Running Head: INTERVIEW ANALYSIS PAPER

Interview Analysis Paper

Yasi Raouf
Seattle University
SDAD 5800: Dr. Allison Lau

This past summer, I returned to work in late August as our

departments budget for part-time advisors was limited. I perused over the
500 plus emails in my inbox and decided not to pay attention to most of
them as they didnt pertain to my work. Since we were in the tail end of
summer quarter, some days would be quite slow as far as student traffic in
the advising office. I finally decided to clean up my inbox and read through
the myriad exchange of complaints between faculty and administration
about their pay and contracts. I didnt have much historical context but the
arguments on the faculty side seemed convincing and I wasnt seeing much
response from administration. I had only seen a few emails which indicated
that faculty were abusing the All-Community College listserv and violating

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state ethics guidelines. I had heard murmurings that the new vice president
for human resources was also a lawyer and that people were somewhat
scared of him. This is what peaked my interest in interviewing Marshall
Sampson, Vice President of Human Resources and Legal Affairs. I wanted to
know him as a person and gain some insights into his perspective.
We started our interview by talking about Marshalls career in human
resources in the private sector and his transition to educational institutions.
At Green River, he oversees all the staff in human resources, staffing,
compliance, employee-labor relations, and compensation to name a few
functional areas. He also serves as the one coordinating the response to
when the school is faced with a lawsuit. Marshall deals strictly with employee
relations and any legal case regarding students follows the channels of
student affairs.
Our interview moved quickly to the implications of legal issues on
practice and I was excited that Marshall decided to share about a diversity
initiative at our institution. On opening day this past quarter, Green River
asked students to share about their experiences on campus and what they
feel could be improved. An overwhelming majority expressed their desire to
have more diversity in staff and faculty. There was also a feeling that cultural
consciousness was lacking in campus environments. Marshall shared that
while he wishes administration to readily respond to these challenges, as a
human resources officer, he is looking at it through the legal lens. In the late
1990s, the state was quite concerned about discrimination and whether

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hiring ads were seeking only a specific population. Washington state law,
initiative 200, make it clear that hiring cannot solely be targeted towards
diversity and proceeded to ban affirmative action in Initiative 200.

To

address the diversity question in hiring, Marshall said that the college sought
creative ways to attract employers.

He noted that through strategic

advertising, they have been able to attract a more diverse pool of candidates
that better represents the demographics of King county. The human
resources office at Green River hasnt been the only one instituting such
measures. In the late 1990s, the University of Washington had a similar idea
after Initiative 200 was constituted. Seeking to maintain and increase its
diverse pool of applicants, the school maintained its racial and ethnic
diversity by asking students to write about cultural awareness in their
personal statement. Tim Washburn, then executive director of admissions,
noted that "We continue to primarily be interested in racial diversity and
ethnic diversityBut we cannot do that any longer, so an alternative is
cultural awareness, and that is a much broader area than we've considered
in the past (Gorman, 2000). Cultural awareness is just one factor. Perhaps
the human resources office at Green River College hasnt gotten as strategic
and creative as University of Washington, but Marshall seemed to have taken
the issue seriously.
Of course diversity issues were a significant point of interest for me, as
I had prepared some quotes from case law on affirmative action to ask
Marshall. And Marshalls responses were affirming--that the law isnt always
the end-all be-all, and there are ways to apply the law but balance it with

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reality. But that is not to say that the law isnt helpful. As a matter of fact,
when it came to Title IX issues, Marshall spoke to a great extent about how
Title IX is a good example of how the system can come together. We can say
that the law provides a basis and then interpretation and meanings are left
to experience. Perhaps the law can at least provide a framework, however
flawed that framework may be. In order for the law to be applied on its basic
levels, we can say that individuals need to understand why such a law is in
place. To arrive at this understanding, one would need to gain knowledge,
investigate, and be able to consider multiple perspectives. I thought this is
the approach I should take in better understanding diversity issues for
myself. In a recent article posted on NPR about diversity at the workplace, I
was intrigued by Gene Dembys deeper analysis of diversity and inclusivity in
the workplace. He explains that:
Over the past few years, numerous editors have reached out to me
asking for help in finding writers and editors of colorI know they
mean well, but I am often appalled by the ease with which they shunt
the work of cultivating a bigger variety of voices onto others, and I get
the sense that for them, diversity is an end a box to check off
rather than a starting point from which a more integrated, textured
world is brought into being (Demby, 2015).
Perhaps it is when we want to move from superficiality of diversity to the depth of the issue-the
place of integration as Demby puts it- perhaps it is here that people feel uncomfortable. Maybe
this is why people feel threatened by affirmative action- fearing that their rights will be taken
away and discrimination will still be in place. Along with Demby, Ive been associated with
knowledge and labels that I dont really know much about. I often wondered what it really means
to be a person of color. As I started at Seattle University, I felt that there was overwhelming

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consensus by our community that someone like me is a person of color. So rightfully, I should
claim that label and use it to my advantage. Because, somehow, my experiences and my past
have been codified into the label of person of color. I was never really comfortable with it, and
I never claimed to be one explicitly. In my view, some reasons as to why one skin color has been
deemed superior or privileged has been historically a construction of the human mind- a
historical social construction. But if I were to say that, then, people would be upset because Im
disregarding years and years of racial oppression. But how could I explain that is not what I
mean at all and that as a matter of fact those are the things we need to talk about in moving
forward? So then I thought it would be best to identify as a person of color because if I dont I
would be going against a very clearly defined norm. And then I became hypersensitive. Should I
treat my white friends differently? Are their experiences less valid? And naturally I began to
profile people in my mind, validating non-white peoples experience more than the white person.
And hence I created a new kind of prejudice in my mind. Then it became even more complex
because it seemed like diversity had a very specific dimension in academia: there was no regard
for intellectual, social, emotional, or religious diversity. So then the person of color phenomenon
became an agenda I couldnt understand and we became so fixated on the term that there was no
room for re-definition or other perspectives. All of our definitions varied so much that we would
superficially pretend that varying definitions are ok by calling it dissonance.
I end this paper by the following quote. I think this quote best resonates just one of many steps I
could develop as a professional in the field of education:
Let neither (neither black or white race) think that the solution of so
vast a problem is a matter that exclusively concerns the other. Let
neither think that such a problem can either easily or immediately be
resolved. Let neither think that they can wait confidently for the
solution of this problem until the initiative has been taken, and the
favorable circumstances created, by agencies that stand outside the
orbit of their Faith. Let neither think that anything short of genuine

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love, extreme patience, true humility, consummate tact, sound

initiative, mature wisdom, and deliberate, persistent, and prayerful
effort, can succeed in blotting out the stain which this patent evil has
left on the fair name of their common country (Effendi, 1990).

References
Demby, Gene (2015, November 5). Diversity Is Rightly Criticized As An
Empty Buzzword. So
How Can We Make It Work? NPR. Retrieved from
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/11/05/453187130/diversit
y-is-rightly-criticized-as-an-empty-buzzword-so-how-can-we-make-itwork
Effendi, Shoghi (1990). The Advent of Divine Justice. US Bahai Publishing
Trust.
Gorman, S. (2000). After Affirmative Action. National Journal, 32(15), 1120.