Keene State College’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) appointed three faculty members to be a part of its Faculty Fellow Team.
The members include Film Studies Associate Professor Jiwon Ahn, College Archivist and Associate Professor Rodney Obien and Communications and Philosophy Professor Cynthia Cheshire. According to a press release posted on the Keene State College website on Nov. 6, the three faculty members appointed will “collaborate with campus partners on efforts related to recruitment and retention of faculty, staff and students from diverse backgrounds.”
The press release also stated the team will support faculty for classroom DEI issues and “enhance DEI exposure via the distribution of scholarly endeavors.”
Ahn said in the press release that her “main priority is community-building” with this new position. She also wants to “bring people together to discuss all sorts of issues related to cultural, social and political differences.”
With this new role, Obien said he wants to specifically work on projects that help strengthen the connections with students within the classroom.
“My area of focus is primarily promoting student research in the area of diversity, equity and inclusion that’s either providing support for students who are interested in doing that or going to different departments, working with students,” Obien said. “I’m hoping that I can be a catalyst for that, to help people see… creative works that students are doing on campus.”
Obien mentioned personal experiences, such as him living in different places throughout his childhood, and reflected upon the concept of making students feel welcome regardless of their backgrounds.
“My family is originally from the Philippines and then my father was in the navy in the military so I’ve spent a good portion of my early life as a military dependent child,” Obien said. “Growing up in this environment you felt like you belonged, you were included regardless of your background … I’d like to bring that to campus.” Similarly, Obien mentioned his own personal philosophy when teaching was “to create an environment of belonging and inclusion,” and he was “excited to be able to bring my own philosophy and share that with the campus.”
With this new opportunity, Cheshire said she wanted to be “a trusted advisor and consultant in the areas [of DEI], someone that people come to when they have a question or there’s an issue.”
Cheshire said the DEI program is a crucial part of campus because “DEI work is everybody’s work. This is not only work that is important for spaces of exceptional diversity or of exceptional conflict or anything; it’s literally work for every single group of people.”
She added, “[People think] we’re in New England, we don’t have that diverse of a population … We are more diverse than we think we are, we just need to make sure people aren’t being marginalized for that. Even if you had a room full of people of all the same ethnicity or background, you would still have a great amount of diversity there.”
According to Cheshire, the DEI program directly impacts students because, “[Keene State] is the place where students are, sometimes for the first time, reaching out and getting to know who they are and who they want to be as they’re entering adulthood, and experiencing different cultures, different backgrounds, different identities, is really an essential part of that.”
Nicole Dumont can be contacted at
ndumont@kscequinox.com
