According to President Laurie Carter’s monthly campus updates email, sent on Tuesday, April 11, the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion with Lawrence’s Diversity and Intercultural Center, Accessibility Office and Sustainability Office have officially been merged into the Division of Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, Antiracism and Support Services (IDEAS). The divisions will now report to Vice President for IDEAS Kenny Emmanuel Yarbrough.
Yarbrough officially moved to Lawrence on Feb. 2 and began on Feb. 15, and was the one to initiate the division with permission from President Laurie Carter. For him, this is an important change for the increased intersectionality of student services and should allow student issues to be addressed from an intersectional lens as opposed to a single-dimensional one, which cannot account for each aspect of someone’s identity.
This will mean, Yarbrough hopes, that students not only see themselves in every part of the new division’s acronym, but that they will be encouraged to actively participate and work with parts that mean something to them.
Although the staff members do not physically work in the same office at the current moment, members of the division and offices that fall under its umbrella have already begun to work together. He expects them to strategize and organize events and programs together, and so far, according to him, they have begun to meet this expectation. Even their physical separateness, he notes, means that they are all over campus, and students may hopefully be able to see themselves everywhere.
One of the things Yarbrough stressed students should know is that the services these offices provide have not changed, and that just because the areas are under a new division does not mean students cannot access them. Although they are under a new umbrella, that will only serve to increase the intersectionality between areas, rather than removing pre-existing services.
Another point discussed by Yarbrough is that he would like to increase students’ sense of belonging at Lawrence with IDEAS. Helping Lawrentians find out where they can see themselves in Lawrence and understand just what it means to be a Lawrentian for everyone is a goal of the new division.
The division was officially ratified on April 11, and Yarbrough and the division are still working through and solidifying exactly what IDEAS will do, and how to make the division happen, but he has high hopes.
“I want IDEAS to be idea-generating and I’m not trying to get a play on words with that,” said Yarbrough “But I hope that when people think of IDEAS, they don’t just see someone that wants to tick a box off, or believe that this area is only for this group of students. I want this to be so broad-ranging and so broad-reaching that every student, regardless of their identity, can see themselves working in that area.”