Funds are used to promote diverse events on campus
Matt Woodward
Contributing Writer
Established in 2015, the Center for Diversity and Inclusion Programming Board offers the opportunity for students, faculty and staff to receive funding for events which promote the mission and values of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion (CDI).
According to Shadra Smith, assistant dean of students and director of multicultural student affairs, the Programming Board developed from a desire to centralize the ways in which CDI supports students through funding.
The Programming Board consists of two parts — the Student Board and the Directors’ Board.
This funding allows different types of activities and events to be funded and students’ voices to be represented in decisions regarding student activities.
The Student Board consists of students who represent all of the offices in CDI. One of the Student Board members is Dia Yadav ’19, who hopes to use her time on the board to increase diversity on campus.
She would like to see many diverse activities receive funding in the future, hopefully a few from her new Hindu philosophy group, which aims to provide educational and cultural events to the campus which have not previously been seen at Wooster.
“That [is] self-promotion,” said Yadav. Regarding the board’s importance, “As a bisexual, Indian, international woman on campus, I think it’s really important to represent diversity and things like this make it possible.”
According to HerBrina Shepherd — the CDI programming chair and program coordinator for the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs — and the Programming Board bylaws, the Student Board offers funding for requests which meet the following criteria: the request is being submitted on behalf of a club or organization, the request pertains to an event to be held on campus, the primary audience of the event will be students, the event/activity is at least two weeks from the date the request is submitted, the event/activity received Campus Council funding and/or is in response to a current issue or concern and the request is less than $751.
Any other funding requests can be directed to the CDI Directors’ Programming Board, which consists of the directors of the different CDI offices.
This board makes it possible for faculty and staff to advocate for various student organizations through various funding requests that students cannot otherwise make, like requests that are for more than $751.
Oftentimes, these are the types of events that would not typically be funded through the budget allocations process for student groups.
Dean Smith commented that the Director’s Programming Board funds various conferences, not fully, but in ways that make it possible to attend important and otherwise unfunded events.
She notes that the CDI Directors’ Programming Board offers funding to events that benefit students but are not fully run by students, a recent example being the French and Francophone Film Festival, which promotes the “intersectionality of religion, language, and culture” something that the CDI directors deemed helpful for the campus community.
For those interested in receiving funding from either board, the deadline for the Spring 2017 Semester is Friday, Dec. 2.
