Georgia College Implements ‘Diversity Action Plan’

MILLEDGEVILLE, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – It started as a challenge, and now, it’s close to becoming reality.

The President of Georgia College and State University challenged his school to bring more diversity to its students and faculty.

More than 20 people were on hand tonight at the Collins P. Lee Recreation Center in Milledgeville.

They heard all about how GCSU’s lack of diversity was a problem, and how the school hoped to fix it.

After tonight, the staff and students are a step closer to doing just that.

GCSU’s Diversity–or what the students say is its lackthereof–is important to the school.

“The university diversity action plan is actually focusing on Middle Georgia in recruitment retention efforts,” said Veronica Womack.

The GCSU Diversity Action Plan began with Dr. Steve Dorman, the President of the University, saying he wanted to increase diversity amongst faculty and staff.

So, a committee was formed.

More than 20 people were on it, including students and faculty.

“My point of view I guess was just to be a student and say hey this is what all of my friends say versus what the faculty says, because you know their opinion might be completely different,” said student Jarrett Martin.

“Most of our students come from the Atlanta area, so I was really concerned about that, and I wanted to ensure that we are doing all that we can possible to draw in students in the Middle Georgia area to Georgia college,” said student Juawn Jackson.

That was one problem the committee aimed to address: a huge percentage of students at GCSU are not from Baldwin County, or hardly anywhere in Middle Georgia.

Wednesday night, Veronica Womack of the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity presented the committee’s plan that aims to change that.

“We want to increase the number of students from Baldwin County and the surrounding counties and so we hope that the strategies and goals that we’ve come up with for the diversity action plan will assist in that effort,” said Womack.

And that effort will only be worth it with community involvement.

“It’s very important that we reach out the community and find out what their issues and needs are and try to address those,” said Womack.

With the community’s approval tonight, the plan that started as a challenge, takes a step closer to ending in success.

Womack went over the goals of the plan at the meeting.

They included plenty of ways to achieve success.

She says the next step is for Dr. Dorman to approve the plan, then find members to fill the various committees the plan calls for.