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May 9, 2005
Wagner thanks PCORE at year’s final meeting

BY Katherine Baust

The President’s Commission on Race and Ethnicity (PCORE) held its last meeting of the academic year on Monday, May 2, at 3 p.m. at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center.

Yerkes Director Stuart Zola opened the meeting by welcoming PCORE to Yerkes, and President Jim Wagner then addressed the group. Wagner said that it had been a very productive year for PCORE. First, he said, PCORE’s name change (the group previously was known as the President’s Commission on the Status of Minorities) was a positive move because it reflected a broader scope and was a departure from the word “status.”

Wagner also thanked the group for being a valued adviser to him and offered congratulations on the success of the Campus Climate Survey and its unusually high (39 percent) response rate. He then discussed the survey results, specifically mentioning that the community places a high value on diversity (75 percent).

Chair Chris Grey, senior assistant dean of admission and director of multicultural recruitment, said the two areas of the survey that drew the highest marks were value in diversity and organizational commitment. He added that all three president’s commissions would receive a report pertinent to the work each one does.

Grey moved on to the agenda items. Several changes to PCORE’s bylaws were voted on and unanimously passed. Grey said he was very pleased to receive 27 nominations for the commission’s four open positions but is still hoping to recruit an Asian faculty member to the group.

Juno Lawrence, chair of the student concerns committee, gave the only committee report. Lawrence said the committee would like to propose to Provost Earl Lewis that, each year, two or three Kenneth Cole fellows could work in the future office of the senior vice provost for community, diversity and institutional development, either as a paid intern or work-study student.

If you have a question or concern for PCORE, e-mail Grey at pcore@emory.edu.

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