Melissa Watton

A webcast presentation by Richard Chavolla titled when tolerance and diversity aren't enough: building and sustaining a truly inclusive university is being offered on Wed, March 23, 2016 from 7 p.m.-9 p.m. in ED2018B

Presentation description

Around the world countries are experiencing enormous demographic shifts due to migration of people across national borders, the increase of racial and ethnic populations within countries, and the continuing growth in sovereignty and size of Indigenous communities across the globe. These ever emerging changes in the identity of any given country goes beyond race and ethnicity to all forms of empowerment in social identity including gender, sexuality, and religion.  Universities become a reflection of these assertions and challenges of lived identity.  In the earlier days of policy and practice, universities attempted to “manage diversity”, promoting tolerance for underrepresented groups that were entering the campus in greater numbers. Then an age of greater enlightenment took hold in many universities as higher education leaders saw the need and value of a campus that looked more like the world around them.  Recruitment initiatives came and numbers of underrepresented students increased.  But now, in the most progressive institutions, enrollment counts and the measure of statistics isn’t enough.  Many students and professionals at campuses in Canada have conveyed the message that every person attending or working at a university should feel included through the colleagues with which they work, the curriculum, the pedagogy, the research, the publications, the policies, and the historical symbols and implicit messages imbedded in the everyday life of the campus. This calls for a comprehensive approach that may at first assessment seem overwhelming. But this transformative enterprise can be taken on incrementally, democratically, and result in a tremendous sense of accomplishment. 

Richard Chavolla is one of the foremost educational consultants with a specialty in multiculturalism and diversity in higher education. As Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Students at Yale University, he founded and directed the Native American Cultural Center and directed the Latino Cultural Center.  At the American Council on Education he was Assistant Director of the Center for Advancement of Racial and Ethnic Equity and he directed the Center for Multicultural Education and Programs at New York University, including the development of the nationally recognized Intergroup Dialogue Program. He is also a delegate to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.