Campus environment team actively addresses
diversity issues and acts of intolerance

Penn State's Campus Environment Team is a 10-member group that works intensively and proactively to address diversity issues, acts of intolerance, and related issues. The team meets once a week to review ongoing issues and make recommendations about handling them to appropriate University administrators and faculty.

The philosophy of the team is to maintain a low profile and to enable the appropriate University units and/or constituencies to take "ownership" of the best approach to resolving the issue before the group. The team is chaired by Terrell Jones, vice provost for educational equity at Penn State.  

Created about 12 years ago, the team soon realized that while a homogeneous University population creates fewer conflict situations, a heterogeneous University population has a much broader range of ideas, values, cultures and interactions - which makes for a richer and dynamic University environment.

"As the University population becomes more diverse, we can anticipate more concerns to arise along cultural, gender, and racial lines," says team chair Terrell Jones. "But if we can anticipate and address some of the issues in a proactive way, we can help create a more dynamic environment for education."  

One of the yardsticks the team uses to measure its success is the number and value of experiences that Penn State students are having within a broader range of cultures, genders, and ethnic backgrounds.

The Campus Environment team members include, in addition to Jones: Art Carter, Thomas Harmon, Linda Higginson, Gail Hurley, Janis Jacobs, Bill Mahon, Bonnie Ortiz, Tom Poole, and Billie Willits.