WSU names vice president for equity, diversity

PULLMAN – Washington State University’s leaders are following through with their promise to make diversity a top priority.

On Tuesday the school announced the appointment of Michael Tate as interim vice president for equity and diversity. Tate, an African American, came to WSU six years ago. He has served as WSU’s director of Cooperative Extension since 2000 and dean of Extension since 2001.

The university decided to create the new vice president’s post after realizing that efforts over the years to increase the number of ethnic minorities and women on faculty and staff weren’t working. “It’s no better than it was a generation ago,” WSU President V. Lane Rawlins said in May.

“Mike Tate brings an outstanding combination of higher education experience and institutional knowledge to this job,” Rawlins said in a news release Wednesday. “I am pleased he has agreed to take on the task, and I am confident that he is the right person to move this important effort forward.”

As an interim vice president, Tate will answer directly to the president.

Rawlins has also appointed a new commission on race and ethnicity made up of students, faculty and community members. The group will consult with Tate as he helps define the new position’s responsibilities and goals.

News of the vice president’s job drew mixed reaction from campus. While many lauded the administration for making diversity a priority, some wonder how a new administrative hire and another commission will bring WSU to its diversity goals.

“They had something like this one time before I got here three years ago, but we still have problems with issues around difference,” said Kelvin Monroe, a graduate student of comparative ethnic studies and a member of the new commission. “The question becomes, ‘Once they give us a voice, who is listening?’ “

Part of the commission’s job will be to serve as a conduit between campus and the community and to bring new issues and concerns to administrators.

“I’m hoping that we can make some real changes on campus,” said Melissa Hussain, another graduate student on the commission. She said she’s heard both skepticism and hope from her classmates and teachers. “One concern is that creating more administrative positions to solve this problem might not necessarily do anything.”

But the school does need to take action, she said. Even last year, students faced incidents of unrest, racism and homophobia, and the administration is always struggling to hire and keep faculty members of color, she said.

Tate, who has a doctorate in extension education and administration, will soon finish a two-year part-time U.S. Department of Agriculture appointment as an education adviser in Washington, D.C. He serves on the National 4-H Council, a post he’ll drop for the sake of his new work.

“My full-time commitment and focus will be as the interim vice president,” he said. He will continue to work with the WSU extension programs, which have outreach and education offices throughout the state, “but it will be a secondary commitment in terms of my time.” Associate Dean Linda Kirk Fox will fill in as dean while Tate is in his new job.

Tate is scheduled to start work as a vice president in September. While a search is planned to find a permanent new vice president, no timetable has been set.