Student Senate met Wednesday to discuss diversity and inclusion with a presentation from Russell Morrow, interim assistant dean of diversity equity and inclusion for the College of Business.
In the presentation, Morrow presented information about how Ohio University promotes diversity, equity and inclusion through student and faculty engagement.
Student engagement within diversity and inclusion includes scholarship and mentoring programs, experiential learning, student organizations, career and professional development and community spaces.
Some community spaces include the Multicultural Center, located on the third floor of Baker Center; the Women’s Center, located on the fourth floor of Baker Center; and the LGBT Center, located on the third floor of Baker Center.
As for faculty engagement, the diversity and inclusion department offers faculty mentoring programs and affinity groups, inclusive partners and shared equity leadership groups.
“We have a mentoring program for new faculty who are coming in and we want to connect with older faculty, more experienced faculty sharing their personal identity, social identities,” Morrow said. “We create a community in which those different faculty come together through informal and formal learning topics.”
Updates within the diversity and inclusion department include working with the University of Southern California, which has a center for raising equity, to conduct a diversity audit. The audit will help the university assess its diversity, equity and inclusion climate on campus, Morrow said.
In Spring 2022, OU students, faculty, staff, administrators, alums and Athens community members were invited to a listening session to talk about their experiences related to diversity, equity and inclusion on campus.
The findings from the audit will be reported back by the end of the fall semester, and those at the Unvieristy of Southern California will give their recommendations on how to move forward.
Morrow said he hopes to roll out some of their recommendations and start supporting areas within the university that may need additional support.
Another update from Morrow included the expansion of the diversity leadership ambassador program, which allows students who are passionate about inclusivity on campus to become peer leaders to further support their peers’ educational opportunities, Morrow said.
The program is also responsible for a lot of the diversity and inclusion department recruitment and outreach.
“We're really excited to continue to figure out how we can elevate that program and leverage our students' passion and interests and experiences to help spread that across the entire campus,” Morrow said.
In addition to the presentation, the student senate passed several items of legislation that appointed new senators to the academic affairs, women’s affairs, environmental affairs and university life commissions, as well as two new executive staff members.
