Students, faculty, staff and alumni gathered together Wednesday to offer suggestions to the President’s Council on Diversity & Inclusion for ways GW can improve and promote diversity on campus.
Some of the recommendations included increasing recruitment of diverse faculty and doctoral students, creating vendor relationships with minority- and women-owned businesses, giving more support to multicultural student groups and publications and creating a calendar of diversity events happening on campus. Other ideas included providing diversity leadership and mentoring training to all faculty and staff and holding an annual dinner for students who are the first in their family to attend college.
A second forum will be held on the Virginia Science and Technology Campus from 10 a.m. to noon Jan. 20 in Enterprise Hall, room 176.
“It’s really encouraging to see such a tremendous turnout. The fact that so many of you are taking time away from your day to be involved in this discussion bodes very well for what we’re trying to accomplish in continuing to make sure this is the best place to work in the greater Washington area and the best place to study,” said President Steven Knapp during the forum, which was held in the Marvin Center’s Grand Ballroom.
Dr. Knapp opened the forum by talking about Mayor Vincent Gray’s time as a student at GW in 1959. Not only could Mr. Gray, B.A. ’64, not be a member of a fraternity, but he could not play on the varsity basketball team.
“But since Mayor Gray’s time as a George Washington student, we’ve made some significant progress. The class of 2014 is the most diverse in the university’s history. We have an interfaith dinner, which was created by Jewish and Muslim students coming together in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. And we’ve made progress in other areas including gender neutral housing,” said Dr. Knapp. “But we certainly haven’t done all we can to make sure that the students who come here from all the various communities of which we draw have all the services and support mechanisms available to them to ensure they succeed when they arrive here.”
Dr. Knapp launched the diversity and inclusion initiative last year. The key components of the initiative include the establishment of the council and the creation of the position of vice provost for diversity and inclusion.
The council is composed of members representing the breadth of the university community. Its role is to generate ideas and formulate recommendations for increasing the university’s effectiveness in reaching out to persons of all backgrounds, and to provide advice and feedback to the associate provost for diversity and inclusion.
Fourteen council members were selected by Dr. Knapp in the spring along with two co-chairs: Gregory Squires, professor of sociology and public policy and public administration, and Helen Cannaday Saulny, associate vice president and dean of freshmen. The council also includes four working groups on the student and alumni experience, the faculty experience, the staff experience and the external GW community experience.
After the welcoming remarks and feedback from the audience, the forum attendees split up into the council’s four working groups to give specific recommendations for increasing diversity related to those populations.
A search is currently underway for a vice provost for diversity and inclusion, who will provide leadership on all aspects of educational and employment equity, access, cultural understanding and competency and human rights.