Members of Temple Student Government’s general assembly were displeased to hear that Trustee Richard J. Fox said the new Office of Multicultural Affairs may be unnecessary.
The namesake of the Fox School of Business questioned the office’s purpose at a joint session of the Executive and Budget & Finance committees of the Board of Trustees last week.
TSG President Oscar Chow weighed in on the debate, saying that the OMCA is designed to deal with the admissions and hiring policies, in addition to general business practices.
“We fought adamantly for the creation of the OMCA for years now and we finally acquired it,” Chow said, addressing TSG’s ongoing involvement in the process.
Chow later said the OMCA will help to ensure that Temple’s population remains diverse.
“We are currently ranked second [in the nation] in terms of diversity,” he said, referring to the Princeton Review’s 2006 ranking of the university. “I want us to be No. one.”
Fox said the office’s responsibilities could be handled by other departments of the university, as reported in The Temple News on Nov. 22.
“This adds another layer of complexities,” Fox said at the meeting. “We should table this and wait to see if we need it.”
From a management standpoint, Fox said creating the office was not a smart decision. The added layer of bureaucracy, he said, would only slow down what is already being done by other offices around the university.
Fox said the office would have to be staffed, meaning the university would have to hire additional personnel. The separate entities around the campus, Fox said, should be dealing with problems of diversity.
HOMECOMING
Chow and Dean of Students Ainsley Carry also discussed working together to improve future Homecoming events. TSG is working on creating a Homecoming committee that will be run by Vice President of Student Affairs Cristina Ackas, Chow said.
Chow also said TSG sent several letters to administrators explaining how future Homecoming events could be improved.
“Our main concern was the length of the planning process, which we felt was too short,” he said, adding that administrators agreed to make Homecoming planning a year-long priority.
Carry said students are always talking about “how great Homecoming is at someone else’s institution,” when they approach him.
“Well, Homecoming 2006 is going to be the Homecoming everyone else will be talking about in the future,” Carry said. “The only way for us to do it, though, is to get more students involved. I’m encouraging all of you to get involved in this process.”
Tyson McCloud can be reached at tyson@temple.edu.
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