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Today we met with the diversity council and had a
chance to focus very specifically on issues of
diversity and access and inclusion and how they
relate to our core educational mission. So, we had
a pretty wide ranging conversation today about
some of the challenges that we face when we think
about diversity and inclusion at JMU. One of the
issues was, for example, we talked about was the
criteria for hiring and tenure and promotion of
faculty or for hiring of staff and making sure that
those criteria reflect our values and the skills that
we really need in the twenty-first century. So, faculty
who know how to work with diverse students. Those
are things we value and need at JMU. We also talked
about the student experience at JMU when you come
from an under-represented background where there
may be a tendency to stay in pockets, if you will, of
groups that are historically under-represented in part
because it's really challenging to walk into an
environment like this and feel like you're just different
from everybody else. So that's something we clearly
need to work on, to make sure that students feel
welcome, that they feel that can be a part of all the
activities across campus, and that we can be very
intentional about how we bring people together across
different racial and ethnic and gender and other lines
to interact with each other in meaningful ways. That's
a responsibility that we have if we are going to be a
truly inclusive community. What I have learned over the
years is just how important it is for us to recognize how
diversity and excellence go hand-in-hand, how they fit
together and reinforce one another. That, in fact,
students and faculty and staff will learn more when they're
in a richly diverse environment. We want to make sure
that we provide a welcoming environment so that people
of all backgrounds feel that they can come here, they can
be successful, they can have a great career whether as a
student or as a faculty or staff member and that's our goal.
