National Center for Institutional Diversity

Diversity Conversations and Colloquia

Each year, the NCID invites proposals for innovative conversations about diversity, to occur within a conference, program, seminar series, retreat, or other gathering. All of these cosponsored events must be exemplary in some way, with high potential for widespread national impact, sustainability, and replicability.

Creating Campus-Community Partnerships in the Arts (January 2007)

Workshops and a panel discussion led by national and local leaders in the community arts introduced participants to new issues and approaches to community, culture and civic participation and offered models of successful university-community partnerships.

Event Overview

"Arts of Citizenship - Social impact of arts strengthens citizenship" (University Record article)

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Advancing Diversity and Excellence in Science and Engineering (January 2007)

Nationally-recognized speakers provided presentations focused on effective, pragmatic programs to improve recruitment, retention, and the academic climate for diverse students and faculty in science and engineering. The conference culminated in a call for proposals to a $250,000 fund raised for new pilot programs on these issues.

Event Overview

"Shirley Malcom - Creativity needed to build diversity after Proposal 2" (University Record article)

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National Workshop on Achieving Equity in Genetics Policy through Diversity in Decision Making (October 2006)

Held at Howard University in Washington, D.C., this gathering focused on determining strategies for turning genetics-related issues into policy action plans. It culminated in the formation of a national Genetics Equity Network—an alliance of 50 community, policy, and research organizations that are working to assure that genetics and its applications are used towards the reduction, not the widening, of health disparities.

Genetics Equity Network Website

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Beyond Description: Addressing Health Disparities through Campus-Community Partnerships (March 2006)

This two-day series of learning activities focused on health disparities within our society‐their causes, their implications, and strategies for addressing them at a community, state, and national/international level—with a special emphasis on productive university-community collaborations.

"Partnerships can help reduce health disparities" (University Record article)

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The Complexity of Diversity: Rethinking Gaps and Leveraging Differences (November 2005)

This colloquium brought together complexity theorists, diversity scholars, and business leaders to contemplate the complexities of diversity and to see how a complex systems perspective helps us better bridge gaps and leverage opportunities. It highlighted the potential for diversity to create productivity in a complex system; the ways that some disparities may be self-reinforcing; the extent and sway of the past in producing these gaps; and opportunities for the NCID's leadership.

"U-M explores diversity from a complex systems approach" (University Record article)

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