Building a Culture of Care

Questions about equity and justice came early to Shireen Roshanravan.

Born into a South Asian and Iranian immigrant community in Chicago, she moved to Dallas, Texas, with her family when she was 10 years old. At that age, she sensed the anti-Mexican sentiment in her new neighborhood but didn’t quite have the language to express how she fit into the specific racial terrain of Texas.

She explained, “I, along with my family, experienced a lot of racism. Sometimes when this happened, I would be mistaken for being Mexican. Knowing there was racism toward a group of people to which I did not necessarily belong motivated an early commitment to forge solidarity with those beyond my own South Asian and Iranian community.”

Roshanravan said her political consciousness grew during her college years at Southwestern University. She began questioning how power worked to exclude people who did not fit into the Eurocentric organization of mainstream life. She came to understand “[the] history behind those exclusions and marginalizations that are hundreds of years deep. [These histories are] very different for different groups of people, but they’re also interdependent in that they connect and relate us to each other,” she said. As an undergraduate, Roshanravan focused on building relationships and coalitions to make changes at the University and in the surrounding community. She started collectives and met with other students of color, planning events to raise awareness about the intersection of gender, racial and economic violence.

After graduating from Southwestern, she enrolled in an interdisciplinary graduate school program at the State University of New York at Binghamton. She described the curriculum, named Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture (PIC), as “radical, intellectually and programmatically.” Unlike most institutions that issue a degree in philosophy, the PIC program “valued the philosophical contributions of thinkers from the global south as equally significant as their European counterparts,” Roshanravan said. Her research taught her the critical relationship between educational equity and access to the history, philosophy and literature of one’s own people. It was also a precursor to her future career. “There was responsibility placed on everyone in the program. Graduate students were invited to make programmatic decisions about what the program should be about and how it should be governed.”

Roshanravan took that experience and put it to use in her first academic position at Kansas State University. As a faculty member in academic departments centered on women, gender, sexuality and ethnic studies, she was fundraising, building programs, developing curriculum, advising student organizations and mentoring students. In time, she gravitated toward senior administrative work with college deans at Kansas State, asking, “How do we make tenure and promotion decisions more equitable for faculty doing research that challenges traditional criteria for measuring academic excellence? [How do we recognize] faculty and staff whose experiences, education and service are so important to retaining our traditionally underrepresented students?”

“As I did that work,” Roshanravan continued, “I arrived at a point in my career where I felt I could make a positive difference by committing to this administrative work full-time. I’m really grateful for the position here at Northeastern because it allows me to be holistic in my approach around advancing the University’s commitment to inclusive excellence.”

Roshanravan acknowledged Northeastern's history as a minority-serving and federally designated Hispanic-Serving Institution. “We're blessed with representational diversity and have been for a while,” she said. And that’s great, but one of the things I always [point out] is representational diversity doesn’t always translate to inclusivity. So that means you can have folks from diverse backgrounds in great numbers in a particular community or institution, but it may not be the case that all members necessarily feel like the institution or community is creating a welcoming environment where they feel a sense of belonging.”

When Roshanravan was hired as the Executive Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the summer of 2021, she reviewed the Campus Climate Study. She saw that despite the representational diversity among students, faculty and staff, there were still challenges. Any lingering bias in the classroom or use of exclusionary language on campus was unacceptable, “regardless of the intentions behind these behaviors,” Roshanravan said. She emphasized, “We have work to do around making sure that we establish a shared understanding and accountability processes to stop all harassment and discrimination.”

Citing the study, she said the report revealed the importance for commuter and residential students to feel a sense of belongingness. She organized two task force committees to determine what kinds of extracurricular activities on campus would motivate students to come and attend and be part of the Northeastern community. She coordinated another task force to create a student-centered approach to accessing financial aid. Making the process of applying for aid “user-friendly” meant bringing people together from different parts of the University, breaking the silos they were in and streamlining the University’s complicated system.

What also surfaced from the study was a desire by staff and students for experiences and events that promoted joy and well-being. Roshanravan said, “We started a series that includes a mix of things that focus on how to be well together, in the sense of ‘Let’s do things – to bring us across our offices and division centers – together for physical and emotional health.’” Her office promoted “Walking Wednesdays” and “Mix and Mingle Mondays.” The programs, featured at all three University locations, encourage faculty, staff and students to gather to meet new people, catch up with old friends and enjoy refreshments. Creating feel-good, healthy ways to get together has helped people build relationships outside the institutional setting of work. “Having those relationships in place makes it easier when we do go in and need to collaborate around items where we might have disagreements and differing perspectives,” she said.

In addition to advancing the specific recommendations outlined in the study, Roshanravan established the annual President’s Inclusive Excellence and Diversity Awards. She saw the University needed to build more active appreciation for the work being done on campus to cultivate an environment of inclusion, equity and diversity. Her office created a nomination process where individuals could nominate each other or themselves. Then the nomination letters were made public to underscore a culture of appreciation at the University. “The great thing about the Awards cycle is that it promotes a culture of appreciation from beginning to end,” Roshanravan explained. “The very act of putting in writing the reasons why someone deserves to be recognized for their efforts creates a spirit of care.”

