Racial bias incidents are stacking up.
NCC has implemented two new initiatives on campus this year to address challenges and difficulties with diversity and creating constructive dialogue on campus.
The new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Task Force is a campus initiative that is working to create a more inclusive campus community. The Working Across Differences Fund is a grant that is working to create and facilitate constructive dialogue in the campus community.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
In response to the discovery of racist material in the college’s archives, bias incident reports and the Black Student Association (BSA) forum last year, President Troy Hammond created a new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Task Force. The Task Force is meant to maintain and improve the college’s goal to “thrive as a diverse, inclusive, and globally engaged community,” as stated in the college’s Strategic Plan.
The Task Force will work to make change on campus in collaboration with certain campus groups, such as the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Bias Incident Response Team, the BSA working group and more.
Although the college may need to do more to advance the work of diversity, equity and inclusion on campus, the goal of the Task Force is not to just work on the demands of BSA. The goal of the Task Force is to determine what the needs of the students are, advance initiatives and hold people accountable.
There is a BSA working group that includes Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Multicultural Affairs Dorothy Pleas, Vice President for Student Affairs and Strategic Initiatives Kimberly Sluis and Assistant Vice President for External Affairs and Special Assistant to the President James Godo. It is separate from the Task Force.
“You can definitely tell that the school wants to make change because, even as an RA, they’ve been implementing (the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training) on us,” said Lorri Kucharski, ’21, resident assistant in Ward Hall.
President Hammond appointed both Pleas and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Stephen Caliendo to be the co-chairs of the Task Force. They advance some initiatives on campus but also start new ones.
According to Pleas, the goal is to “see what the needs are of the campus community based on the feedback from our campus forums, from focus groups and interviews … so that we can share what the needs are of underrepresented students, faculty and staff here at the college.”
The entire Task Force is made up of a mix of faculty and staff, and there are also three students who are a part of it, including BSA Co-President Izaiah Webb, ’20. “We really mean for it to be a group that equally provides input,” said Pleas.
Along with the new Task Force came the new diversity training module on Blackboard. According to Pleas, the module was “in the works” before the Task Force was created. The plan was to implement it this year anyway, so it is unrelated to the Task Force but coincides with its purpose. Pleas strongly urges all students to complete the training module as soon as possible. “People need to increase the capacity they have to learn about diversity issues on campus and how they can be an ally,” said Pleas.
The Task Force will also work with faculty, staff and advisers to remind students to complete the training module in the hopes that the entire campus population will be making positive change.
“I really want student feedback about the module and if (students) feel like it’s helpful (because it’s the first time we’re trying something like this),” said Pleas.
Including the online training module, Pleas will be implementing in-person trainings for first-year and transfer students. Pleas and her staff are currently working on putting out a climate survey on campus and are developing a race and ethnicity ally-based training program, similar to Cardinal Safe Zone for the LGBTQ+ community.
“It’s crucial that we actually create a more progressive mentality,” said BSA Co-President Alexis Reese, ’20.
Reese mentioned that it’s important to talk about these types of things in the classroom because it can change the culture to be more inclusive. “The culture of diversity and inclusivity needs to be reflected by what’s actually happening on campus,” said Reese.
She talked about how there are two things that everyone can do to make a change on campus: first, educate yourself, and second, actually do something. “It’s really hard to change something when you’re only learning about it and not actually seeking to change the structure of it,” said Reese.
At the beginning of the school year, a forum was held to inform the campus community about different initiatives that the Task Force will do. The forum also allowed people to give feedback to the Task Force about things that they still need to address.
Right now, the Task Force is focused mainly on race and ethnicity. “As time goes on, we’re going to widen that scope to other underrepresented groups,” said Pleas.
Working Across Differences
Other than addressing diversity on campus with the Task Force, the college is also working to have constructive dialogue on topics that are often controversial, political or relevant to people’s personal experiences.
Last year NCC was designated a Changemaker Campus by Ashoka U. This is the world’s largest community of changemakers and social entrepreneurs. Being a Changemaker Campus makes NCC “a community of leaders and institutions that work collectively to make social innovation and changemaking a new norm in higher education and beyond.”
NCC is one of 44 Changemaker Campuses among 10 countries, some other schools being Brown University and Cornell University.
NCC was selected by Ashoka U to receive the Working Across Differences Fund grant, supported by the Fetzer Institute, along with only five other institutions in the world, one other being Central Queensland University in Australia.
“The Working Across Differences Fund provides one-year grants to post-secondary institutions for creative and innovative campus-wide initiatives that accelerate the creation, development, and/or application of methodologies that build bridges across difference,” said Ashoka U.
Part of this initiative to have constructive dialogue is to host movie clubs on campus. The idea to start a movie club started in the Department of Education last year.
“The purpose of these movie clubs is to have a space for dialogue on campus where students, faculty and staff can all come together to discuss difficult topics related to race, class, gender, nationality, immigration and other topics,” said Assistant Professor of Education Jennifer Shah. Shah serves as a coordinator for the movie club, with the hopes of having two to three movie clubs this year.
“The purpose that we hope these movie clubs serve is for a third space for people from all over campus to get together and talk, share, relate and overall, begin to develop mutual understanding about other’s lived experiences.”
All students, staff and faculty are encouraged to attend the movie clubs as they are not associated with any classes. Free dinners will be served at all film screenings and dessert and dialogue will follow. Within the club, there are three teams in place: the Design Team, the Implementation Team and the Research Team.
“The Design Team is responsible for coming up with the format and agreements of the movie club while the Implementation Team is tasked with coming up with dialogue questions. The Research Team collects…data from participants after the movie clubs,” said Shah. The Design Team could make changes for next time.
Every movie presented will be chosen by the student organization that is co-hosting the event. Shah hopes to work with three different student organizations this year and to have them help implement and facilitate the movie club.
To get involved, students need to show up and participate. “I think having conversations … is super important and understanding one another because if you don’t talk about it then it’s always going to be a problem,” said Kucharski.
In addition, students can become a part of any of the movie club teams by reaching out to either Shah or the other lead person on the project, Assistant Director of Multicultural Affairs Stephania Rodriguez.
Students who participate in two or more movie clubs will be invited to participate in a focus group at the end of the year and will even receive a gift card for attending.
Campus initiatives have been jump-started this year. With continued acts of microaggressions and bias incidents occurring on campus, there is more to come in terms of addressing these problems.
