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From the Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Dear EMU community and friends,
In this season of new beginnings, we are especially grateful to start the new year with an open heart and mind. As actress Kristin Kreuk said, "Life is about change. Sometimes it's painful, sometimes it's beautiful, but most of the time it's both."
I can’t believe that I am close to reaching my second anniversary at EMU. I am full of gratitude for all your support. Together we have created new rituals and have advanced several DEI initiatives. In this newsletter, I am sharing some of our work last fall.
Communication and transparency is at the core of DEI work. I encourage you to check out our new DEI communication link on the DEI website.
Our goal with this newsletter is to keep you updated on DEI-related initiatives at EMU. If you (faculty, staff, or student) have any DEI-related news that we can include in the next newsletter, email the news (and photos, too) to dei@emu.edu. It can be a DEI initiative that you have started, a class assignment that advances any of our strategic priorities, a DEI event, or any other DEI- related news.
The DEI team looks forward to continuing to collaborate with all of you to strengthen our sense of belonging and create more equitable and just spaces.
Jacqueline (Jackie) N. Font-Guzmán, JD, PhD
Fall 2022 Events
The following events were sponsored by the Office of DEI.
Belonging Together Ice Cream Gathering: This event in August was an opportunity for faculty and staff to build community as we shared stories.
Celebrating our First Generation Students: The office of DEI teamed up with Student Life to host this breakfast in late August.
Belonging Together with Alumni and Parents: Participatory Dialogue with Jackie Font-Guzmán, VP for DEI. Alumni and parents participated in a conversation during Homecoming to promote a deeper community understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion at EMU. The conversation was co-facilitated with Adesola Johnson and Desmond Logan. Jackie shared updates, took questions, and received feedback to guide our next steps toward creating a campus where everyone feels they belong.
Infusing DEI in the Core Curriculum
The Office of DEI continues to collaborate with the Core Curriculum Committee to develop a 3-credit undergraduate course titled “Power, Systems, and Justice.” The required course will focus on race, gender, economic inequality, class, and other dimensions of identity and difference. Students will describe and analyze the ways structural inequality shapes their lives and the lives of those around them. The course identifies and builds skills for individuals to work toward equity in their own professional and personal lives. Students will have the opportunity to develop creative and ethical ways of strategically disrupting and transforming unjust systems.
The course will be piloted in fall 2024 and spring 2025, and fully launch for all students in fall 2025. We are thankful to the team joining us to design this course: professors Kirsten Beachy, Matt Tibbles, and Deanna Durham and Celeste Thomas, director of Multicultural Student Services.
Belonging and Becoming Together (BBT) New Faculty Mentoring Program
Mentoring and supporting faculty is a crucial component of retention and creating welcoming spaces. Based on best practices, EMU piloted a program in fall 2022 to mentor and support new faculty. This collaboration between our office and the provost is an interactive program that focuses on identifying DEI needs of newly hired faculty and how we can meet their DEI needs.
The BBT complements existing onboarding and mentoring activities at the human resources office and departmental level. The BBT consists of seven 1.5-hour group gatherings throughout the semester. In addition, faculty mentors are available to meet 1:1 with the new tenure-track faculty. This program was developed and delivered in collaboration with professors Steven Johnson, Violet Dutcher, and David Berry, and Ronda Rittenhouse, Provost’s Office. The team is currently looking into extending this program to new staff.
DEI Faculty Development
The Office of DEI together with EMU’s Center for Teaching and Learning created a program for faculty development centered around DEI and pedagogy for the 2022-23 academic calendar year. The program consists of two formats of storytelling during Tuesday Luncheons.
Story Potluck - At a traditional potluck, each guest or group contributes a different, often homemade, dish of food to be shared with the community. One must take a chance that whatever is available will prove to be good or acceptable. At a DEI-CTL Story Potluck, we share stories in small groups around tables- everyone brings a story. Through these stories, we will build relationships in general but also leave with a tangible outcome: strategy or technique to apply in the classroom, curricula, pedagogy, and/or relationships.
Emu Story Hour - The Emu Story Hour is designed like the Moth. Faculty can share teaching and learning stories with a theme of belonging. These can address the nature of teaching and learning, challenges, and success stories, among other possibilities.
EMU Land Acknowledgment
The EMU Land Acknowledgment recognizes the place where indigenous peoples have lived historically and continue to live today. It recognizes the importance of confronting the often-violent history that forced them from that land. These living words recognize the need for ongoing dialogue with tribal communities to acknowledge those harms and to seek further repair.
Check out DEI’s Resource and Communication pages
The DEI resource and communication pages continue to be a work in progress. Recent additions include a new resource for faculty, “Queerness in the EMU Classroom,” by two EMU students, and includes a form for faculty and staff to request a “Safe” sticker.
Kudos to Kathy Evans, Associate Professor of Education!
Kathy is the inaugural awardee of the DEI grant program, the Hertzler-Koshy Faculty Fellowship. This program supports faculty/student collaborations that will lead to more diverse curricula in the areas of race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, and gender. Kathy, in collaboration with students, will develop a SafeZone asynchronous online training course.
This grant has been made possible thanks to the generosity of Jose Koshy ‘76 and Jean Koshy-Hertzler ‘79.
Fall 2022 Inclusive Excellence DEI Grant awardees
In fall 2022, 13 Inclusive Excellence grants were awarded. These grants encourage collaboration among students, faculty, and staff to enhance DEI on campus. We encourage you to apply for the next grant cycle opening Feb. 6, 2023; the deadline is March 10, 2023.
Introducing New DEI Coordinator
Dawn Neil started on Nov. 1 as the new DEI Coordinator. Dawn is a '22 alum of EMU's MA in organizational leadership [program. She is featured in January 2023 in the spotlight for EMU's Graduate Business Program.
"I am excited to put into practice the things I learned with my MAOL degree, as well as taking my own life experiences and passion for change to EMU," Dawn said.
Dawn formerly worked at Dupont Community Credit Union for nine years. She worked mainly in the Harrisonburg community, getting to know the diverse group of people and cultures Harrisonburg has.
Dawn is married and has two teenage children. As a music lover, she has an eclectic taste, enjoying “everything from classical and pop to heavy metal." 30 Seconds to Mars and Nightbirde are two of her favorite artists. She enjoys watching TV shows with her family, including "Dr. Who," "The Witcher," "Stranger Things," and "RuPaul's Drag Race" to name a few. Additionally, she enjoys reading authors Laurel K Hamilton, Brené Brown, Kim Harrison, and Patricia Briggs.
Meet the our Inclusive Excellence Student Leaders
We are excited to announce that we have two amazing students working in the office of DEI. Here are three fun facts about each of them.
Desmone Logan, a graduate student in the MS in Biomedicine program, joined our office in fall 2022. She will graduate in May 2024.
Favorite Book: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Favorite Movie: "Perks of Being a Wallflower"
Fun Fact: She has watched four open-heart surgeries.
Adesola Johnson, a biochemistry (pre-med major, joined our office in fall 2021.
Favorite Book: Children of Blood and Bones or anything from the Harry Potter series.
Favorite TV show: "Blacklist"
Fun Fact: I have a mini obsession with lakes, sunrises, and sunsets.
