assisted by a small “Tilford” grant from the Office of the Provost a
website has been established. It is now accessible as a link on the
college home page: http://www.vet.k-state.edu/diversity/index.htm
This website is and always will be a work in progress. It is
intended to be an information and communication center. Suggestions
are welcome as to how best to develop it further.
Note that the site includes a link labeled “Pathways to
Opportunities”. This provides a sketch of the multiple means by
which minority and first generation individuals are being recruited
and supported as pre-veterinary and veterinary medicine students. A
number of our faculty are doing a great job serving as mentors of
the Developing Scholars Program (DSP) which is the critical link to
students coming to K-State in pre-veterinary medicine. The incoming
class (of 2011) promises to be the most culturally diverse group in
recent years; maybe ever. It should be emphasized that none of this
would be possible if it were not for the generous support of Hill’s
Pet Nutrition. Their support has been put forward in terms of money
and, at least as importantly, in terms of personal commitment. This
year fourteen pre-veterinary medicine and biology students in the
DSP and two students in the professional curriculum have been
supported by Hill’s.
Students in the college are actively pursuing a new club under the
SAVMA umbrella to bring organization and energy to study abroad and
multicultural education and experience. The students clearly
recognize the changing nature of the world in which they will serve
as professional veterinarians.
For several years Associate Dean Elmore has administered the Myers
Briggs test to first year students. This has been valuable to
individual students and to gaining a sense of the distribution of
personalities within the various classes. The diversity committee
has been working with Dr. Elmore and Dr. Be Stoney, Associate
Professor, College of Education, in assessing the usefulness of a
survey instrument dealing with cultural self-awareness. Dr. Elmore
now plans to add that survey in addition to the Myers Briggs test to
expand the characterization of in-coming students. (Cultural Awareness Survey)
Plans also are in the works to provide an opportunity, at the
department level, for each individual faculty member to take the
Myers Briggs and cultural self-awareness surveys. It is anticipated
that this will provide individuals an opportunity for
self-assessment similar to that being experienced by the students.
It also will provide an opportunity to compare the overall
characteristics of the faculty with those of incoming students. To
that end, individual results of these two instruments would be
shared only with the individual taking the tests. Anonymous
composite data could be used for reference by the individuals that
took the tests and comparison with aggregated student data as well
as other possible applications although none are specifically under
consideration at present.