Director of Diversity finalists wants to establish diversity as a core value
Sapphire Cureg spoke to an open forum Thursday as one of three finalists for the open position of Director of Diversity Education at Central Michigan University.
Students and faculty members, as well as members from the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe, came out to see what Cureg speak at the Lake Huron room in the Bovee University Center.
Creug has previous high level positions in diversity at the Bluefield State College and Mercy College of Health Services, and most recently a position as the director of the center for inclusive excellent and adjunct instructor at Southern Illinois University.
The job of the director of diversity education consists of leading in the development and implementing of strategies to diversify and engage the community, as well as monitoring and evaluation progress in diversifying.
Cureg used many metaphors to express her vision of how she can improve the schools problems with diversity.
This included the idea of comparing the combined efforts of fighting racism to the idea of a standing ovation, the first set of people are right behind it, the second group stands to support the first group, and the third group is forced to stand due to not being able to see above the crowd.
Overall Cureg said she is very confident with the job and is fully prepared to handle all it has to offer.
"I've enjoyed what I have done it the past," Cureg said. "I hope to take what I have learned from other universities and share it with CMU."
Crueg's overall goals included taking initiatives on campus, enhancing and enriching the already existing strategic plan as well as adding her own new ideas.
"I want to emphasize support for all," Cureg said. "That includes minorities, international students, as well as the Caucasian students.
Her plans for immediate action is to look over all the data and speak with all the faculty heads to find the top concerns for the university involving diversity and solve them as quickly as possible.
Some audience members were in support of Cureg goals, including Elvira Shlyhova from the Multicultural Diversity and Education Counsel.
"She was a very good speaker, I loved her use of metaphors," said Shlyhova. "She had a strong connection with the audience."
Another audience memeber said Crueg seemed nervous at first, but by the end of the forum enjoyed what she had to say.
"It took awhile for her to warm up for me," said technology operations worker Kevin Daum. "However I appreciate her priorities to elevate diversity as a core value."
