A national trade association for higher education administrators held a conference last week in downtown Austin that demonstrates the continued presence of diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology in higher education.
Texas Scorecard was present at the conference, which highlighted a series of less politically charged terms that expressed similar goals to DEI.
The National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) describes itself as “the leading association for the advancement, health, and sustainability of the student affairs profession.”
The organization has a membership of over 15,000 professionals at 2,100 institutions across the globe.
While the conference was not exclusively dedicated to DEI, many panel discussions across the three-day event explicitly discussed DEI themes. Examples include:
- Servingness and Beyond: An Equity Minded Leadership Playbook for Institutional Transformation.
- First Gen Latinas Leading First-Gen Strategy.
- Black First Gen Collective.
- Operational Equity: Creating STEM Circles of Belonging.
- Building a Neuro-Inclusive Campus.
In addition to panel discussions explicitly dedicated to DEI, conference speakers introduced a series of less politically charged terms to express similar concepts, including “belonging,” “culturally relevant pedagogy,” “culturally responsive pedagogy,” “culturally sustaining pedagogy,” and “first gen.”
At least one conference speaker referred to Hispanics using the pseudo-phrase “Latinx.”
Both NASPA’s national organization and the conference planning committees contained explicit ties to Texas institutions.
Darby Roberts, Texas A&M’s director of student affairs, and Juan Guardia, Texas A&M-San Antonio’s vice president for student affairs, are both members of NASPA’s board of directors.
Guardia also spoke on a plenary panel titled “From Insight to Impact: Data, Equity, and Institutional Change for Student Success.”
Clarissa Martinez, UT-San Antonio’s assistant dean for student success, and Daniel Ramirez-Escobedo, who holds a similar position in UT-San Antonio’s College of Sciences, were members of a leadership committee entitled “Dismantling Systemic Barriers to Student Success.”
Liliana Gomez, assistant director of undergraduate research at UT-San Antonio, was a member of a similar committee titled “First Generation Student Success.”
In addition, while there is no evidence he participated in this conference, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Vice President and Chief Experience Officer Jody Randall has previously been a member of NASPA’s “Gender and Sexuality Knowledge Community.”
Texas Scorecard observed conference attendees wearing branded clothing from UT-Austin and Texas Tech but was unable to confirm that they were employees of these respective institutions.
Texas Scorecard has asked for the number of employees that attended the conference from various state institutions, but that information will not be available until employees submit their reimbursements.
If you are a student, parent, faculty member, or concerned citizen who would like to partner with us to promote transparency in taxpayer-subsidized higher education, please email scorecardtips@protonmail.com.
