Date: February 5, 2008
To: The Virginia Tech Community
From: Mark McNamee, Provost and Kevin McDonald, Vice President for Multicultural Affairs and Equity

During the 2006-07 academic year, a formal Task Force on Race and the Institution was appointed to explore the issues of race and the university. This task force under the leadership of Dr. Wayne Scales met throughout the year and explored many components. In April 2007, they issued their final report and it consisted of a number of different recommendations in the areas of Academic Programs, Administrative Infrastructure, Alumni and Community Engagement, Faculty and Staff, Graduate Students and Undergraduate students.

As the task force was conducting its work, a commitment was made that the recommendations of the task force would be closely examined by a special Implementation team once the final report was released.

We are pleased to share that the Implementation team was formally constituted in August 2007. It consists of faculty, staff and students from areas that oversee various components of the recommendations indicated by the task force. This implementation team is co-chaired by both the provost and the vice president for multicultural affairs and equity. This is important because it will be under the auspices of the vice president for multicultural affairs and equity that many of the recommendations will be monitored and tracked.

The implementation team has been meeting on a monthly basis since September and has begun to analyze each of the recommendations to determine their feasibility, and other impacts of their implementation. Over the course of this upcoming spring semester, the implementation team will be seeking input from various members of the university community as we begin to move forward on the actual implementation of the recommendations.

We will be providing periodic updates to the university community as to the status of our efforts and a formal report at the end of the semester. We are committed to build upon the efforts of thet task force and to ensure that we can effectively and responsibly implement the recommendations on a cycle that will be most prudent for the university. As the university begins to incorporate and embrace the concepts of inclusive excellence as it revises its diversity strategic plan, the efforts of the implementation team are crucial in helping to provide a valuable roadmap for our future.

We want to thank the members of the implementation team for their efforts in critically examining the recommendations. The members of the implementation team include:

• Mark McNamee (Co-chair), University Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
• Kevin McDonald (Co-chair), Vice President for Multicultural Affairs and Equity
• Christina Brogdon, EO/AA Coordinator, Office for Equal Opportunity
• Sheila Carter-Tod, Assistant Professor, English
• David Ford, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
• Guy Sims, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs
• Pat Hyer, Associate Provost for Academic Administration
• Jonathan Moore, Graduate student in Biological Sciences
• Ray Plaza, Director of Diversity Initiatives, Office of Multicultural Affairs
• Karen Sanders, Assistant Provost and Director of Academic Student Services
• Elisa Sotelino, Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
• James Turner, Professor, Mathematics and Interim Associate Provost Graduate School
• Rianka Urbina, SGA Diversity Chair and undergraduate student in Finance
• Judy Ridinger, Director, Staff and Compensation in Human Resources
  

More information regarding the final report of the Task Force on Race and the Institution can be found at the provost's website at http://www.provost.vt.edu/initiatives.php. Information about the
inclusive excellence concept can be found at http://www.oeo.vt.edu/excellence.

If you have any questions about the implementation team, please direct them to Ray Plaza at 231-7289 or at rp25@vt.edu.