Hearing diversity and inclusion at UNL
The University of Lincoln, Nebraska is making a steady approach in strategy outreach and recruiting from the under-served communities of Nebraska.
“How do we ensure that we are attracting diverse talent and keeping them here at Nebraska? So i would like to see some greater focus in terms of our recruitment strategies and our advertising strategies,” Vice Chancellor of Diversity and Inclusion at UNI, Marco Barker said.
A highlight in the process is UNL’s first ever ‘State of Diversity’ event.
The event had a special guest speaker, the head of diversity for the company that owns the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets.
“Organizations and institutions are much more impactful and really much better if they’re diverse, right? That’s number one,” Vice President of Diversity, Inclusion and Culture for BSE Global, Maurice Stinnett said.
UNI says this year’s freshman class is the most racially diverse and academically talented in UNI’s 150–year history.
Here is the report:
“According to the annual census taken on the sixth day of classes, 18.3% of this year’s 4,775 first-time freshmen are students of color. The number increased by more than 7% compared to last year and broke last year’s record of 17% students of color among first-time freshmen…
The state’s flagship, land-grant institution also increased the number of Nebraskans in its freshman class by 0.6% compared to 2018-19. It also increased its number of first-time transfer students from Nebraska by 7 percent…
The 2019-20 freshmen also have an average ACT score of 25.5, the highest in university history,” Director of Communication at UNL, Leslie Reed wrote.
In the discussion, they talked about how UNI can utilize diversity to benefit its system as a whole.
“So today was about identifying the room for improvement that we have and how do we build momentum around being able to address some of those gaps,” Barker said.
It’s a top down mentality: starting with the leaders.
“Once the faculty, the staff is more diverse and has more diverse representation, and the student population can see that, and the community can see that, that’s a signal that we are moving in the right direction,” Stinnett said.
At the end of his speech, Stinnett concludes with this, “There’s an African proverb that says if you want to go fast, you go alone, but if you want to go far, you go together. And so we’re in this together.”
