IUPUC commemorated the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with a panel discussion about what the city can do to be more inclusive.
Among the barriers to inclusiveness mentioned by a panel of speakers included racist flyers posted at Columbus East High School that targeted an African-American student several years ago, a young child expressing xenophobic sentiments to a Malaysian resident, Confederate flags on the back of pickup trucks, the challenges of growing up in the United States as an undocumented immigrant, among others.
About 80 people attended the event at the Columbus Learning Center, 4555 Central Ave. Panel members were Yodir Anahuati Cacho, a Cummins Inc. employee and a native of Mexico who came to Columbus when he was 2 years old; Wan Baba, a native of Malaysia who works for Ivy Tech Indianapolis and who is an IUPUC adjunct faculty member; and Columbus City Council members Elaine Hilber and Jerone Wood.
Baba, who has lived in Columbus for seven years, said she hoped the panel discussion raised awareness about different experiences that she and the other panelists have encountered.
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“My hope is that people who attended the session, they would go out and start having this conversation within themselves or with other people that look like them or with other people that look different than them,” Baba said. “… Awareness can lead to a wonderful discovery and can lead to a wonderful relationship that can create better inclusion and better ways of promoting diversity in communities like this.”
The panelists agreed they thought education and academic institutions play a crucial role in promoting diversity and inclusion.
“I think that a lot of racism is a lack of education and misunderstanding, and for me, I feel like diversity is very much a two-way street,” Hilber said. “When people have questions, if they’re open to asking those questions and trying to learn more and trying to understand more, it’s then also on us to be open and to be willing to answer those questions and willing to not be judgmental.”
Wood said he would like to see Columbus-area schools recruit more minority teachers, but also said he thought Columbus “is heading in a very good direction.”
“There are not a lot of minority teachers (in Columbus),” Wood said. “It’s not that (Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. officials) aren’t looking for minority teachers. …I think that as a community pushing that envelope to get more teachers and more people that want to teach. I believe is very important for our students to be taught by somebody who looks like them.”
At the end of the event, IUPUC Vice Chancellor and Dean Reinhold Hill awarded the IUPUC Excellence in Diversity Award to the Legado Spanish Immersion Academy at Clifty Creek Elementary School and Riah Coley, academic adviser and mentoring coordinator for students in transition at IUPUC.
Past winners have included the Latino-American Organization of Volunteers in Education (LOVE); the Heritage Fund, the Community Foundation of Bartholomew County for its “Welcoming Community Initiative;” Kevin Jones, business and leadership professor at IUPUC; and Su Casa Columbus, local a nonprofit organization helping Latinos.
Legado kindergarten teachers Greicy Patiño and Susan Peña accepted the award on behalf of the academy.
“I feel that it’s a way to show the community that we can do it. It’s the small things that we can start doing to accept everybody,” Peña said after the event.
Cooley said she felt honored to have received the award and called on Columbus residents with privilege to bring about change in the community.
“I do think that being in this position and identifying the way that I do, I’m in a position of privilege and I think that is important that people who do have any kind of privilege start using that power to make change,” Coley said. “… A lot of the burden to make change still seems to fall on people of color or people of diverse backgrounds, and I think it’s important for white people and people of privilege to start picking up the responsibility.”
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IUPUC Vice Chancellor and Dean Reinhold Hill awarded the IUPUC Excellence in Diversity Award to the Legado Spanish Immersion Academy at Clifty Creek Elementary School and Riah Coley, academic advisor and mentoring coordinator for students in transition at IUPUC.
Legado kindergarten teachers Greicy Patiño and Susan Peña accepted the award on behalf of the academy.
Past winners have included the Latino-American Organization of Volunteers in Education (LOVE); the Heritage Fund, the Community Foundation of Bartholomew County for its "Welcoming Community Initiative;" Kevin Jones, business and leadership professor at IUPUC; and Su Casa Columbus, local a nonprofit organization helping Latinos.
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