We also learned that, outside of certain minority communities, there appears to be a lack of knowledge about the University's de jure segregated past. Symbols remain from that segregated past that affect the quality of interaction today. For example, the African American students with whom we met made clear their resentment that Byrd stadium honors a former President of the University of Maryland noted for his belligerent stance against desegregation. Many on campus feel that the University's history of discrimination should be incorporated into curricular and training programs and activities and so be used as a valuable tool in our community building efforts.

The point was brought home to us that the campus, in order to create a community among its diverse population, must do more than end exclusionary recruitment practices; it must actively address the even more complex issues of educating us (in and out of the classrooms and our workplaces) to live with people of varying cultures and ethnicities. A university setting is a perfect environment for such a mission, of course.

The panel was struck, too, by the number of identity-based groups, committees, projects, and commissions on our campus. In examining this matter, and especially the published research considering the effects of campus identity-based groups on the climate at diverse institutions, we became convinced that such groups are essential for community building, and eventually even nourish relationships among diverse groups. This may seem counterintuitive, but the research is clear that a feeling that one is safe, psychologically as well as physically, is crucial to minority students' willingness to interact beyond the parameters of their own identity-based group, and that the most important elements that enhance psychological safety are the recruitment of increased numbers of minorities and the empowerment of minorities that comes from identity-based support systems.(2)

The members of the President's Diversity Panel, in recognizing the immense progress that the University has made, also discovered reasons for concern. The numbers of minority faculty that had been steadily increasing, have leveled off in the past four years. Of equal concern is the recent decline in enrollment of African American students within the past two years and Asian American students within the past five. Of course, this might simply be a statistical blip: enrollment of African American students has increased 20 percent in the five-year period 1994-1999; Latino students' enrollment increased 35 percent in the same period. Many people on our campus, including the Vice-Presidents, expressed concern to us that the campus was experiencing a loss of momentum in its recruitment of faculty and students of color and dated this either to the court decision in the Podberesky v. Kirwan (Banneker) case or to the University's possible overreaction to that decision, resulting in the halting of our most pro-active minority recruitment programs.

We also found that little effort has been taken to bring diverse groups together across boundaries of identity. We understand that this is a delicate issue because any effort to do so should not undermine the already existing identity-based groups. To the extent that the panelŐs proposals foster inter-group relationships, we have strived to protect intra-group activities at the same time.

As well, we conclude that the many programs that have been developed at Maryland in the past few decades are not well known to the University community. These programs would benefit from wider publicity, which might enhance their overall effectiveness. Thus, the panel suggests that existing programs should be reviewed for their effectiveness.

The panel discovered that crucial information about campus structures and life is lacking. For example, there has only been one survey of campus climate. Further, this study, done more than ten years ago was limited to African American faculty. Also, nobody seems to have a handle on the many existing diversity programs; instead we discovered both a lack of information, and a dearth of evaluation that would help us to know which are effective and perhaps ought to be expanded, and which are no longer effective and perhaps should be discontinued.