Q: I work in the athletics department of a University that is a small, white liberal arts school. What strategies do you recommend for diversity and inclusion initiatives for our student-athletes, who are the most diverse group of students on campus? Thank you.

For a number of colleges and universities across the nation, the athletic department represents the most diverse group of students, staff, and administrators on campus. Athletics is sometimes touted as the “Front Porch” of the university, intimating that the student-athletes and their sport endeavors present a visual connection point for internal and external communities alike. The challenge for these (and all other athletic departments) is to not rest on obtaining the diversity that exists within the department, but to celebrate, value, and support the diverse individuals through active inclusion.

In the August DDNRC program, Returning to the (Virtual) Campus: Activism, Anti-racism, and Transforming Community, a participant asked a question which could not be answered during the session due to time. That question was:

What advice would you give an employer/recruiter coming onto campus and being able to engage and contribute to this work on campuses?

DDNRC leadership wanted to provide an opportunity for further dialogue on this subject and invited Kevin Grubb, Executive Director of the Career Center and Assistant Vice Provost for Professional Development at Villanova University, to offer insights on our blog.

by Donna Rich Kaplowitz, Ph.D., Co-Director, The Program on Intergroup Relations, The University of Michigan

The genesis for this video came years ago when I was advising a high school group called Students for Gender Equality while simultaneously teaching college students in dialogic community-based social justice courses. For many people, going home for Thanksgiving after nearly three months diving into issues of identity, power and privilege presented new and sometimes traumatic challenges. 

In case you missed Tuesday's webinar, we wanted to share some final takeaways and tools that Brighid Dwyer, our fabulous moderator and DDNRC's Vice Chair, summarized at the end of the session.

Here is our next Resource Roundup, answering four questions we received during our August and September webinars around the topics of freedom of speech, organizational DEI audits, reparations and more. 

During our August Webinar Returning to the (Virtual) Campus, we committed to responding to the additional questions that came in that we were not able to answer during the webinar. Here is the first response to the question: 

What do you think about Student Affairs Professionals supporting student activism and structures of utilizing Campus Engagement/Event Response Teams as a framework?

Authors: Ariella Robbins and Celina Alexander, Villanova University:

The short answer: We think using Campus Engagement/Event Response Teams as a framework is a really effective way to support student activism. Some of the benefits include being proactive in developing plans not only for how to respond as things arise, but also to build and support activism and work to create more inclusive and welcoming spaces. 

We were so thrilled to have such an amazing panel of speakers and a very engaged audience, during our August virtual event, Returning to the (Virtual) Campus: Activism, Anti-racism and Transforming Community. We received many more questions than we had time for in the Q&A. We have compiled some initial resources. Further, we are excited to share that we will be taking many of the questions and developing expanded responses through a series of blog posts with experts in higher ed.  Each post will dive into one question. We plan to release one post every couple of weeks throughout the fall. If you want to get updates about this content, follow us on Facebook and/or keep an eye on our website.

by Anna M. Yeakley, PhD

I was inspired to experiment with facilitating intergroup dialogues online, using Zoom, in early 2019, out of a desire to expand the reach and accessibility of intergroup dialogue.  However, like most of my colleagues, all I had known up to that point was in-person dialogue facilitation. And, also like most, I had a hard time imagining how many of the features of intergroup dialogue could work in an online format.  Yet I was intrigued and excited by the question, “what if?” and I knew that the only way for me to find out what was possible was to try it out for myself, with a live group of participants.