She’s rolled out other programs to foster inclusion and belonging. She started a C.A.R.E. (Courageous Action for Racial Equity) Lecture Series. It features activists, cultural practitioners and scholars recognized for creating a culture of care and connection for historically underrepresented communities in higher education. Most of the lectures are virtual, so her office is building an archive, and the talks will be available on the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (OEDI) website, which is scheduled to go live in a few months.

Roshanravan shared the importance of gathering feedback to tell her whether OEDI’s programming is having an impact. “I always do a survey to find out how the event worked out. What could we do differently? Are we reaching the people we want to reach?” she said. And she stressed tracking program attendance, “If people aren’t showing up, then you already know that you’ve got some more work to do.” Working with Sandy Vue, Northeastern’s Institutional Research Director, on the University’s strategic equity plan, Roshanravan said the information gathering is focused on concrete metrics, measuring the numbers that spell out retention and completion rates for traditionally underrepresented students. “Once we file those plans, it will be really clear whether or not we’re meeting success at the level of increasing our retention and completion rates equally for all our students.”

Outside of the campus programming OEDI has launched, Roshanravan confirmed the success of the Grow with Google Career Readiness Program, a partnership that serves Latinx students on campus through digital skills training and career workshops. “My understanding is that industry wants to have diverse, culturally aware employees, so I think there’s more and more a desire for that, and NEIU is poised to tap into a lot of those initiatives,” she said. Currently, she’s collaborating with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on various initiatives, including supporting underrepresented populations to work in STEM, conducting programming regarding environmental injustice and grassroots organizing, and assisting NEIU students in obtaining externships, paid internships and careers with the federal government.

The University was recently named a designated host of the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Campus Centers underwritten by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Roshanravan explained how the designation dovetails with the work that NEIU and her office do. “One of the exciting things about the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation initiative is to build partnerships with our surrounding communities. I think Northeastern is a great fit to become a host for this work,” Roshanravan said. “The work we already do fits into that commitment, diversifying our faculty and staff and making sure our students of color feel like they belong. All of that is encompassed, and doing a deeper dive into relationship building with our community partners on the South and North Sides. We’re lucky to have those campus linkages on both sides of the segregated city.”

Given everything Roshanravan has accomplished in less than two years, she admitted she’s proudest of the community-building she’s had a hand in advancing, “For some people, it might feel unusual to have the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Officer plan a softball tournament or some other less rigorous activity. My office hosted a teach-in on the uprisings in Iran, and people say, ‘Okay, that’s your lane.’ Or my work on the equity plan for the University. That’s ‘my lane.’ But it gives me great joy when I see staff and faculty and students together, feeling good together, laughing,” Roshanravan said. “There’s so much stress everywhere, but just feeling like they have some joy in their life, and it’s because of some of the work this office has been able to do. I take great pride in being able to have a hand in that. That’s wonderful!”

“I arrived at a point in my career where I felt I could make a positive difference by committing to this administrative work fulltime. I’m really grateful for the position here at NEIU because it allows me to be holistic in my approach around advancing the University’s commitment to inclusive excellence.”

The 2022 Inaugural President’s Inclusive Excellence and Diversity Award Winners

STUDENTS

Alvin Gutierrez (B.A. Elementary Education), co-president of Pin@y Club, president of the Student Advisory Board of the University Honors Program, and treasurer of the Student Government Association.

Itzel Linares (B.A. Spanish), president of Undocumented, Resilient and Organized, vice president of Student Government Association and the social media ambassador for Student Affairs.

Rignesha Prajapati (M.A. Educational Leadership), ENLACE higher education leadership student, graduate assistant for Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) Student Engagement in the Angelina Pedroso Center for Diversity and Intercultural Affairs and is acting as the advisor of the South Asian Club.

FACULTY

Dr. Durene Wheeler, professor of Educational Inquiry and Curriculum Studies with core faculty appointments in African and African American Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies.

STAFF

Dr. Maria Luna-Duarte (B.A. ’02 Sociology, Women’s Studies minor; M.A. ’05 Educational Leadership), former director of El Centro and adjunct faculty member for the ENLACE Higher Education Leadership Master’s Program.

Paola Vargas (B.A. ’12 Interdisciplinary Studies and Spanish, M.A. ’16 Educational Leadership), assistant to the vice president and dean of students for Student Affairs.

ALUMNI

David D. Robertson (B.A. ’16 University Without Walls; M.A. ’18 Community and Teacher Leaders), founder and executive director of the Hope Is Foundation.

The second annual President’s Inclusive Excellence and Diversity Awards cycle is underway with award winners set to be announced in March 2023.