IC News

In an opinion piece published in the Chronicle of Higher Education on Sept. 4, Ithaca College President Shirley M. Collado provides tips on how colleges can build a diverse senior leadership team. The process must be rooted in a real commitment to equity and to better serving students from all walks of life, she writes.

The piece is titled “How I Built a Diverse Leadership Team at a Predominantly White College: It began with a refusal to accept excuses for why it wasn’t possible.”

“Building diverse leadership takes effort, but even more it takes a flat refusal to accept the pat excuses about why it’s just not possible,” Collado writes. “An institution’s location, a shallow recruitment pool, or the inability to shake up our approaches to how we conduct searches are not legitimate reasons for maintaining the status quo.”
 

She recommends taking personal responsibility for each hire, varying the process to find talent that best suits the institution’s needs and vision, and involving board members in the process. Most importantly, the leader must have a vision for what the team will look like as a whole, and share that vision with candidates. 

The college values diversity as a source of strength. One of the goals of the college’s Ithaca Forever strategic plan is to become a national model for colleges committed to the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and to honor and mirror the lived experiences of its students.

“Students will increasingly be looking for colleges that make diversity, equity, and inclusion priorities in all facets of their leadership and operations. But real institutional change doesn’t happen by accident. It requires presidents to intentionally commit to transforming their institutions — not just in words but in actions. Never has that approach been more critical than it is right now.”