As college and university educators, we’re more concerned with how we meet the needs of our increasingly diverse student population. 

Because colleges and universities - especially community colleges and state universities - are becoming more diverse, we believe that diversity, equity and inclusion can be honestly and carefully integrated into campus life through enhanced recruitment, enrollment and retention efforts.  We firmly believe that a diverse campus – diverse in many ways – helps all students prepare for life after college in our increasingly diverse country and world.

The challenge is for colleges and universities – public and private -- to use them (as many  corporations do) in ways that enhance institutional goals while avoiding the political minefield surrounding them.

Join us, participants from all over New England and New York State to look at how these issues impact out students and how we can better serve them despite the controversies. We will have a veteran keynote speaker and an expert response panel, discussing how to foster, defend and connect these strategies, and a hard look at how to evaluate, perhaps even measure, the positive impact of our diversity, equity and inclusion work.  As always at CHERE conferences, a diverse student panel will discuss DEI “at ground level.”

CHERE has been focused since 2012 on access and success in higher education for underrepresented, first generation and otherwise challenged students.  DEI work clearly supports retention to graduation.