Chapter News

The Virginia Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (VADOHE) held its second on campus meeting October 14, 2011, hosted at the University of Virginia by Dr. Marcus Martin, VP and Chief Officer for Diversity and Equity.

Representatives from the following institutions attended the meeting:
Georgetown University, George Washington University, College of William & Mary, George Mason University, Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Virginia and James Madison University. Dr. Teresa Sullivan, President of the University of Virginia, gave us a warm welcome and emphasized the importance of diversity work at our nation's colleges and universities. She added that as a demographer she is keenly aware of the changing demographics taking place throughout the United States of America and that we should be making the necessary institutional changes now so that we would be ready to successfully receive and retain increasing numbers of diverse students, faculty and staff. The group discussed the structure of VADOHE and decided that officers of VADOHE should not be officers of NADOHE to avoid potential conflicts of interest. Officers were elected: Chair (Mr. Arthur T. Dean, Special Assistant to the President for Diversity, James Madison University), Vice-Chair (Dr. William T. Lewis, Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion, Virginia Tech), and Secretary (Dr. W. Fanchon Glover, Assistant to the President for Diversity and Community, College of William and Mary).

The group identified three major areas of interest: (1) Benchmarking (national, state and institutional trends) and identification of best practices related to diversity at peer institutions, (2) Professional development--conferences/ workshops/webinars/information sharing and (3) Lobbying state officials to make them aware of particular issues facing the state e.g. LGBTQ issues in Virginia. Although the group did not foreclose the possibility of expansion to other states, it was decided that for now it should focus on Virginia and DC colleges and universities. Other matters discussed included the rotation of VADOHE host institutions, development of a listserv and exploring whether VADOHE could be linked from the NADOHE website, as well as consideration of a modest dues structure for VADOHE members. VADOHE's next meeting will be a conference call in December followed by a meeting during the NADOHE conference in Spring of 2012.

Texas Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (TADOHE)

The Executive Committee of TADOHE comprising of Lonica Bush, College of the Mainland, Sarina Swindell, TAMUCT, Gilda Garcia, UNT and Daron Turner, TCU meets monthly via web conference. TADOHE members host monthly online presentations via WebEx. TADOHE is working hard to compile a diversity manual of best practices.