Following last week’s campuswide diversity forum with administration and faculty, Monday’s Student Diversity Forum targeted student ideas and opinions as they relate to the diversity and excellence of the education provided by the university.
UW must provide a diverse and dynamic education in order to prepare students for a 21st-century economy, ASM Diversity Committee Chair Steven Olikara said.
Olikara emphasized the need for a campuswide diversity task force to reorganize and realign infrastructure to enable a centralized valuable resource for students and organizations to draw from.
Olikara described three main objectives for the diversity task force.
First, the task force would create a forum for student ideas and initiatives in order to engage students in deeper conversations about their college education on campus. Second, the task force would create an avenue for feedback from the administration, as well as a resource for campus programs to improve diversity within their organization. Lastly, the task force would seek to renew the messages of diversity on campus by updating language that has become ineffective and antiquated with this generation of students, Olikara said.
With these goals in mind, the task force aims to collaborate with students, administration and faculty, as well as provide input for initiatives like the implementation of inclusive excellence and the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates, in order to participate in campuswide engagement, Olikara said.
“We cannot have excellence without diversity — it’s a necessary prerequisite,” Hazel Symonette, a member of MCSC, said.
She described the importance of intertwining diversity with excellence and urged students to empower themselves and others to “walk the talk” of inclusive excellence.
Also present at the forum, Kevin Helmkamp, associate dean of students, explained the components of the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates and expressed the importance of student ideas and proposals to the Madison Initiative.
Currently, the Madison Initiative is in the process of generating ideas and proposals for consideration in the use of the initiative funds, he said.
Helmkamp urged students to get involved in addressing issues on campus as they relate to the future of the university.
“That is really, I think, in essence what the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates is all about, your future and the future of your university,” Helmkamp said.
Resonating with this ultimate goal of student involvement, students attending the diversity forum separated into “breakout sessions” to discuss student ideas and proposals regarding the Madison Initiative and inclusive excellence.
A key aspect of inclusive excellence is engaging in deeper conversations about diversity in higher education and what it means to our college education, Olikara said.
Olikara went on to say the diversity task force would seek to help implement and activate the vision of inclusive excellence on campus and act as a resource to facilitate and drive deeper conversation about diversity in higher education.
