Columns:: Symposium explores benefits of diversity in higher education

since 12/15/98

Columns::February 3, 2003

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Campus News

Symposium explores benefits of diversity in higher education

By Terrence Nowlin
tdnowlin@uga.edu

Michael Thurmond, Georgia’s labor commissioner, will be the keynote speaker at a day-long cultural diversity symposium

Michael Thurmond

organized by UGA’s Center for Humanities and Arts on Feb. 7. The symposium, titled “Cultural Diversity at the University of Georgia in the 21st Century,” will explore the educational and social benefits of cultural diversity in higher education and will examine how the university can make diversity a part of its character.
“Our target audience is really university faculty and administration, but we’re not excluding anyone,” says Betty Jean Craige, director of the center. “Our purpose is to brainstorm about steps we can take to make the university a truly more integrated institution and to look at how we can make it more hospitable to all races, genders and cultures.”
She emphasizes that the symposium participants are from a variety of backgrounds and says that the symposium grew from a suggestion made in 2001 by Charlayne Hunter-Gault when she was on campus celebrating the 40th anniversary of UGA’s racial integration. Hunter-Gault was one of the first two African Americans admitted to UGA and now heads CNN’s news bureau in South Africa.
Delmer Dunn, vice president for instruction, says the symposium can help stimulate a dialogue with faculty on the meaning of diversity and how it is related to the education of students.
The symposium will be held from 10 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. Feb. 7. Patricia Carmichael of J.P. Morgan Chase will deliver the luncheon address; Dunn will give opening and closing remarks.
Included in the schedule are two panel discussions, “What Is Cultural Diversity” and “UGA at the Crossroads.” The faculty members for these panels will be Rodney Bennett (institutional diversity), Lioba Moshi (African Studies), Han Park (Center for the Study of Global Issues), Eve Troutt-Powell (history), Jace Weaver (religion), Rob Shewfelt (food science and technology), Deryl Bailey (professional studies), Fausto Sarmiento (international education) and Karen Webb (admissions).

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