A newly appointed special assistant will create a plan to enhance diversity at the University of Toledo.

UT President Sharon Gaber announced Friday that she selected Willie McKether, associate dean in the College of Languages, Literature, and Social Sciences, to identify issues and make recommendations on recruiting and retaining minority students and faculty and ensuring UT offers an inclusive, welcoming community.

During the course of the assignment, which could take five months or longer, Mr. McKether will hold the title of special assistant to the president for diversity.

Ms. Gaber has promoted diversity efforts since she came to UT as a candidate for its presidency.

She assumed the role of president in July.

Since then, she’s met with campus groups and began to formulate her approach. She spoke to Mr. McKether this week about this specific assignment.

The work is especially timely as colleges grapple with diversity issues following high-profile, student-led protests over the handling of complaints about racism at the University of Missouri. Those protests resulted in the resignation of that system’s president earlier this week.

“I’ve heard from a lot of people ... that now is the time to act,” Ms. Gaber said. “Any university that doesn’t pay attention and isn’t clearly saying, ‘This is what we value and here are our actions,’ is remiss in not doing this.”

Mr. McKether, 54, holds a doctorate from Wayne State University in business anthropology and came to UT in 2006.

He serves as an adviser to UT’s Black Student Union, is president of Brothers on the Rise, a mentoring program he helped found that connects male black and Latino students to faculty and community members, and is a member of the Association of Black Faculty and Staff.

This summer, he helped direct the Multicultural Emerging Scholars Program, a new summer bridge program aimed at helping freshmen adjust to campus life so they succeed as students.

He’ll start his work by speaking to members of the campus community to understand the “culture of diversity” at UT.

“There have been these ongoing questions about why are we losing or why can we not retain faculty and staff of color at the university,” Mr. McKether said.

In fall of 2014, the most recent year with available data, 79 percent of UT’s 1,517 faculty were white, while 77 percent of the 4,074 staff were white. That year, the student body was 67 percent white, 12 percent black, and 4 percent Hispanic.

Mr. McKether will use campus perspectives, historical information, and statistics to create the plan.

“I look forward to the work because I know it’s going to help to move this university forward,” he said.

UT’s steps to address diversity were welcomed by Lance Price, Jr., a fourth-year student from Toledo and president of the Black Student Union.

More important, however, is real action.

“It’s good that they are actually getting aware ... [making] sure that nothing that happens in Missouri happens here. But at the same time, words are words,” he said.

Mr. Price said he’s not aware at UT of the pervasive complaints of racism that prompted the Missouri protests, but noted instances of racist messages posted to a social media site where UT students gather. White and black students also seem to self-segregate often, he said.

Ms. Gaber highlighted changes to boost resources for students.

UT’s multicultural student success office plans to hire two graduate students to provide academic support and mentoring for African-American, Latino, LGBTQA, and international students. That will double the number of graduate students currently working for the office.

The university is in the process of hiring an assistant dean for the office — a position conceived before the events in Missouri, said Meghan Cunningham, a UT spokesman. The office expansion’s cost will depend on salary negotiations.

Other universities have implemented a variety of measures to foster diversity. Bowling Green State University’s individual colleges developed plans a couple years ago to recruit and retain more faculty of color — a university-wide goal.

The President’s Advisory Council on Diversity and Inclusion at BGSU also created a survey, and work is under way to analyze results and finalize a report.

“We wanted to find out how welcome people felt in our community,” said Barbara Waddell, BGSU’s chief equity and diversity officer.

She described the university’s ongoing efforts as grassroots initiatives aimed at finding solutions “from the bottom up.”

“We think that’s the best way to approach diversity and inclusiveness,” she said.

Contact Vanessa McCray at: vmccray@theblade.com or 419-724-6065, or on Twitter @vanmccray.

First Published November 14, 2015, 5:00 a.m.