MSU to Hold Diversity Conference Next Week

STARKVILLE, Miss. (Press Release) — Creating a better understanding of similarities and differences among cultures, ethnicities and races will be the focus of Mississippi State University’s 2014 Diversity Conference.

“From Conversations to Collaboration: Pathways to Diversity” will take place Thursday and Friday [Nov. 13 and14] in Colvard Student Union. The public program will begin with an 8 a.m. welcome on Thursday in the Bill Foster Ballroom.

The registration fee is $99 per person and $25 for MSU students.

Sign-up information and a complete agenda are available at http://ce.msucares.com/DiversityConference/index.html.

Sessions will focus on such topics as diversity in institutions of higher learning, how communication enhances understanding and ways diversity positively impacts the state, nation and world. Panelists and speakers also will examine the best practices for developing diversity initiatives and meeting diversity goals.

Tim Wise, a nationally known writer and speaker, will deliver the keynote address during an 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Thursday luncheon. “White Privilege” will be his topic.

A Nashville, Tennessee, native educated at Tulane University, he is the author of six books. Among them are his highly acclaimed 2004 memoir, “White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son” (Soft Skull Press), “Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity” (City Lights Publisher, 2012) and “Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority” (City Lights Publishers, 2012).

Named in 2010 as one of Utne Reader’s “25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World,” Wise has spoken in every state and at more than 800 college and high school campuses.

Other sessions will focus on effective communication with student veterans, the LGBTQ community and disabled students. Also, panels will explore interactive communication among diverse groups, retention of minority postsecondary students, religion in public institutions and collaborative efforts between two- and four-year institutions of higher learning.

Speakers will include, among others, Jeremy Baham, MSU associate dean of students; Rick Daniels, CEO of The Axis Group LLC; Eddie Holloway, dean of students at University of Southern Mississippi; Kenneth McRae, director of MSU’s G.V. “Sonny” Montgomery Center for America’s Veterans; Shawnboda Mead, director of University of Mississippi’s Inclusion and Cross Cultural Engagement Center; Megan O’Nan, life coach; Edward Rice II, vice president of student services at Mississippi Delta Community College; and Jarvis Williams, pastor of Macon’s Tabernacle Baptist Church.

MSU’s President’s Commission on the Status of Minorities will host the conference, supported by silver sponsors, the College of Veterinary Medicine, the Office of the Vice President for Development and Alumni and the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems.

Bronze sponsors include MSU Extension Service, the English department and the student leadership office, as well as the offices of the Vice President for Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine and the Vice President for Research and Economic Development.

MSU’s Holmes Cultural Diversity Center is sponsoring the keynote address.

For more information, contact Ra’Sheda Boddie-Forbes of the Holmes Center at 662-325-2033 or rboddie-forbes@saffairs.msstate.edu.