Diversity Audit DeVry University Kinect Orlando

The diversity study will examine a localized organization within DeVry University. There have been perceptions by many of the employees in this organization that there has been blatant reverse discrimination by the management, who at the time were African American. The situation has changed considerably as this organization has grown, however the events of a couple of years ago are worth a closer examination.

DeVry University’s new online student enrollment is handled by their Kinect Division. This organization has over five hundred employees located mainly in the Chicago area and a remote center in Orlando constituting nearly one hundred employees. There are current plans to add an addition four hundred enrollment advisors in DeVry’s new building located in downtown Chicago. . This paper will discuss the challenges which the Orlando location has experienced. Currently the Orlando location consists of nearly ninety Admissions Representatives, seven Assistant Directors of Admissions (front line management running teams of approximately ten representatives apiece), three Directors of Admissions and one Senior Director of Admissions. The site also has a support staff of six, however, they will not be considered in this paper due to the negligible impact this team has upon the subjects being discussed.

The responsibilities of the admissions advisors are vast and varied, perhaps the best summarization is that the admissions representative respond to requests for information we receive on a daily basis and help the potential applicants determine if DeVry University has a program that will assist them in reaching their goals, and to determine if the student is an ideal candidate for admissions to the university. The job can be quite monotonous while at times being quite rewarding knowing that you play a large part in helping some people make a positive change in their lives.

The Orlando location opened in January of 2009. At that time there were ten admissions representatives hired. It was stated by the Human Resources Generalist, at the time, that he had reviewed nearly a thousand resumes to select these ten individuals. Our backgrounds were varied but the majority had extensive sales experience. This was important because the job was basically a sales position. The ethnicity of this group was eight Caucasians and two African Americans. During the first two months that the office was operational, the leads, aka inquiries, that were called upon were old leads that had already been worked by the Chicago offices. Basically these leads were recycled. The thought was that they did not want to waste good and viable leads on a location that was still learning how to do the job. Remarkably, the Orlando office broke all the sales records for a team of new employees. Out of the old leads, the team was able to recruit nearly 100 applicants for the university during the first eight week period they were in operation. This is the amount which is expected of tenured teams in Chicago. The Orlando location was visited by the Vice President of Online Admissions and had the attention of Daniel Hamburger, DeVry Inc.’s president. The leadership was credited for finding the best possible talent to open this office and instilling a culture of hard work. The leadership in Orlando at the time was a Dean and a Director of Admissions. Both of these individuals had been with the company for many years and the Director of Admissions actually started out as a secretary on one of DeVry’s campuses. She had since worked her way up and earned her MBA as well. Both of these individuals are also African American and are truly success stories of what can be accomplished through determination and hard work.

After a couple of months, a second team of representatives were hired. The Human Resource Generalist had much less discretion in the hiring of this group of individuals. For this group, the Dean and Director decided that utilize group interviews to as an initial round of the interviewing process. At these group interviews, each individual was required to stand and introduce themselves to the group, and explain why they wanted to work at DeVry. Then the Director, and/or Dean, would choose a number of individuals that they liked to come in for personal interviews with themselves. This group that was hired was African American for the most part.

I have chosen to study the Orlando organization because I have been a part of it since the first day it opened for business. I have seen the “ups and downs” and the many challenges it has faced, including issues of perceived reverse discrimination. In particular, when production was going well, only African Americans were being hired, and then when production bottomed out, they would then go back to hiring Whites and Hispanics. Much of these perceptions have died down considerably, however, an examination of what brought these perceptions about could be quite insightful.

In order to conduct this study I plan on scrutinizing DeVry Inc.’s diversity policy and compare it to the actions taken at the Orlando Center. I have not been able to locate it yet online, but I have contacted Human Resources Generalist who hired me and he has promised to email it to me within the week. I have also set up an interview with this individual (who has since moved on to faculty recruiting) to determine what parameters were in place while he recruited admissions representatives, why he left the department (it is common knowledge that this was due to orders him to change or add certain requirements by the local management), interview with the current HR Generalist, And if possible, gain the production numbers of this department during those challenging times. Getting these numbers may be difficult due to new corporate policies that numbers are no longer to be discussed (moving away from a “sales based” model, to more of a customer service), and resistance from the local management to discuss this subject due to the past problems (the same management team is still in place).

As mentioned above, an interview has already been set up with the former HR Generalist and tomorrow I will stop by the current HR generalist’s office to set up a time this week to interview her about the role diversity plays in the current hiring process. I am still in the process of “feeling out” the management to determine who would be willing to assist me with getting the production numbers for the past three years.

It is my belief that this audit would be insightful in understanding what brought about those feelings of reverse discrimination, whether they are based in fact or imagination, and what can be done to prevent the same issues arising in other organizations while still maintaining a diverse workforce.

DIVERSITY POLICY
In accordance with DeVry’s University’s Mission Statement, we are a diverse college community of life long learners committed to promoting the acceptance and respect of individual differences that are inherent in our college. Through standards of conduct and diversity training we seek an environment that will ensure the success, well-being and safety of our entire
DeVry community,
Therefore, it is our position to empower everyone at DeVry to be responsible for each other and to actively uphold the standards of conduct as defined in the student and employee handbooks. We support fair, equal and nondiscriminatory treatment as a responsibility of all members of our DeVry community. IN SUPPORT OF THIS STATEMENT
Students, faulty and staff and all other members of the DeVry community are expected to respect diversity, which includes but is not limited to age, disability, gender, marital status, national origin, race, religion, and sexual orientation. Students engaging in discriminatory behavior will be subject to the consequences established in the Student Code of Conduct. Student grievances involving charges of discrimination and sexual harassment should be taken to the Dean of Student Affairs.
Any faculty, staff or other members of the DeVry community engaging in discriminatory behavior will be subject to the consequences established in the
DeVry Employee Handbook. Faculty, staff and other members of the DeVry community with grievances involving charges of discrimination and sexual harassment should take them to the Human Resources Department or directly to the President’s Office. (DeVry University, 2007)