SAGA Creates Space, Community for Queer Students
At its annual Pride Week this week, the Sexuality and Gender Alliance offers celebrations and reflections to build inclusivity for LGBTQ+ students on campus.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Access
Embedded Equity
The Roger Williams University community has committed to diversity, respect for all races, ethnicities, genders, identities and abilities, and access to an affordable education. Our diversity, equity, inclusion, and access efforts are embedded within our Strategic Action Plan and are essential to our institutional direction.
Our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Access Initiatives include macro initiatives that embed equity into all our university operations, and focused initiatives that support the retention, empowerment and thriving of minority students and employees.
Racism Stops with Me
“Racism Stops with Me” is a university-wide antiracism campaign to bring forward the full commitment of our senior leadership, our faculty and staff, and our students in learning and engaging in antiracist practices and showing up with their support for our BIPOC community members across our campuses.
Explore The CampaignFocused Initiatives
The Intercultural Center
The IC's mission is to support the access, retention, and success of minoritized students by centering, uplifting and empowering their identities.
QTRAC- Queer & Trans Initiatives
Roger Williams University is committed to ensuring our queer and trans students, faculty, staff, and administrators are protected on campus
DEIA
Accessibility, the “A” in DEIA. RWU is committed to building greater inclusion for people with disabilities.
International Students
RWU welcomes students from all over the globe, providing a personalized and supportive community.
Alumni of Color Network
RWU Alumni of Color Network aims to build community among alumni and students of color through initiatives that strengthen fellowship and mentorship, and support the University’s equity priorities related to the enrichment of its students and alumni of color.
First Generation Day
RWU is formally celebrating all of our students, faculty, staff, and alumni who identify – or identified – as first-generation college students.
DEI In Action
The Intercultural Center
“It’s a really cool place to hang out, and there are so many opportunities to make connections and find resources that are helpful.” -Amanda DaCruz, International Relations Major
Pride Week
“It’s knowing that you share something in common. It’s a comforting feeling that lasts far beyond our pride week.” - Grayson Scanlon, Architecture and Computer Science Major
International Experience
"Something that really helped me was to use all the resources that the school provides.”
The Equity Action Plan
Goal: To create the conditions for transformation by focusing on three key areas:
Critical Mass: We must increase demographic representation in the faculty, staff and student body and commit to increasing access in order to reach critical mass.
Capacity Building: To reach and sustain critical mass, all members of our campus community must develop their intercultural fluency through a variety of relevant strategies suited to different stakeholder groups. The plan also focuses on the support, empowerment and advancement of minoritized students and employees.
Culture Change: A focus on communication, leadership practices, talent development, resource allocation, institutional policies and the built environment and accessibility, is designed to drive equity and inclusion at the institutional, and not just the individual, level.
Equity Action Plan
Student Access, Success and Equity
RWU will be known as a demographically diverse institution that supports access, achieves equitable outcomes along all critical indicators of success and supports the thriving of underserved students.
Intercultural Leadership Ambassador Program
Employee Access, Success and Equity
Roger Williams University will be an organization known for its success in hiring, developing and advancing members of minoritized groups. In addition, it will be an employer of choice for talented individuals who embrace the institution’s ambitious diversity, equity and inclusion goals and objectives.
Campus Climate and Intergroup Relations
Roger Williams will create a campus climate dedicated to inclusion, equity and respect, enabling community members to thrive and experience a genuine sense of belonging.
Education, Scholarship and Service
RWU will be known as an institution that lives up to its educational imperative to interrupt inequity and the injustice that is deeply embedded in histories, legacies and structures of oppression, power, and privilege in higher education through the delivery of programs, courses and pedagogical strategies that foster transformation and effective and positive interactions in a world that is multicultural, global and interdependent.
Infrastructure and Leadership
RWU will deepen the university’s advancement of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts by implementing changes in its culture, leadership practices, leadership composition and institutional polices and systems.
Recent News
MSU Offers a Home on Campus for Students of Color
The organization’s Stay Woke Week runs this week, featuring educational panels, childhood nostalgia, and other events around diversity and social justice.
“Hidden Truths: Stories of Race and Place” Series Continues for 2021-22
Interdisciplinary series examines racial justice issues in Indigenous, Black and communities of color locally and globally, stemming from colonization, civil rights struggles, war, the slave trade, immigration and environmental politics.
DEI Leadership
Stephanie Akunvabey
Vice President for Equity and Inclusion
Chief Diversity Officer
she/her/hers
sakunvabey@rwu.edu
Ana W. Barraza
RWU Law Interim Director of Diversity and Outreach
she/her/hers
abarraza@rwu.edu
Michael Walsh
Director of Institutional Diversity Equity and Inclusion
he/him/his
mwalsh@rwu.edu
Jamie Wire
Assistant Director of the QTRAC
she/they
jwire@rwu.edu
Aleyra Lamarche
Assistant Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for Student Success
she/her/hers
alamarche@rwu.edu
Stephen Laliberte '06 '22M
Administrative Assistant, DEI
(Intercultural Center and QTRAC)
he/him/his
slaliberte@rwu.edu
Morgan Beltre
School of Law Excellence Program Coordinator, Diversity & Outreach
she/her/hers
mbeltre@rwu.edu