Lectures, discussions and other events focused on diversity will get their own home at Franklin College.
A multicultural lounge has been in the school’s student center for years, with amenities such as a kitchen and computer. This spring, that lounge will be renovated into a cultural center.
Having a cultural center will allow most of the school’s diversity programming to happen in one place, said Terri L. Roberts-Leonard, director of diversity and inclusion.
“It will provide an area to expand the resources we currently have,” she said.
The office of diversity and inclusion offers students and faculty programs that highlight and promote diversity.
For example, faculty members can attend discussion series to learn more about the facets of diversity. Students can join programs that give them minority mentors in the community or attend a convocation series about trending topics in diversity.
Those activities typically have to happen where there is space at the college, Roberts-Leonard said.
“We have stuff wherever we could get a room,” she said.
The cultural center will offer one main area where the diversity and inclusion office can offer all of their programming, she said.
Roberts-Leonard sees the center as a place where students can have academic study tables or get together, she said.
While some larger schools have a multicultural building, having a cultural center shows that college officials value diversity issues, she said.
“It shows a visible commitment to our core values,” she said. “This is a tangible way to show that.”
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A Franklin College staff member has won an award for championing diversity.
Terri Roberts-Leonard, Franklin College’s director of diversity and inclusion, has been chosen as a 2017 Champion of Diversity award honoree by the Indiana Minority Business Magazine.
The award is presented to individuals or companies that have transcended racial and/or gender barriers, exemplified the essence of diversity through outreach efforts and programs, and served as a defender of inclusiveness, according to a news release from the college.
Roberts-Leonard plans diversity programs at the school and is the organizer of the school’s Martin Luther King Jr. celebrations.
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