New diversity program comes to WMU

By Carly Kuppe
Western Herald

Western Michigan University has launched a program that aims to bring university employees together to explore diversity and inclusion.

Everyone Counts is a professional development opportunity open to all part-time and full-time employees. There is room for 36 to 48 people to participate in the inaugural year, which will run between February and December 2010, according to Andrea Beach, director of Faculty Development.

“There has been a wonderful and enthusiastic response to the program, from both faculty and staff,” Beach wrote in an e-mail. “They are expressing to us what a unique and important opportunity they feel this is.”

Everyone Counts is based on the “learning community” model, a method of promoting personal and institutional transformation, according to a press release.  It seeks to equip all levels of employees with skills needed to respond to WMU’s increasingly diverse campus.

“Teachers and staff will gain a better understanding of issues of diversity and multiculturalism as they relate to teachers’ particular disciplines and staff members’ areas of work, but also as they pertain to the whole community at WMU: students, faculty and staff,” Beach wrote.

“This program has a definite expectation that each participant will create a ‘product,’” Beach added. “For example, a revised course or learning experiences in courses, professional development programs for colleagues, [and] co-curricular programs for students.”

Each participant will apply what he or she learns to a project they chose to develop, Beach wrote. The project can focus on WMU, but can also extend into the Kalamazoo community.

Program participants will be assigned to small learning communities of eight to 12 members, according to the news release. Different materials such as biographical information and a supervisor’s letter of support are being requested of each applicant to ensure diverse groups.

The groups will meet twice a month to discuss literature on diversity, listen to guest speakers, attend workshops and conferences, and talk about different challenges and opportunities they are faced with.

“The theme of this year will be race, since we have such a great opportunity with the Kalamazoo Race Exhibit here in fall of 2010,” Beach wrote. “Other years will have different themes; we expect this to be a permanent program that runs every year.”

“Everyone Counts also works to build community amongst and between faculty and staff which are often polarized communities,” Zarinah El-Amin Naeem, Race Exhibit Coordinator, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, wrote in an email.  “We’ve heard from both groups that connecting across campus is one of the major draws to the program.”

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Office of Faculty Development are overseeing the project, which is being co-directed by Beach and El-Amin Naeem.

For more information about Everyone Counts, visit their Web site .

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=12690

Posted by HeraldAdmin on Nov 29 2009. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
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