Sharing the Dream: New to ECU, McKee wants to push students into careers where diversity is not prevalent

By Kelly Soderlund, The Daily Reflector

Sunday, July 31, 2005

With dreams of becoming a botanist, Sallye McKee was told by a college counselor not to major in biology, because she was a black woman.

Skipping a grade to enter Atlanta's Morris Brown College at 16 years old, McKee went to her adviser to declare her major.

"One of the ladies said to me, 'Now how many black people do you know, women do you know, that are doing this?' And I said, 'I don't know anybody,'" McKee said.

Case closed. Since she did so well in high school French, the counselor advised McKee to major in the foreign language. She did and graduated with a bachelor's degree in it and secondary education.

It was a discouraging feat for the woman who would eventually become East Carolina University's first assistant to the chancellor for institutional diversity.

Instead of deterring minority students and faculty from entering certain fields, McKee is trying to push them into the careers where diversity is not prevalent.

"There have been many times when students or junior faculty have shared their dreams with me that I've thought about that moment and I tried not to do what was done to me," McKee said. "I don't regret that I'm not a botanist. But I'm glad I had that experience, because it says to me that we have a responsibility to help people think about their dreams and to empower them to realistically achieve them and to always have a backup plan."

McKee, 56, is now trying to shape the dream of Chancellor Steve Ballard that ECU become the state's leader in diversity, which is why he created McKee's position. She has been charged with enhancing current diversity programs, building new ones, and strengthening community partnerships.

"Her charge is to be the chief adviser to the chancellor on diversity issues," said Vice Chancellor for Student Life Garrie Moore, who chaired the search committee that hired McKee. "Secondly, she is charged with the responsibility to design a diversity plan for the university that will interface with the local community as well as position the university for regional and national recognition."

McKee points to the AmeriCorps' Project HEART (High Expectations for At-Risk Teens) program, where ECU students tutor at-risk children in Pitt County schools, as something that's already working for the university. The university also identifies the Ledonia Wright Cultural Center, which serves as a facility for research, programming and is the site for the university's collection of Native American, African-American and African art, as a consistent force.

Authors, lecturers, media personalities, critics, politicians, artists and others travel to the center to speak to students.

Faculty have discussed the background of Greenville's emerging culture of violence, McKee said. Knowing that, McKee said she will reach out to the community sectors most troubled by the problem.

"One of the remarkable things about this challenge is that while it used to be that small places could avoid issues related to violence, no more," McKee said. "There are some universities where faculty and staff and students have developed ways of interacting that make the community feel better about the fact that the university is in their community."

McKee's biggest challenge will be trying to raise ECU's ranking as the school in the University of North Carolina system with the second-lowest ratio between faculty and students of color. While almost 20 percent of ECU's student body are minorities, only 12 percent of faculty are.

"Our chancellor has challenged us to say, 'We're going to change this,'" McKee said.

McKee said she'll work hard to recruit faculty of color by marketing the university, Greenville and the region as an attractive and fun place to live. The pool of minorities who hold a doctorate or other terminal degree is not very large, she said.

"I think that Greenville and ECU and East Carolina have so much going for it that if we package it and market it, people will say it's one of the best kept secrets of the east," McKee said. "I think if we take our time and work with our strengths we'll be able to develop some new ways of thinking and doing that will help us attract that small pool of people that are interested in coming to work and teach in a good place."

McKee will also try and sweeten the deal for married couples looking for employment at ECU. Many people will not move to Greenville and take a job at ECU unless their significant other is guaranteed employment at the university, Moore said.

"We do that (now), but we need a good solid plan that will allow us to attract the brightest and best faculty we can get," Moore said.

McKee's duties are more than just achieving tangible goals. It's also her job to enforce a more diverse philosophical view at ECU.

"To me, diversity is all about difference and how we handle difference in positive ways and how we use our skills of conflict resolution around differences that are tough for us," McKee said. "Campus diversity is about how faculty and students build a social climate that's welcoming, that's respectful, that's civil around each other and around ideas. One of the great challenges for this office is to bring our best minds together to say, 'ECU is going to get it right in diversity.'"

McKee was hired in her position because she's gotten it right in her career, Moore said. ECU recruited her from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, where she served as the associate vice provost for urban and educational outreach.

"I love the people of Minnesota and, of course, I love the university; but it's just cold," McKee said.

She applied for the job at ECU to "get where it was warm" and because she knew Ballard while serving as vice provost for enrollment at Bowling Green State University. She met Moore in a leadership training program years before.

Though trading the frigid Minnesota winters for the mild temperatures of North Carolina was attractive in itself, McKee found that ECU's profile was what drove her to pursue the position.

"There are so many first generation students and I was a first generation student," McKee said. "The promise of America, I think, is that we take people like us, who are the first to go to college, and we help them make it a positive experience."

Raised in Smyrna, Ga., McKee later went to the University of Chicago and received a master's degree in elementary education. She met her husband Michael and they both attended the University of Minnesota, where McKee received a doctorate in educational psychology.

They have two adult daughters.

Even though she only started July 1, McKee has already set a yearlong goal for herself.

"My first benchmark is you can walk on campus and randomly say, 'What does diversity mean at ECU?' and one person would be able to say, 'It means I can take my leadership skills and work with all kinds of people. It means that I can celebrate being around all kinds of people. It means that I am willing to develop and understand how people see the world differently and use that understanding to make me a better person and a better leader.'"

Kelly Soderlund can be contacted at ksoderlund@coxnc.com and 329-9568.