Staff's feelings divide by race

A resounding majority of UNC’s staff who responded to a University diversity survey said that they are treated with respect on campus and that evaluations of their work are fair and appropriate.

Almost 80 percent of respondents agreed that UNC meets those two standards.

Results of some questions varied significantly depending on ethnicity, job category, years of service at the University, supervisory status and employee type.

Black and Hispanic staff were significantly less likely to agree that they were valued and appreciated by the University than were their white and Asian counterparts.

Members of the staff subcommittee of the Chancellor’s Task Force on Diversity said the exact causes of such discrepancies are not clear.

“We need further research into the causes of disparate responses,” said Cookie Newsom, director of diversity education and research for the Office for Minority Affairs.

The subcommittee met last week to discuss the survey results and to draft a preliminary report for the full task force meeting Wednesday.

Subcommittee members said they aimed to highlight survey themes and to recommend future actions the University can take to improve diversity.

The findings revealed a trend among veteran staff, with employees of 30 or more years expressing a more negative attitude toward campus diversity than staff employed for fewer than 10 years.

Subcommittee members said the underlying causes of this attitude are difficult to determine.

“It’s not necessarily an issue of diversity,” said subcommittee member Victor Schoenbach, a professor of epidemiology. “Maybe it’s a morale problem.”

Members also said they were confused by the large percentage of neutral responses that some questions garnered.

When asked if they felt valued by the University, 27 percent of respondents gave a response of neutral.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty for what it means,” Schoenbach said. “It’s not a ringing endorsement, though.”

Overall, about 70 percent of staff said they are comfortable discussing diversity in the workplace, but service and maintenance staff gave significantly lower ratings of agreement.

Subcommittee members said this finding should be further researched.

“There seems to be a perception that individual departments value diversity less than the University as a whole,” said Archie Ervin, director of the Office for Minority Affairs.

A report to be given by the subcommittee at Wednesday’s full meeting will highlight several improvements the University can make regarding staff diversity.

Preliminary suggestions will include giving staff more flexible schedules to attend diversity events and training, assessing supervisors’ support for a tolerant climate and determining if grievances based on diversity are handled effectively.

The survey, conducted by the University’s Office of Institutional Research and Assessment, used closed- and open-ended questions and focus groups to obtain the results.

A total of 1,043 responses were received, amounting to a 24 percent response rate.

Lynn Williford, director of the Office of Institutional Research, said racial minorities were oversampled so that broken-down results would be accurate and representative. A statistical weight was added to ensure that responses were weighed proportionally to actual staff employment, she said.

“This is just a basic, initial assessment,” Williford said. “This is the first time we have tried to pull together a pan-University approach.”

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.