Hello and welcome to the Creating Diverse and Inclusive Communities. This presentation is brought to you by Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy and Leadership. Our office serves as a multicultural hub for Temple University. My name is Nu'Rodney Prad and I currently serve as the director of student engagement for Institutional Diversity, Equity, Advocacy and Leadership. We invite you to stay connected by following us on all of the major platforms for social media by subscribing to @templediversity. 

A little bit more about our office is that we are located at 2026 North Broad Street, that's directly across from Johnson and Hardwick residence halls but also on the corner of Broad and Diamond Street. You can also follow us at any time and follow any of our updated information by visiting diversity.temple.edu. We can also be reached via phone at 215-204-7303 or you can simply send an email to ideal@temple.edu. These are just some of the ways that you can get in contact with the many of our staff members that work throughout our office. 

Let's take a moment now and talk about our team. Our team is much more expansive but I will speak solely to the student sector of IDEAL. We all report to an Assistant Vice President. Underneath this vice president is my role as a Director of Student Engagement. I work with a very collaborative team that starts with graduate externs, there's a graduate extern for gender and sexuality inclusion. This person oversees all of the LGBTQIA+ components for our campus. 

I also work with a graduate extern of marketing and communication, this individual helps with all of the illustrations, the marketing and the promotions of any programs and events that are hosted through our office and next is the Safe Zone coordinator. Safe Zone is a very distinct type of educational program in which we teach individuals about being an advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community. It is a five-hour accreditation and we not only offer it to students on campus but it is also an accredited program for our staff and faculty as well. 

And last but not least are the Diversity Peers. The Diversity Peers are student leaders within our office that are appointed on an annual basis and they have a great influence on the different types of programming that is facilitated throughout our office space. 

So, now that you have learned a little bit about who we are, think for a moment about diversity at Temple. What is your general understanding of the term diversity? You probably gave up a little bit, right? Diversity in general means the differences. It is the differences that we all encapsulate and hold which could refer to our different race, our different sexual orientations, could be gender, it could be economics and socioeconomic status. It could be our political affiliation.

In essence, diversity simply means those differences that we all hold in order to make a more collaborative and very cultured community in general. Think about Temple University for instance. We not only have one type of individual that is represented. We have various types of races, various ethnicities, various statuses of students, could be veteran status, et cetera et cetera. This encapsulates who we are as an institution. There is a distinct difference between being a diverse campus and an inclusive campus. Inclusivity or inclusion as you may be well-familiar with is whenever we foster the notion of diversity that is in place, we provide various levels of resources in order to sustain and promote retention. 

Now lets talk for a second about the different resources. I just spoke to you about what diversity and inclusion is. Let's now share some of the things that we do to foster these elements on campus. First, we have very general programming. This is the Diversity Peer program that I have spoken about previously. We promote student advocacy for our students on campus that may feel one or more of their identities may have been given a bias and/or if they need different help and assistance in navigating campus in general. We have dialogue series, support for LGBTQIA+ and just in case you don't understand what those acronyms means, or those letters within the acronyms mean, it stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual. The plus is indicative to recognize that there are various other identities at play as well. 

We also provide diversity and inclusion workshops and consultations for our students. So, now you might be a little bit curious about what type of programming occurs. An example of some of the programming you will see on campus is Cultural Unity Week, National Coming Out Week, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. awareness programming, Lavender Graduation, a Rite of Passage Ceremony and the Global X Learning trip. The Global X Learning trip I will take a moment to highlight a little bit deeper in that it provides an expansive knowledge about understanding social justice, inclusion and diversity within society. We interview various students, but ultimately take around 12 to 14 students each year to South Africa in order to explore how methods of the apartheid connects to various types of systems that may be present within our society as well. Students from this trip in turn will then present at our annual inclusive leadership conference. 

So, we approach this as a very 360 development for our students on campus. I will now speak for a moment about the Brave Spaces that we promote. All of our programming that you have heard from, in general, creates what is called a Brave Space. Through a Brave Space we encourage authentic exchange, a level of open mindedness, being able to respect others, levels of cultural humility and levels of cultural awareness. Through this different types of training we believe that a Brave Space will create a various mechanism of change that is differently seen than creating a general safe space on campus. I would now like to introduce you to some of our student leaders on campus. You've heard a lot from me, from the administrative side. I would now like to share some of our students' experiences in order to facilitate a dialogue between some of their own experiences and I'll start off by asking each student to introduce themselves first.

- [Wendy] Hi everyone, my name is Wendy Lam. My pronouns are she/her/hers and I am a sophomore public relations major.

- [Kayla] Hello everybody, my name is Kayla Harnett. My pronouns are she/her/hers and I'm a junior political science major.

- [Tommy] Hey y'all, my name is Tommy Lucado, I am a junior music therapy major and my pronouns are he/him/his.

- [Nu'Rodney] Thank you, thank you and thank you for being here today. Each of these students that have introduced themselves are diversity peers within our office. Again, these are student leaders that do a lot of the programming and behind-the-scenes work that make it possible for us to accentuate various levels of diversity. The first question that I have for them is, please share with us, what do you think Temple is doing great when it comes to diversity and inclusion? Feel free to speak in any order.

