‘Inclusion impacts everyone’: Eighth annual Diversity Symposium returns for 2023
Photo caption: Juniors, Lucas Sherman and Lorena Morgan, discuss surrounding universities' LGBTQ+ courses, in this April 27, 2022 file photo. The students spoke at the Office of Institutional and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion's seventh annual Diversity Symposium.
The eighth annual Diversity Symposium, organized in part by Nikita Murry and the Office for Institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, is coming to Bovee University Center on April 26 and 27.
Murry is the director of diversity education at Central Michigan University. She has been working with a committee to put together two days of programming at an event that has grown from a half-day affair in previous years.
She said this symposium is important because diversity applies to everyone personally, as well as academically.
“When we think about the topic of inclusion and equity, it looks in a lot of different ways and it’s relevant in a lot of different ways,” Murry said.
The first day, Wednesday, April 26, headlines a “Cost of Poverty” experience for the first 100 people who register. This program gives participants a look at life for a family living below the poverty line in the U.S.
The other featured event for that day is a keynote speech from Johnathan Metzel, called “Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland.”
The next day, Thursday, April 27, has a brunch event intended to teach attendees how to have meaningful and productive conversations.
The rest of these days are filled with speakers and activities geared towards different forms of diversity that students will see on and off campus, Murry said. That schedule is accessible at this link.
“The intended audience is the Great Lakes Bay Region,” she said. “Inclusion doesn’t stop with the physical campus.
Murry also noted this as the first time in several years that nothing will be available to stream online. She said Zoom fatigue is something students and staff are experiencing, and it’s important for attendees to be in the same space.
“(We’re) building on the energy of learning from each other,” Murry said.
