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For many years now, SIU has been very committed to work related to anti-racism, diversity, equity and inclusion (ADEI). We are pleased to share that this work was recently recognized in a national news report.
It has been about three years since the SIU Board of Trustees approved a values statement reflecting the SIU commitment to our ADEI efforts. While many on our campuses had been doing good work in this area well before that, that approval was an important demonstration of commitment from the top.
Since that time, there has been a lot of opposition to ADEI work across the country, but we have done our best to continue to live up to the goals in that values statement and remain strongly committed to advancing and expanding our ADEI work.
This has included holding ongoing conversations of understanding, organizing the higher education equity symposium, adopting ADEI tenure and promotion recommendations, focusing on student success efforts that have been supported by grants from the National Association of Higher Education Systems (NASH) and the Lumina Foundation, and many other activities.
This ADEI work brought us attention this past week from CNN. SIU was selected to be highlighted as the example of a higher education institution that has remained committed to ADEI efforts in an environment in which many are reluctant to discuss those efforts publicly.
Please take a few moments to watch the CNN report: https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2024/02/23/dei-college-backlash-athena-jones-vpx.cnn.
In 2021, we declared our goal to have SIU become a national model for ADEI initiatives. In addition to several national awards in the last few years, the CNN interview was another example of our growing national reputation related to ADEI. We are always happy to answer questions about the ADEI work across the SIU System. And, as we shared in the CNN interview, we believe that a focus on DEI anywhere in society usually helps everybody and that when we do this right, everybody wins.
On behalf of the leadership of the SIU System, we thank the SIU ADEI leaders and all of you for being an important partner in this work. To be clear, there is still a lot of work to do, but SIU would not have achieved what it has so far or received recognition for that work, if it were not for the outstanding commitment of so many of you.
If you would like to learn more about our SIU ADEI work, you can visit the SIU System's Anti-racism, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion website.
Sincerely,
Dan Mahony
SIU System President
Sheila Caldwell
SIU Vice President for Anti-racism, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Chief Diversity Officer
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