As students entered into Ballroom B at The Inn at Ole Miss, University of North Carolina’s Chief Diversity Officer Taffye Benson Clayton made her way around the room shaking hands and meeting her potential new student body.
Clayton kicked off a week of open forum discussions between the UM community and candidates for the new vice chancellor for diversity and community engagement position.
“I couldn’t be more pleased to be here,” she said as she opened up her presentation.
Over the course of the hour-long session, Clayton took the audience through her plan of action if she were chosen for the position. Coming from the University of North Carolina, she said she has experience in handling sensitive diversity issues at a Southern university.
“There’s certainly more I need to learn about Ole Miss, but there’s a lot in terms of our past that is a shared history in the South. And we need to engage it fully,” Clayton said.
She said that community outreach work was the “bread and butter” of what her department did there. While at UNC, she brought six diversity and inclusion professionals on board.
Clayton compared diversity efforts on campus to technology’s introduction into the academic world. She said universities should treat the integration of diversity programs the same way they handled technology.
Candidate Taffye Benson Clayton answers questions during Tuesday’s vice chancellor open interview session. Clayton currently serves as associate vice chancellor for diversity and multicultural affairs and chief diversity officer at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. (Photo by: Cameron Brooks)
“We understood as administrators in higher ed that technology was going to change the way we worked,” she said. “Diversity is just as transformative. We need to approach it knowing that it will be integral, knowing that we will need an infrastructure for it to work.”
Clayton talked about the obstacles that arise when trying to bring change to an old, Southern university. She said any kind of change will trigger a response from the community, especially the alumni.
“That’s not always easy, but with some creativity and some relationship building, it is possible,” Clayton said. “I have not shied away from new ways to engage folks when we can have important agreements in principle and shared goals.”
Sophomore public policy leadership major Jarrius Adams said he was excited for the open forum and did his own research on the candidates before he came to Tuesday’s session.
“I read the email announcing this and I was like ‘Oh my gosh, yes,’”Adams said.
Clayton shares Adams’ enthusiasm about student involvement in the new position. She said it is important to a university for administrators to listen to and understand their students, especially at Ole Miss.
“It’s a world-class institution,” she said. “I sensed that this was a place that really desired to make more of a change, and I’d love to do that here.”