- [Wendy] All right, so, . I feel as though Temple does a fantastic job of exposing you, students, residents, to people of all different walks of life, there are people, all ages getting degrees, people from North Philly, that very community that Temple campus is on. There are first generation students as well as international students that walk on campus as well. You name it and at the end of your career, it's inevitable that you meet people that are bound to mold you into your best self, so.

- [Tommy] Temple also has a lot of great spaces for LBGTQ folks, for folks of color. There are many different student orgs, there's the Queer Student Union, there's the disability resource center offers a lot of resources for students with disabilities. So there are a lot of great spaces and support systems for folks to take advantage of.

- [Kayla] I would definitely agree, as a black student myself who also identifies as a lesbian, I've found that Temple has offered a numerous amount of resources to get to know other queer people, to get to know other people of color whether that be Black Student Union or like as mentioned previously, the Queer Student Union. Even queer people of color, all of these organizations have been really beneficial to my growth as a woman of color and as a student and I also really, really, appreciate the fact that the Office of IDEAL even exists because it's such a valid and poignant resource for all of the people who are facing in their difficulties around kind of feeling included on campus but also who just want a safe space to come and feel safe in their identities.

- [Nu'Rodney] Okay, I appreciate that y'all and I appreciate your candidness, you know, very honest answers. So, now, we spoke about the great things that you feel about Temple University that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside but can we highlight for a second, what are some of the things that you feel Temple can do just a tad bit better as it pertains to diversity and inclusion?

- [Wendy] I have two things that Temple could definitely improve on. I feel as though making a mandatory diversity inclusivity module in addition to the sexual assault and alcohol education modules for all incoming freshmen would be really beneficial. And on top of that, an incorporation of IDEAL workshops for all race and diversity Gen Ed courses because there are a varying number of professors that are teaching that course but I feel as though IDEAL having workshops would also benefit them and further emphasize the importance of race and diversity.

- [Kayla] Yeah, I would definitely agree with that assessment. I also think that they can just do a better job kind of integrating, you know, the groups that form within the student body. So like, people of African American descent tend to hang out together, people of white ethnic backgrounds tend to hang out together and I feel like there should be more instances in which these people who may have come from suburban backgrounds or may have come from the Philadelphia streets are able to kind of get to know each other and they're able to kind of see each other's point of views and I think it's really important, again, like one-dimensions to have modules to kind of help understanding between people from different backgrounds.

- [Nu'Rodney] Any other--

- [Tommy] Yeah, I agree with both of those points. I think as students we get so ingrained in our colleges within the university. I think an opportunity, whether that's through modules or through other methods of encouraging students to interact and, you know, to take advantage of the things that IDEAL offers, the programming so that students can hear diverse experiences. I think Wendy said before, you know you have the opportunity to meet so many people from so many different backgrounds, it's really great when we get to come together and have those dialogues and learn from one another.

- [Nu'Rodney] Thank you all again for that and last but not least, if there was one point of advice that you would like to give to students or incoming students as it pertains to diversity and inclusion and just identity in general, what would you give to 'em? What would you say to 'em?

- [Wendy] I would say that Temple is flooded with opportunities. It's simply up to you to go after them. So, there are leadership opportunities, opportunities for new relationships with anybody that you meet, hobbies and things of that nature. So, talk to that new person, join that club, try that new food truck, it all starts with you.

- [Kayla] Yeah, I would definitely have to second that. I think I would really emphasize getting involved on campus. I think the more connections you have with different student organizations, with different members of faculty within your respective major, the better off you are and I just would really advocate for getting involved and meeting as many new people as you possibly can.

- [Tommy] I'd also say be open minded. We all come from different backgrounds and have different experiences that shape the way we see the world and how we see other people. Being mindful of that and being open, you don't know where somebody else's background comes from or you know, just being open minded to people that are around you and make use of your resources. College can be tough, it can be hard acclimating to a new place, a new living situation, a new university and education system. Make use of your resources, take advantage of Tuttleman Counseling, take advantage of student orgs that you have interest in or that people who share your identity, pool your resources and use what's available to you so have that support and just thrive.

- [Nu'Rodney] All right, well, thank you so much Wendy, Kayla and Tommy for your wonderful works and encouragement on this panel and we definitely appreciate your candor today and being able to speak and , excuse me, eloquently answer those questions that were provided to you. I want to just welcome you all again to the campus. We look forward to definitely working with you. Wendy alluded to creating some type of a seminar and/or module for our students. 

Fortunately enough, our office presents to all incoming students, first year students, at the university whenever they come through new student orientation. So you will have an opportunity to see us again in the fall semester in order to speak to you a little bit deeper about what is actually diversity and inclusion and how the change starts with you as well. We look forward to seeing you for the many opportunities and programs that we have on campus.

If you ever have any type of questions, you can always email IDEAL at ideal@temple.edu or my personal email is nprad@temple.edu. Thank you so much and have a wonderful day and again, congratulations and welcome to the Temple family.