Trustee’s Gift Supports Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Training

Syracuse University Trustee Christine Larsen and her husband, Vincent Dopulos, have provided a gift in support of diversity, equity and inclusion training for Maxwell graduate students over the next five years. It is a key step toward realizing the school’s renewed vision for developing leaders and educators who are committed to improving outcomes for all.

The training framework comes from a collaboration by the University’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the InterFaith Works’ El-Hindi Center for Dialogue in the city of Syracuse. The gift funded training that allowed Maxwell to pilot three race and ethnicity intergroup dialogue circles of 12 to 14 students during the spring semester. The goal is to train 70 graduate students per year over the next five years.

Participants are encouraged to use the skills they practice in these circles in their personal, academic and professional spaces, strengthening cross-cultural understanding and reducing racial, ethnic and cultural bias.

“We are grateful for this gift as it enables us to begin making good on our commitment to create a more diverse school, and to develop more inclusive leaders,” says Gladys McCormick, associate professor of history and Maxwell’s director of diversity, equity and inclusion.

McCormick was appointed in June 2020 to lead a school-wide plan for catalyzing awareness and institutional change around biases and structures affecting under-represented peoples. In the fall of 2020, a draft of the preamble, vision and pillars of a strategic plan was published. Stakeholder input and community feedback is being collected from new affinity groups of graduate students of color and international students, as well as the existing faculty of color affinity group co-directed by McCormick.

For the latest, visit maxwell.syr.edu/dei