A brief HISTORY OF STUDENT PROTEST at the University of Vermont.

1984 Spring

The faculty senate pledged agreement with affirmative action and diversity. It also requested the administration to impose sanctions on deans, chairpersons, and search committees that failed to recruit minority and women faculty members.

One outcome of the faculty deliberations was the Minority Incentives Program to subsidize departmental searches for minority faculty, providing up to $20,000 for advertising, travel, and other associated costs. While welcoming such a program, detractors call it tokenism. Professor Laura Fishman: "Notice, they are visiting scholars, blacks coming and going, but not staying."

The UVM Record headline reads: "Intense drive vowed to attract minorities to UVM community." President Lattie Coor in his remarks to the Faculty Senate on September 16, 1987 stated, "It is not acceptable not to have greater diversity within the ranks. We will commit financial support and enhance programs. We will not (merely) throw money at the problems, but will find the resources."

1988 20 March -- UVM Coalition Forms

Citing similar difficulties in dealing with the UVM administration, representatives and members of six UVM minority and women´s rights groups have come together in an unprecedented coalition effort. The participants in two recent meetings feel that ethnic minorities, women, and others excluded from the mainstream of University life need to form a "united front" to demand reforms from the UVM administration. The as-yet-unnamed coalition seeks to draw together the member´s of oppressed people´s groups including the Asian-American Student Union (AASU), the Black Student Union (BSU), the Cultural Connection, the Disabled Student Union (DSU), the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Alliance (GLBA), and the Women´s Organization and Resource Center (WORK).

1988 17 April -- Waterman Takeover

Students occupy UVM administration building demanding commitment to a larger minority presence on campus.

1988 22 April - Waterman Agreement Signed

Protest ends with President Lattie Coor´s agreeing to a timeline for hiring minority faculty and recruiting more minority students.

1988-89 -- Race & Culture Class developed, implemented on a limited basis

1989 27 December -- UVM President Lattie Coor resigns.

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