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CoSIDA Diversity & Inclusion Value Statement
The CoSIDA Diversity and Inclusion Committee — newly formed in 2017-18 — will present three panels as part of the 2018 CoSIDA Convention diversity summit programming.
On
Wednesday, June 27, from 3:15-4:15 p.m., we invite all CoSIDA and NACDA convention attendees to the
Diversity & Inclusion Summit: A Conversation on Unconscious Bias (Prince George's C). This panel will explore showcase how we all have “blindspots” when it comes to unconscious bias and how it shapes many of the everyday decisions we make.
Join our nationally renowned presenters for this engaging panel:
- Dr. Harry Edwards, sports sociologist and Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of California and a 2018 CoSIDA Google Cloud Academic All-America® inductee
- Keri Potts, ESPN Senior Director, PR for College Sports
- Bill Rhoden, The Undefeated's Writer-at-Large
- Tanya Vogel, George Washington University Director of Athletics
- Moderated by Dave Lohse, North Carolina Athletic Communications Associate Director
On
Friday, June 29,
the Diversity and Inclusion Committee are hosting two other sessions during the 10-11:40 a.m. "Trending Topics" programming. Each of the eight Trending Topics sessions is a 30-minute presentation,
repeating three times. The two diversity sessions are
Championing Diversity and Inclusion in Everyday SID Life (National Harbor 5) and
Contemporary LGBTQ Issues in College Athletics (National Habor 4).
The following story is courtesy of Herosports.com
Incarnate Word Athletics Excels in Diversity
SAN ANTONIO — Across the nation, college athletics administrators have recently received a questionable report card regarding their hiring of female and minority coaches and support personnel, who tend to be disproportionately male and white when compared to their student-athletes.
The University of the Incarnate Word is bucking that trend. In 2017-18, the Cardinals’ first year of eligibility for Division I FCS championship competition, UIW’s athletics department hired 32 new employees. Of the 32, 18 were female and/or minority. Of the 74 full-time employees, 40 (approximately 54 percent) were either minority or female.
These results stemmed from a conscious effort by first-year UIW Athletics Director Dr. Brian Wickstrom, who believes that recruitment of qualified female and minority candidates does more than enhance statistics.
“These diverse employees have given us a lot of new ideas,” said Wickstrom. “They have allowed us to be more effective at relating to the student-athlete, which leads to our primary goal — a top student-athlete experience.”
Sr. Walter Mayer, CCIV, Vice President for Mission and Ministry, has been at UIW since 1972.
“From the beginning, our focus has been on diversity, inclusion and equity,” said Sister Walter. “As our mission states, we welcome to our ‘community persons of diverse backgrounds,’ because we believe respectful interactions lead to ‘mutual understanding, self-realization, and the common good’. Our athletics department has truly embodied UIW’s mission statement.”
This trend at UIW is not the norm in collegiate athletics. The Institute for Diversity in Sport, based at the University of Central Florida, revealed in its annual Racial and Gender Report Card that some 44 percent of Division I football student-athletes are African-American, compared to 8 percent of their head coaches and 28 percent of their assistant coaches. African-Americans comprise the majority of Division I basketball student-athletes at 53 percent, but make up only 22 percent of their head coaches and 44 percent of their assistant coaches.
Gender disparity can best be illustrated by the report’s revelation that 41 percent of women’s Division I head basketball coaches are male, while female coaches of men’s basketball teams are nonexistent.
At UIW, which revamped its football and men’s basketball coaching staffs before the 2018-19 season, three of ten position (assistant) coaches for football are African-American and one is Hispanic. The men’s basketball staff features three African-American assistant coaches. Former WNBA star Christy Smith, the head women’s basketball coach at UIW, has a staff that includes a white woman and an African-American man among her assistant coaches. Newly hired female head coaches also lead the women’s soccer, volleyball and women’s golf programs.
Angela Lawson, Senior Associate Athletics Director and Senior Woman Administrator, can appreciate UIW’s commitment to diversity. She guided the Cardinal women’s basketball program for 13 seasons before moving into an administrative role.
“Brian Wickstrom has demonstrated his confidence in me since he took over as the athletic director, and I am grateful for the opportunity as I know it is tough to be a female and survive in this profession,” said Lawson. “I have been given a great deal of responsibility and he has utilized my strengths to help grow the department.
“I have watched Brian and [Deputy Athletics Director] Richard Duran be intentional about bringing diversity to the athletics department from the hiring of both coaches and athletics administrative staff.”
UIW’s inclusiveness reflects the diversity of its community and the experience of its athletics director. The Census Bureau reports that San Antonio is 63 percent Hispanic or Latino, and seven percent African-American. UIW’s students are 51 percent Hispanic or Latino and eight percent African-American. Counting UIW, Wickstrom has worked at three Hispanic-serving Institutions, including UTEP and UC Riverside.
In addition to their inclusive hiring policies, UIW’s athletics administrators have taken other steps to improve racial cohesiveness on campus. In November 2017 Wickstrom participated on a panel, “Let’s Talk About Race,” held by the African Student Organization for UIW students, faculty, and staff. One month later, he organized departmental diversity training that brought in speaker Andre Koen to discuss cultural sensitivity, to which all members of the campus community were invited.
Wickstrom plans to continue his department’s strategy of inclusiveness in future hiring endeavors.
“We’re going to do exhaustive searches to find qualified candidates who will help us continue this tradition of attracting people who bring in new ideas,” said Wickstrom. “They will help us achieve our goal of becoming a nationally recognized, top Division I Catholic institution.