RIT recognized for diversity initiatives

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Elizabeth Lamark/RIT Production Services

MOCHA, the Men of Color, Honor and Ambition program, is just one of many successful initiatives led by RIT’s Division for Diversity and Inclusion. Young men from the first class of the program pose with Kevin McDonald, vice president for diversity and inclusion (front row, right). The division was recently awarded the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine for its efforts to promote diversity and pluralism on campus and in the Rochester community.

Rochester Institute of Technology’s Division for Diversity and Inclusion received the 2014 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine. RIT was selected based on its diversity and inclusion initiatives, and ability to embrace a broad definition of diversity on the campus. This is the first time RIT has been named as a HEED Award recipient.

A national honor recognizing U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion, RIT’s Division for Diversity and Inclusion will be featured along with the other recipients in INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine’s November 2014 issue. The magazine is the oldest and largest diversity-focused publication in higher education.

“We are honored to have received this level of recognition,” said Kevin McDonald, vice president and associate provost for diversity and inclusion at RIT. “This award affirms the groundswell of organizational support for diversity and inclusion and RIT and the intentional efforts put forth by our Rochester and international campus communities to further its reach and impact.”

RIT’s Division for Diversity and Inclusion consists of the Multicultural Center for Academic Success, the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, the McNair Scholars Program, Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation, Future Stewards Program, Office for Faculty Recruitment and Retention, Higher Education Opportunity Program, TRiO Student Support Services, and the Office for Diversity and Inclusion.

The division’s key programs were noted in the award nomination as examples of how concepts of diversity and inclusion are incorporated into many aspects of campus life, and highlighted specifically its successful campus and community programming as well as its Inclusive Excellence Framework, a roadmap the university uses to incorporate diversity concepts into the institution’s recruiting, admissions and hiring processes; into its curriculum and co-curriculum; and into its administrative structures and practices.

Division highlights from this past year include:

• Developed MOCHA: Men of Color, Honor and Ambition, a year-long academic, professional, social and community service program for RIT’s young men of color to foster a sense of community and work with area role models.

• Saw its first class of Rochester City Scholars graduate

• Completed its 10th year of Partnerships in Pluralism

• Hosted more than 2,000 campus and community guests for the annual Expressions of Kings Legacy, a campus celebration of Rev. Martin Luther King’s life. Last year’s event featured NPR radio personality Tavis Smiley and highlighted the 50-year anniversary of the 1964 riots in Rochester, N.Y.

• Named for the sixth time as one of the “Top 200 Colleges for Native American students” by Winds of Change magazine.

• Celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Future Faculty Career Exploration Program, a national recruiting initiative to increase the number of diverse faculty being recruited, hired and retained at RIT.

• And this past summer, the division worked with the local YWCA to develop Person2Person, a community-based program matching Rochesterians from different ethnic backgrounds to build relationships for inter-personal understanding.

“We hope the HEED award serves as a way to honor those institutions of higher education that recognize the importance of diversity and inclusion as part of their everyday campus culture,” said Lenore Pearlstein, publisher of INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine.

For more information about the 2014 HEED award, go to the Insight into Diversity website.