Introduction:

After the recent racial and cultural conflicts that have happened at Quinnipiac University, seniors Italo Alves, Emmanuel Laboy, Lexie Gruber, alongside with the Global Engagement Fellows, and under the supervision of Prof. Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox, developed a proposal with important solutions to improve the Quinnipiac University environment for students from underrepresented minority groups. They were able to schedule a meeting with Chief Diversity Officer Diane Ariza and Provost Mark Thompson on May 1st to present the following recommendations:

Recommendations

1. Creation of a minority liaison position within SGA

2. Creation of a diversity awareness mandatory session for student organizations and Greek life

3. Department of Residential Life: We would like to propose the following actions

a. To increase training and both professional and paraprofessional staff in the areas of cultural education and underrepresented diversities

b. To train the Residential Life Diversity Committee members as underrepresented rights liaisons from each residential hall in order to:

- Bring content on issues involving underrepresented minority that happen at Quinnipiac University, the U.S, and around the world to weekly staff meetings between resident assistants and residence hall directors

- Coordinate with multicultural student organizations to hold events and organize programs in conjunction with residence halls

- Better recruit resident assistants and resident hall directors who are comfortable dealing with and talking about cultural issues related to underrepresented communities

- Re-introduce “safe space training” to the resident assistant training

- Have diversity and inclusion training for resident assistants for both summer and winter

- Make efforts to raise awareness of the negative impacts of cyber bullying within the campus community