DePauw Hosts GLCA Students of Color Leadership Conference This Weekend
October 6, 2005
October 6, 2005, Greencastle, Ind. - This weekend, October 7-8, DePauw University is hosting the annual Great Lakes College Association Students of Color Leadership Conference, "Answering the Call: Multicultural Student Leadership & Social Justice Activism." At least 200 people are expected to attend, representing ten colleges and universities. The event begins at 6 p.m. Friday at Walden Inn and is open to all students, faculty and staff. To register for the conference, visit the GLCA Web site and click on the event, which is listed on the calendar in the right hand margin of the page.
[Download Video: "A Greeting from President Bottoms" - 1342kb] "I've looked over your agenda. I'm very impressed with all of the hard work that's gone into the program," DePauw President Robert G. Bottoms told attendees via a videotaped message. Dr. Bottoms, who is traveling and unable to attend the conference, noted, "I am pleased that you are stressing the social justice issue, and as we look forward, we cannot simply assume that we have solved some of our problems. It's paramount that conferences like this keep the issue of increasing diversity and learning from diversity as one of the key issues on our campuses."
Now in his twentieth year as DePauw's president, Bottoms says diversifying the University has been "one of the primary missions of the school during my presidency." Just yesterday, Dr. Bottoms and Gordon Gee, the chancellor of Vanderbilt University, [Download Video: "Keeping a Dialogue Going" - 880kb] "hosted a gathering of over 30 college presidents in New York City. We had members of the Ford Foundation present with us, members of the Mellon Foundation... and we were talking about ways to enhance the minority presence on our campuses," President Bottoms said.
The two-day conference will include appearances by poet Nikki Giovanni (seen at right; Friday at 7:30 p.m. in Meharry Hall) and spoken word artist Kelly Tsai (Friday at 9 p.m. at Walden Inn's Fluttering Duck).
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