This collection houses various administrative records as well as event and project records that document Arizona State University's Campus Environment Team's work from 1989 to 2008. The CET was established as a means to represent minority and underrepresented voices at ASU after discriminatory instances and student protests in the Spring of 1989. It was charged with "fostering an environment in which diversity can be celebrated and in which all students, faculty, and staff can reach their fullest potential."
Identification:
MSS-162
Language:
Material in English
Repository:
Arizona State University Library
University Archives
P.O. Box 871006 Tempe, AZ 85287-1006 Phone: (480) 965-4932 E-Mail: archives@asu.edu Questions? Ask An Archivist!
Historical Note
In response to student protests triggered by multiple incidents of discrimination and racially motivated violence in the spring of 1989, President J. Russell Nelson called for the creation of a Campus Environment Team Study Committee to acknowledge and alleviate racial tension on campus. The following fall, interim President Richard E. Peck released a public statement calling for the need of a "campus environment team study committee […] composed of students, faculty, and staff" based on a recognition that "[d]iversity of views, cultures, and experiences is critical to the academic mission of higher education." This study committee was to examine "existing policies and procedures on campus, examine measures that other campuses have taken to promote acceptance of diversity, and recommend measures and mechanisms suitable for this University."
The committee's final report was presented to and accepted by President Lattie F. Coor in the spring of 1990. It recommended that "the University take further steps to foster an environment that is hospitable to all members of the University community regardless of race, religion, age, sexual orientation, or disability... [and] to promote a campus environment that values diversity and provides respect for individuals regardless of their status."
The CET's final Statement of Purpose noted that "every member of the university community must take a personal responsibility for fostering an environment in which diversity can be celebrated and in which all students, faculty, and staff can reach their fullest potential. No environment team or other entity can substitute for the goodwill, freely given, by the individuals that make up this university."
The CET's general duties included individual members acting in an advisory capacity to the academic community, enforcing anti-harassment policies, educating the campus community, and collecting and reporting data. The Committee for Campus Inclusion now fulfills the responsibility which the CET was originally charged.
Scope and Content Note
This collection houses annual reports, project records, marketing materials, meeting agendas and minutes, annual retreat and training records, VHS tapes, compact disks, and floppy diskettes documenting the Campus Environment Team's work from 1989 to 2008. Materials in the collection date from 1987 to 2008. This collection has been divided into four series showing CET's work.
Series I: Administrative Records includes annual reports, agendas and minutes of monthly meetings, information about funded projects, materials related to annual retreats and trainings, and materials related to research that was conducted by the CET. Topics discussed include the purpose of the CET, CET and other administrative responses to instances of harassment, discrimination, and hate crimes, the sponsorship of events that promote diversity, and research conducted by the CET regarding the state of diversity, harassment, and discrimination on campus. These records are arranged chronologically.
Series II: CET Grant-Funded Events and Project Records includes materials related to the events and projects funded by grants from the CET. These are arranged alphabetically by event and project name. Project proposals commonly contain a cover letter, event description, event justification, budget, event program/agenda, and committee approval/rejection letters. Beginning in the late 1990s program proposals also include a grant application checklist form, proposal agreements, and event marketing flyers.
Series III: CET Research includes research conducted by and at the request of CET. Some of these materials include surveys, brochures, data analyses, and educational materials created by the CET or collected by the CET. Among the topics covered are race relations in higher education, sexual harassment, programs relating to ethnic diversity, research on sexist language, discrimination against gays and lesbians, religious discrimination, and College of Liberal Arts Minority Retention Programs.
Series IV: Origins and Founding of the Campus Environment Team includes memos, meeting agendas, meeting minutes, correspondence inviting faculty participation, statements of purpose, newspaper clippings, and research materials on discrimination and harassment on university campuses. Origins records include memoranda (for example, communicating meetings, responding to requests for information, communication with the university president and legal counsel, and community responses to CET creation proposal), meeting agenda, invitations to serve on study committees to establish CET, study recommendations, and campus climate research (literature, other universities' campus policies/efforts, and newspaper clippings).
Arrangement
This collection consists of eighteen boxes divided into four series:
To view this collection, make an appointment at least five business days prior to your visit by contacting Ask an Archivist or calling (480) 965-4932. Appointments in the Wurzburger Reading Room at Hayden Library (rm. 138) on the Tempe campus are available Monday through Friday. Check the ASU Library Hours page for current availability.
Copyright
The Arizona Board of Regents retains copyright to this collection for and on behalf of the Arizona State University Library. Requests to publish, display, or redistribute information from this collection must be submitted via our online application.
Access Terms
Personal Name(s)
Calleros, Charles R.
Coor, Lattie Finch, 1936-
Corporate Name(s)
Arizona State University -- Safety measures
Arizona State University. Campus Environment Team -- Records and correspondence
Arizona State University. College of Law
Subject(s)
Discrimination in higher education -- Arizona -- Tempe
[Identification of item], Campus Environment Team Records, MSS-162, Arizona State University Library.
Provenance
Professor Leonard Gordon of the ASU's Sociology Department donated part of these records to University Archives in December of 2001 (Accession #2001-02471). Gordon was previously the Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and a member of the Campus Environment Team. An accretion was received from the Campus Environment Team in 2009 (Accession #2009-04298).
Processing Note
Accession #2001-2471 was originally processed by Robin Robinson in December of 2001. An accretion to this collection, Accession #2009-04298, was processed by members of the English 691 Archival Research Methods Seminar during the fall of 2018 with the supervision of Associate Archivist Elizabeth Dunham. The course was taught by Dr. Shirley Rose. The original portion of the collection was re-processed during this project.
