Common Ground Corner: First director envisions action toward changing culture of the University

Glyn Hughes spent his early days as director of Common Ground talking with and asking questions of groups representing the full hierarchy of the University. He went to faculty meetings, student and staff orientations and planning meetings for such activities as Collegetown and One Book, One Campus.

“My role now, considering the University’s stated commitment to inclusive diversity, is asking what does this commitment look like?” he says.

He has found people very receptive to discussing inclusive diversity on campus. “They are eager to have their office conversations put into a larger dialog.”

Thinking about social differences that often work as impediments, such as race, gender or class, is relevant, he says, but at Richmond “we have to add divisions between staff, faculty and students.” He hopes his office will help the University community communicate better across those differences—to make them assets instead of impediments.

In 2003 President Bill Cooper and Provost June Aprille launched the University’s Common Ground Commission to examine diversity on campus and suggest ways to ensure that the University welcomes, values and understands differences. Following the completion of the commission’s work, a second committee—the Common Ground action   committee—developed an action plan that included hiring a director of Common Ground.

Hughes, who has been on the job since mid-July, wants faculty, staff and students to be aware of upcoming opportunities for discussions that cross boundaries. For instance, he hopes soon to initiate a “community table” in the dining hall. People will be able to have lunch while discussing important issues, “creating a vibrant hub of diversity-related discussion that’s ongoing,” he says. Participants will be able to “connect with other people and get out substantive issues to the community.”

He also has begun working with librarians to plan a series of discussions using materials already owned by the library.

Hughes envisions a venue on the Common Ground Web site for people to think and talk about diversity with others they don’t normally meet. It could be a blog that people would subscribe to, with a variety of writers, he says.

Other ongoing projects also are in the works, Hughes says. For instance, he met with student government representatives to help them think broadly about diversity and find more ways for the Westhampton College Government Association and Richmond College Student Government Association to collaborate.

He is developing a faculty outreach plan and literature that should help people think about what it means to be committed to inclusive diversity. The literature could include, for instance, posters that challenge people to get involved with Common Ground initiatives.        

Hughes points out that the fact that his office exists at all, that Collegetown is expanding to two sessions a year and that a variety of other accomplishments have been made show that Common Ground is making positive improvements.

“Common Ground has been successful in creating broad-based eagerness to make progress toward inclusive diversity across the divisions of faculty, staff and students,” says Hughes. “There remain various questions as to how to do that, but the fact of that breadth and commitment is impressive.”

For more information on the Common Ground initiative and to read the latest progress report, visit commonground.richmond.edu.