Administration works to expand diversity awareness at PSU

Since she was hired by Portland State in September, Chief Diversity Officer Jilma Meneses and her team have been working with the Office of Student Affairs, the Multicultural Center and the Office of Admissions to address all aspects of diversity in student life.

Meneses recently consolidated the Affirmative Action Office and the Diversity and Equity Office into one office, now known as the Diversity and Inclusion Office. The two branches within the program will be the Equity and Compliance Office and the Diversity Advocacy Office.

“The Equity and Compliance Office will be in charge of compliance and promoting a safe campus, free from discrimination and oppressive behavior,” Meneses said.

The Diversity Advocacy Office will support the recruitment and retention of faculty, staff and students.

 “This infrastructure change will help build the foundation for our work to come,” Meneses said.

Meneses plans to expand in the future by hiring a new director, who will report to her, and hopes to develop an online training seminar called “Respect at the University.”

One of her main goals, she said, is to create a Diversity Action Plan that will help the PSU community define diversity. Faculty, staff and students would be involved in the drafting of the plan.

Melissa Trifiletti, director of New Student Programs, said she looks forward to working with Meneses.

New Student Programs sponsors an event called “Bridges,” which reaches out to ethnically and culturally diverse and first-generation university applicants. 

Meneses’ office and the staff at New Student Programs haven’t set goals yet, but Meneses recently requested information from New Student Programs about all of its diversity outreach programs.

 “How do we improve our recruitment of students throughout the country?” she said. “They [New Student Programs] are already doing a lot of work, so the question is, what more can we do?”

In a recent all-university e-mail sent by President Wim Wiewel, he expressed hope that PSU’s students and staff are aware of society’s interconnectedness in light of the recent Portland bomb threat by a Muslim teenager.

“I want to remind faculty, staff and students that Portland State University values diversity and promotes mutual understanding in a global context,” he said.

The expansion of diversity awareness at PSU could involve some curriculum changes, according to Meneses. She cited Linfield College’s Diversity Studies graduation requirement as a model.

The Linfield curriculum states that all students must take two courses that address facets of cultural diversity. This requirement is motivated by changes in the world outside the classroom.

Joy Nelson, an academic advising assistant at Linfield who graduated last year, said that the diversity requirement helped her understand more about the world.

“It opened up some windows,” Nelson said.

Éxito, the new Latino task force launched by Wiewel last year, has received significant attention from the university and the local press.

Meneses pointed to the many scholarships that were recently made available to diverse applicants as one of the changes reflecting the momentum of Éxito and similar efforts on campus.

“We have to be more present in the various Portland communities of underrepresented populations and encourage student recruitment and retention,” Meneses said.

Polly Livingston, director of the Disabilities Resource Center and one of the three chairs of the council, applauds the actions Meneses is taking in upholding diversity goals at PSU.

 “Let’s not just talk about; let’s do it,” she said. “Jilma’s fantastic at that.”

Before she came to PSU, Meneses founded Our Family Adoptions in 2002, a non-profit organization serving orphans and orphanages in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and from 2005 to 2010, she worked at Oregon Health and Science University as the director of Risk Management.

PSU’s Diversity Action Council started pushing for the university to hire a diversity officer last year.

Livingston said that she and her colleagues “tried to get this position for PSU…because we felt that diversity needs to be front and center at this university.”

“It’s not just [Meneses’] job, it’s the job of everybody here,” Livingston said. “But we need a director, somebody who’s going to hold people accountable.”