Chancellor Dan Jones speaks during the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College Spring Convocation. Photo: Thomas Graning, The Daily Mississippian.
University of Mississippi Chancellor Dan Jones sat down with The Daily Mississippian last week to talk about what the university has done in the months following multiple discriminatory incidents of the past two years.
Chancellor Dan Jones and other university officials are expecting reports from two outside consultants about both physical symbols on campus and organizational structure regarding the handling of issues of diversity and inclusivity. The consultants were scheduled to come to campus after the Extended Sensitivity and Respect Committee released a campus climate report in October 2013 that called for outside consultation.
Edward Ayers, president of the University of Richmond and noted historian, visited campus to assess features of campus like building names, street names, statues and other physical symbols.
“(Ayers) has written a great deal about a lot of these things, but he was also a college president that had tried to provide leadership both at his university and in his community about having an honest conversation about race, issues of slavery, Jim Crow, Civil Rights, and he led his university and community in those conversations,” Jones said.
Gregory Vincent, vice president for diversity and community engagement at University of Texas at Austin, visited campus to assess the university’s organization structures that deal with issues of diversity and inclusivity.
Jones said universities typically take one of two approaches when dealing with similar issues: a centralized approach, where there is one main office for diversity within a university that reports directly to the chancellor or provost, or a distributed approach, where there are diversity officers in many different offices on campus that report to their superiors, who then report to the provost or chancellor.
Ole Miss currently uses the distributed approach, but the Sensitivity and Respect Committee suggested a reevaluation of whether it was best for the university.
Jones then reached out to Vincent, who led the University of Texas through a reorganization of their approach to diversity.
“Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages,” Jones said. “Because we’ve had reasons to question our environment about race and inclusiveness, the (Extended Sensitivity and Respect Committee) suggested we look at our organizational structure. I decided to bring someone in who works at a university and works with those kinds of responsibilities and in a place where they’ve evaluated that recently in a purposeful way.”
Both Ayers and Vincent are leaders in places with extreme symbolism related to the Confederacy.
Richmond was the capital of the Confederate States of America, and Jones said the University of Richmond has many physical characteristics that tie them to those times. Jones also said the University of Texas has six monuments on their campus that are related to the Confederacy.
Jones requested specific reports from each consultant but is still waiting for them to come in. He hopes that he will receive the reports in the coming days, but does not expect them before the end of the semester. While he was hoping to have the reports by now, he is grateful for the work of the consultants.
“Because we don’t have both reports in, I want to wait so the university leadership can digest those and draft a specific response,” Jones said. “I would have liked to have it completed during this semester, but I’m certainly not disappointed that the consultants are taking a thoughtful, purposeful approach to what is obviously so important for our university and for the broader society right now.”
Since the reports have not yet been returned, Jones declined to disclose many specific actions that may or may not be addressed by the university.
The DM asked Jones about some widely-discussed concerns that many students, alumni and other university supporters have voiced over the past few weeks, including the future of the university’s secondary name “Ole Miss” and the nickname “Rebels.”
“When I receive the consultants’ reports, I will issue a specific response to those reports and there will be clarity in my response,” Jones said. “I have, in the past and on the record, talked about not having any interest in addressing the nomenclature around ‘Ole Miss’ and ‘Rebels.’ Those are terms that are embraced by the vast majority of our people and are seen by the vast majority of the people in the country in positive light of a modern university. The consultants did address those, and we’ll have some further things to say about those in our response to the consultant report.”
After the Feb. 16 desecration of the James Meredith civil rights statue on campus, Jones drafted and released a letter condemning the acts and calling for individual leadership. In the letter, he also shared his views on why it is so important that we own our mistakes so we can improve both the university and the state.
“There are a lot of personal feelings in that letter,” Jones said. “People care what the chancellor of The University of Mississippi thinks about things and I’m grateful for that. Broadly, this is a state with a lot of wonderful traits, but also with a lot of needs. I continue to see this university as the largest hope for leadership for this state to move us from a less-desirable place to a more-desirable place. That’s the most important context – the privilege of leadership of this university and this state that I love so much.”
