Opinion | On Chapman’s commitment to diversity and inclusion
Daniele Struppa
President of Chapman University
On the heels of the rep-rehensible incident that took place at the start of this semester, I want to take a moment to reflect on the many positive efforts being made on campus. An incident like this reminds us that we are not immune to the serious issues affecting so many communities across the country. While it is very likely that others in our community express and support a racist agenda, we must not allow such people to represent our entire community. Because they do not.
It is appropriate to ask why events like this happen here. In large measure, the answer is that our community is a microcosm of American life and, considering that we have 10,000 people on campus, it is unreasonable to expect that we can completely prevent the encroachment of society’s ills.
We continue our process of self-reflection, recognizing that Chapman can and must continue to do better as a community. But we must also recognize that real work is being done. I strongly encourage you to join in the remarkable work taking place through our Diversity and Inclusion initiative, Student Affairs and other efforts underway across campus. Diversity and inclusion are foundational to who we are as a university community. We want and need your involvement and your ideas to keep improving. I also encourage you to get involved in the intentional programming that reflects our diversity mission, which states, in part, “It is our conviction that an inclusive learning environment facilitates complex, critical and creative thinking and that differences in identities, values, beliefs and perspectives are fundamental to a comprehensive education.”
We accomplish this goal by bringing varying perspectives to our academic community. For example, in the last two years we have hosted Angela Davis, world-renowned political activist, philosopher, author and a former member of the Communist Party USA and of the Black Panther Party; John Carlos, the Olympic track and field athlete who famously raised a “Black Power” salute during his 1968 Olympic medal ceremony; Dolores Huerta, American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, in addition to the more widely known visits from former President George W. Bush and conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro. Even the controversial visit of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former press secretary to President Donald Trump, was balanced on that same evening by the contrasting viewpoints of Robert Gibbs, former press secretary to President Barack Obama.
Our commitment to diversity is not limited to the guests we invite to campus; it is reflected in many other actions and decisions that we, collectively, make every day. These decisions include the creation of the new minor in Africana Studies, the semester-long conference on border issues, “La Frontera” and the research that Peter Simi, our colleague from the Department of Sociology, is doing on hate and hate groups.
Chapman is a diverse campus, and our population is rapidly approaching 50 percent non-white students. We are also seeing dramatic increases in the success rates of students coming from diverse backgrounds. I know this success will only continue as we work together to build a community that is safe for everyone. I care deeply about the student experience at Chapman. I believe we have reason to be proud of what has been accomplished and even more reason to look forward with optimism to what is still to come.