It is a privilege and an exciting challenge to serve as Trinity’s first dean of multicultural affairs, particularly since the College’s commitment to diversity - reflected in the recent Strategic Plan and also in resource allocation decisions and other administrative practices - is both firm and deep.

Created in 1997 and significantly expanded in 1999-2000, the Office of Multicultural Affairs seeks to galvanize the College’s efforts to become a community that embraces diversity and forthrightly confronts the myriad challenges posed by the interplay of different cultural perspectives and experiences.

Multicultural Affairs expanded from a one-person office staffed by an assistant dean of student affairs to an office staffed by a dean of multicultural affairs, an administrative assistant, and a part-time graduate assistant. During this year of transition, we worked to strengthen P.R.I.D.E. (Promoting Respect for Inclusive Diversity in Education), a program employing 16 peer mentors to support new students from culturally diverse backgrounds as well as promote interaction and greater acceptance of multicultural experiences among all members of the student body.

In 1999-2000, the Office of Multicultural Affairs continued to be a principal source of advice and support for individuals and student organizations. In addition to joining the College’s efforts to understand and fashion strategies to address the challenge of retaining students from different cultural backgrounds, Multicultural Affairs worked to make affirmative action guidelines consistent for both faculty and administrative staff and to offer the services of an ombudsperson to Trinity administrative staff.

Multicultural Affairs sponsored or co-sponsored a dizzying array of speakers and activities which, taken together, served to enhance the vitality of intellectual and cultural life at Trinity. Among the many guests to the College were prominent leaders such as Kweisi Mfume, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who gave the opening College address; and the Reverend Calvin Butts, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City and president of SUNY at Old Westbury, who spoke at the College in January to honor the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We hosted poets, journalists, and performance artists of national reputation, including Adrienne Rich, Aurora Levin-Morales, Reetika Vazirani, Jessica Care Moore, P. Sainath, Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Nathan McCall; and actor, playwright and producer, Ossie Davis. And we welcomed scholars and others whose life experiences offer lessons for us all, including Dr. Felix Padilla, sociologist; Dr. Juanita Cotto-Diaz, feminist activist and professor; Japanese American filmmaker Renee Tajima-Pena;" civil rights activists Diane Nash, leader of the student sit-ins in Nashville, Tennessee, and Charles McDew, former chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

The Multicultural Affairs Office also sponsored several theater trips and contributed support for a variety of musical events: concerts by Salsafication, a Trinity College dance band; Salsarengue, a major campus dance party sponsored by La Voz Latina; and Ritmo de Pueblo, a Latin music festival which in its first year featured the music and culture of Puerto Rico. With our support, the Trinity College Gospel Choir sponsored a major spring concert showcasing local church and college choirs as well as the nationally acclaimed Chicago Mass Choir.

We helped student organizations sponsor a regional conference, "African Americans in the Next Millennium, with the distinguished law professor Derrick Bell as keynote speaker. In cooperation with the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs we also co-sponsored attendance by student delegates to major conferences in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Washington, D. C.

As I look ahead to the coming year, I am excited about collaborating with Trinity’s faculty, staff, and students to support multicultural curricular initiatives, to increase opportunities for exposure to new ideas and experiences, to encourage dialogue across lines of difference, and to create a supportive environment where people of many different cultural backgrounds can thrive and contribute.