The university Committees on Diversity have undergone changes in an effort to create a more centralized coordination of Iowa State’s diversity responsibilities.

A new plan, approved by President Geoffroy, calls for the diversity workload to be balanced between two newly created committees.

An executive steering committee, made up of the executive vice president and provost, the vice president of business and finance, the vice president of student affairs and the director of equal opportunity and diversity, will guide the overall efforts in diversity.

“‘Steering Committee’ really is the right word because they are not doing the planning and they are not doing the coordination. They can look at these things from their perspective and determine how things are going,” said Susan Carlson, associate provost for faculty advancement and diversity and chairwoman of the steering committee.

In the past, the members of the committee have retained communication between each other, but it wasn’t during an official committee meeting. “It’s formalizing something that was already going on informally, but not as often as we would like,” Carlson said.

Carla Espinoza, associate vice president of human resource services and director of equal opportunity and diversity, will chair the executive steering committee. Espinoza served as the chairwoman of the president’s advisory committee before it was replaced with the new plan.

“There were very committed people on that committee. There was so much enthusiasm with that group that you really didn’t want to stifle that, but it seemed as though there was delay upon delay upon delay,” Espinoza said. “I think people got tired of waiting for action.”

Espinoza said she will work closely with Carlson and her committee to make sure there is a good flow of communication between the committees and other groups on campus.

“Between the two of us, we can get the resources to the right places, or at least, communicate commitment for them,” Espinoza said.

The Advisory Committee for Diversity Program Planning & Coordination, with representatives from programs with interests in diversity, replaces the President’s Advisory Committee on Diversity. It will focus on developing ways to synchronize the efforts in diversity, and to close the gap between the different groups on campus.

“They will be able to take the discussions back to the unit that they represent, and that was an important detail we didn’t have in the President’s Advisory Committee,” Carlson said.

Though many diversity events occur on campus, the lack of communication between diversity committees caused problems. Carlson said the events sometimes had to compete for audiences.

“While there has been an increasing number of high-quality programs and initiatives all over campus on diversity, several of us felt we were not coordinating enough of what was going on,” Carlson said.

Carlson said the new plan will allow the diversity committees to better respond to the Implementation Plan for Community, Equity and Diversity, the plan outlines the university’s goals in diversity.

“The new committees are giving a home to all of the implementation that has been going on,” Carlson said.