The Campus Inclusion Team was created to provide support for any UI student with a concern about diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus.
By Elianna Novitch
A new University of Iowa resource provides support for and opportunities to students with concerns about diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus.
Officials formed the Campus Inclusion Team in order to address concerns about bias on campus.
“The Campus Inclusion Team is a group of individuals made up of staff, faculty, and students who have come together to create a group of people who can respond to incidents of bias that are reported,” said Nikki Hodous, the assistant director of student care & outreach in the Dean of Students Office. “It was created to have a centralized place in which people can go to get support and help to navigate campus.”
Hodous, along with Jamal Nelson, a multicultural specialist at the Center for Diversity & Enrichment, acts as the main responder to student-reported incidents.
They are in charge of following up with students and assisting them with whatever it is they might need, be it providing resources or helping connect them with resources to explore the investigative process.
“While we want our campus to be inclusive and welcoming to all, we know it’s not,” Dean of Students Lyn Redington said.
The formation of the Campus Inclusion Team stemmed from requests by students for such services.
“There were a lot of students on campus, especially black students, who really wanted something like this on campus,” said Jasmine Mangrum, the vice president of the UI Graduate & Professional Student Government. “I think they were experiencing a lot of microagression and different kinds of hate speech. They wanted a service they could go to and have someone listen to them and have their needs met.”
Mangrum said students have been asking for such a service since a piece of art deemed to be racist by many was erected on the Pentacrest in December 2014.
“The purpose that [the Campus Inclusion Team] will serve is to help students who feel like the university is not doing something,” Mangrum said. “I think that is a big concern for students who report things and then never get a follow-up.
“I think the important thing about the Campus Inclusion Team is that there is follow-up.”
The team initially started as a bias assessment response team. Redington said with such a response team, incidents of bias can be reported for assessment so a response can be made.
“Last year, there was a team working on creating a bias assessment response team for a similar purpose, and they decided to eventually have faculty and administration get involved with the process, so I was brought in to represent the Faculty Senate,” said UI law Professor Christina Bohannan.
She said there were some concerns raised initially when it was going to be a bias assessment response team.
“The reason for those concerns was that at other universities that had bias assessment response teams, there were some incidents in which faculty were being told not to teach certain things or students were being punished for ordinary speech,” Bohannan said.
“That’s why we decided not to call it a ‘bias assessment response team’ and instead create our own title. The Campus Inclusion Team is a lot more representative of what we are trying to do on our campus.”
All those involved with the formation of the team are proud of the result and ready to see its effect on the UI campus.
“I wish it wasn’t necessary,” Redington said. “It is discouraging that this is needed, but I was very honored to be a part of it, and I am very proud of our institution for knowing that this [bias] is a concern and for being willing to do something about it.”
