The annual Diversity Summit is incorporating many changes this year, including an expansion from its traditional one-day format to three days and the addition of multiple volunteer opportunities for students.
The Diversity Summit began in 2001, which makes this year’s summit the 12th such event hosted on the DU campus. The event will take place May 9-11, with a theme of “Championing Equity to Inspire Change.”
Johanna Leyba, Assistant Provost for Campus and Community Partnerships for Multicultural Excellence and co-chair of the planning committee working to create the Diversity Summit, says that the planning committee this year focused on partnering with groups across campus, such as the USG Diversity Committee, that were trying to put on events with similar themes of inclusion.
While the budget is still in the early stages, Lebya says this year’s budget will increase from the roughly $36,000 spent in 2012. Head of the USG Diversity Committee, sophomore Alisa Brown, said the budget would increase by $5,000 to $10,000 this year.
As in past years, when the number of co-sponsors for the event has approached 30, the funds will be raised from student groups, academic departments and a few off-campus community groups such as the Denver Foundation. Additionally, a small fee will be charged to non-DU affiliated attendees.
According to Leyba, the summit will start with a pre-conference symposium about college access and will feature keynote speaker Pedro Noguer, a professor of education at New York University. The first day will have featured speakers, workshops and an awards ceremony for students involved in inclusive excellence occurring on the second day. The summit will conclude on Saturday, May 11 with students and families from low-income Denver Public School Munroe Elementary coming to the campus to learn about college.
“It’s really going to help people from underrepresented communities—low income and first-generation—understand what it takes to go to college,” said Leyba.
Demonstrations from various academic departments around campus will show the students and their families how a college degree can lead to a career. Lebya says the planning committee is hoping for demonstrations that are fun and will interest kids. For example, a robotics demonstration from the engineering department might be featured along with explosive experiments from the chemistry department. Additionally, information will be provided to parents throughout the day about how to support their kids all the way through high school to prepare for college.
“You can’t start preparing for college your senior year,” said Lebya. “You have to start really early.”
Lebya says attendance has increased steadily each year since the summit was started, so the expansion has been considered for several years. The planning committee, which is composed of undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff from across campus, also wanted to make sure that similar events on campus were coordinated well so that students would not be required to choose between them. In the past, students, faculty, staff and alumni have comprised most of the attendees at the summit. Lebya said that about 10 percent of attendees in the past have been from the community.
“That’ll stay the same, but with the Thursday addition and the Saturday addition, we’re really branching out beyond the DU walls more significantly,” she said.
Brown said this is one of the reason the summit was expanded from a one-day event to three.
“They decided to make the change because in the past it has been extremely condensed,” she said. “This was in order to make it feel more relaxed and make it more meaningful and accessible to the public.”
Lebya says registration for the event will open in April, and the event logo will be released in the next few weeks. She also says there will be a number of volunteering opportunities throughout the three days to help with all aspects of the event, including set up, demonstrations and leading the visiting students and their families around campus on the final day.
Lebya said she feels there is a lot more energy surrounding the event, and that the planning committee is generating new and innovative ideas.
“I’m excited about the expansion,” she said. “There will also be lots of student opportunities for the service day, and I think that’s really exciting.”
Any interested students or student groups should look for a call for volunteers in the coming months.