Also in the letter, the chancellor wrote about how the doors to the university are open from the outside. He continued, “But we have many internal doors that need to be further opened to achieve our ideal of a fully inclusive university.”
Jones expanded a bit on what he meant by that during the interview, giving multiple examples.
One example he gave was when he was a student at the university’s medical school, there were only three women in his class. In order to improve on that injustice, he said, it took deliberate action from the medical school’s selection committee members.
“All of our doors need to be examined,” Jones said. “It requires a very purposeful, intentional plan about how you do that. That means spending some money and exerting lots of effort. A little of it is individual responsibility. I’ve been using a theme in alumni meetings this spring. I’ve asked the groups to look around the room. Think about diversity. Think about age diversity. The average age in those meetings are probably 60-65. Could we do better? Do you know younger alumni? Could you help the alumni association by being purposeful and picking up a phone and inviting those younger people to the meetings?
“Just be sure you are purposeful. It’s the same whether it’s gender or race. Unless you’re intentional about it, people may not know that they are welcome.”
Jones also discussed Greek life and how improvements can be made in that area.
“Certainly the most visible place in our campus organizations where you would see an opportunity for improvement is in Greek life,” Jones said. “Is it complicated? Yes. Their membership traditions revolve around legal discrimination. How do you work that pathway around being sure that you’re not inappropriately or illegally discriminating? It comes down to being purposeful and intentional, and I do think it’s time for every organization on campus to ask themselves those questions. How open are our doors? What are we doing to promote equity and inclusiveness? It’s time for us, as an entire university, to look at our internal doors.”
Jones said he has received a lot of criticism for being so intentional in his approach regarding some of the incidents that have occurred on campus.
Over the past few weeks, many people have expressed their concerns to The DM about the university’s quickness to publicize some incidents that bring negative local, regional and even national attention. Jones cites the university’s history as a reason that the university is in the spotlight – and often times, the attention here is more than most universities going through similar situations.
“All southern universities resisted integration, but it was here where people died and where there was massive physical resistance. Our history is what it is. We can’t erase it,” Jones said. “We can get mad that the national press comes when things happen here, but we don’t. Instead, we can say that when the spotlight is on us, let’s do something in that spotlight. Let’s do something about the problem. The other reason that we can’t quit talking about it, and this is painful to say, but it’s hard for some of our alums to comprehend that when incidents of hate occur on our campus, there are students who feel unsafe here. And that anxiety that they feel is real. We can’t just let those acts of hate go unchallenged, nor can we we not challenge the things that aren’t perfect about this place. We have to ask ourselves those difficult questions.”
While he said many areas of campus could improve, Jones believes the university has already made vast improvements regarding diversity and race. He pointed to the Associated Student Body and The DM leadership for being intentional about starting conversations about some of the university’s problems.
“As attitudes and actions of broader society in our state and nation continue to evolve on issues of inclusivity and equity, I am glad to see leadership from various parts of our university,” Jones said. “We have large opportunities for progress on inclusion in many campus organizations. I’m encouraged by voices of student leaders including The Daily Mississippian editorial team, ASB leaders and other students calling for visible steps to assure more inclusiveness in student organizations.”
Through it all, Jones feels encouraged by what he has seen in recent weeks. While he cannot control acts of hate, he said he can be an effective leader when the university and state needs it the most, despite personal challenges of the pressures and stresses that come along with being in such a public position during trying times.
“I personally feel that great responsibility from time to time,” Jones said. “This spring has been filled with plenty of good. I’m encouraged that, in spite of national press about less-than-attractive-incidents on our campus, applications and enrollment continue to climb. This is a place where more and more students want to come to get a great education and have a strong, healthy collegiate experience. Most of my time is spent on trying to ensure that we continue moving in that direction as an education institution.”
