Dive Brief:
- Amid campus controversies involving racism and national protests over the killing of black men by white police officers, campus diversity officers sat down to strategize a path forward.
- Members of the National Association of Diversity Officers discussed ways to make students of diverse backgrounds interact on campus, to support students in activism following hate-based incidents, and to bring white men into the conversation, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
- Diversity officers agree that teaching students to respect each other’s differences is a critical goal and that people from all sides of the campus community must engage in dialogue to achieve success.
Dive Insight:
When students coming from homogenous communities end up as part of a heterogeneous campus environment, sparks are bound to fly. The job of campus diversity officers is to help facilitate understanding and promote dialogue on a range of topics wrapped up in the idea of diversity. This year’s National Association of Diversity Officers conference comes at a time when many campuses are engaged in local and national conversations about racism. Student activists are fighting for accountability and inclusion. Now may be the perfect time to capitalize on that momentum and implement new campus initiatives or discussion series to keep the conversation going and bring new faces to the table.