Results from a survey done on Jan. 30 by the Business Industry Life Science and Agriculture Diversity and Equity Committee imply a need for better relationships and more open communication between minority and non-minority faculty and teaching academic staff.

Diversity is a big topic right now on campus, Annie Kinwa-Muzinga, assistant professor of agribusiness and committee member, said. The focus has been how to retain and recruit minority students and hiring faculty that may be a minority.

One of the questions asked was, whether UW-P is a good place that welcomes minorities, Kinwa-Muzinga said. Less than 50 percent of those who responded to the survey thought so, from both the minority and non-minority individuals.

“What really surprised me was the majority of the faculty and academic staff that took the survey felt there wasn’t good retention to keep minorities around, even after a year of being here,” Abbie Wiegel, a senior comprehensive social science major, said.

About 300 surveys were handed out, but there were more surveys handed out than the number of faculty and teaching academic staff, Jeff Huebschman, assistant professor of biology and committee chair, said. One hundred thirty-eight surveys were returned.

“I do [think it was an adequate representation] given the nature of the survey,” Huebschman said. “We broke 100, which is pretty good.”

One of the things that came out after the surveys were completed was the suggestion that there could be more services of some type for teaching staff and faculty of color, Huebschman said. The other main suggestion was to build better interpersonal relationships.

“Some faculty are supportive of diversity and others are not concerned at all,” Huebschman said.

When an individual is not a minority, it is easy to put it out of his or her mind and act like nothing is wrong, but when they are a minority, they have to deal with it on a daily basis, Huebschman said.

“I think [the support service idea] is a good one, I think finding what the appropriate service is, is the trick,” Huebschman said. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be an actual office or place on campus. May be a department-to-department thing to do.”

“I’m surprised support services for faculty and staff doesn’t exist already. If the support services were to happen, I think it should include students, maybe have a representative from the student body involved,” Weigel said. “There also needs to be open communication, getting to know one another on a more personal level. There needs to be a willingness to learn about each other.”

Surveys were given to all the deans and then handed out to faculty and teaching academic staff, Huebschman said. The survey was targeting the individuals teaching in the classrooms.

“We spent a lot of time talking about the questions,” Huebschman said. “We wanted to make sure the questions were appropriate and handled the anonymity of the survey taker. We also wanted to make sure we were asking the right questions.”

The committee tried to design questions to get responses to what people are experiencing and feeling when it comes to their race and ethnicity and their classrooms, Huebschman said.

Drafts of the surveys were shown to the Human Resource Department, Multicultural Educational Resource Center and the vice chancellor, Huebschman said.

“The support services and the welcoming factor of UW-P is what shocked and surprised me most,” Kinwa-Muzinga said. “To know not only minorities, but also non-minorities have recognized there are no support services available.”