Regis University\'s Statement on Diversity

Regis University's Statement On Diversity

As a Catholic university, Regis must strike a delicate balance between affirming its commitment to the Catholic faith yet still foster a diverse environment commensurate with 21st century ideals of inclusiveness. Regis does so by upholding such principles as charity. For example, in its Diversity Brochure, the university has made it a priority to recruit talented high school students of diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds from the Denver community. Regis has an Office of Diversity, has a stated commitment to making increasing diversity a cornerstone of its marketing initiatives, and strives to fight against in-house discrimination and harassment with procedural initiatives and sanctions. Regis University admits that it has had problems in the past with recruitment and retention of minority students and faculty, and vows to set new goals for the school to change the composition of its student body.

However, the problem with the Regis diversity campaign is that it is frustratingly vague and future-focused. For example, Regis states it will: "gather and report data on retention of students of color" and "appoint a working group to investigate issues involved in hiring minority faculty, staff, and administrators" (2). It does not define clear, concrete benchmarks in terms of how it would like to see the face of the university change in the future

Think about your present employment situation and your employer's policy towards family-work life issues. What are the key factors that make your workplace family friendly? What would you like to see changed and why?

My workplace does have family leave, and workers have taken time off to spend more time with their children. If an employee has a conflict between work and a child's school or extracurricular commitment, most of the time his or her colleagues are willing to accommodate the parent's needs. However, the factors that are make the workplace most 'family friendly' are the attitudes of the employees, rather than the management. The employees are reasonably balanced in terms of their gender and family situation. Thus they are sympathetic to the needs of workers who are trying to balance the demands of small children and a full-time job. The higher-level managers tend to be older and male, and come from more traditional family backgrounds, and it is an undeniable logistical advantage for a worker to have a stay-at-home wife, not because of outright discrimination, but because of the difficulties of trying to be 'two places at once:' at a demanding job, and functioning as a caretaker at home. A lack of support at a worker's home and cultural biases that assume women are the primary caretakers of children and the home, even if they are working full-time seem to be unavoidable. The company cannot alter these personal attitudes, but it could provide more family leave and access to on-site childcare.