Michigan State University is a global institution and offers classes and curricula which broaden the worldview of students and the wider community. On its own campus, MSU welcomes students from every state in the union and more than 130 countries.

The 21st century learners can no longer be isolated in the “ivory tower.” They must be citizens of an increasingly global world. Michigan State University leads the way in facilitating, celebrating and expanding diversity and intercultural understanding.

While the entire university espouses these core values, Paulette Granberry Russell, director of the Michigan State University office for inclusion and intercultural initiatives and senior adviser to the president for diversity, coordinates efforts to support and sustain a campus community that understands how to integrate the university’s values of diversity and inclusion into campus work and learning.

According to Granberry Russell, the earliest attempts to achieve diversity on campus evolved from the civil rights movements of the 1960s and      ’70s. “At that time, MSU started making efforts to support racial diversity both among our student population and our faculty and staff,” she says. “A lot of those more aggressive efforts came out of the civil rights movement. Public and private universities were doing more to diversify their campuses. It’s not that MSU doesn’t have a long history of diversity on its campus, but trying to increase the representation was formalized during that time by establishing the equal opportunity programs, targeted at recruiting and supporting minority students. At that time, much of that work was aimed at African American students but also included Latino, Native American and Asian populations.

“As time went on, we moved from equal opportunity programs to the establishment of the department of human relations, which existed from the 1970s through the 1990s. That office had minority student support as well as programs on behalf of women and those with disabilities. In the ’90s, the office was reorganized and became the office of affirmative action compliance and monitoring (OAACM). Some student support functions moved to student affairs and services, which included the women’s resource center and disability services. OAACM was primarily focused on monitoring workforce action.”

Granberry Russell assumed the position as senior adviser to the president on diversity and director of OAACM in 1998. In 2007, the office was again reorganized and became the MSU office for inclusion and intercultural initiatives. As currently structured, the office works to inspire creative exploration to enhance diversity and inclusivity into the university’s curriculum and support programs and to partner with others committed to creating such enhancement.

To that end, the office consults with others to identify issues; advocate institutional change; shape policies and procedures related to these issues; assist and counsel within the university to recruit and retain a diverse faculty, staff and students; conduct investigations into allegations of discrimination and harassment and provide subsequent training; and monitor employment efforts while educating the campus about workplace diversity and its importance.

According to Granberry Russell, “Our goal is to create an environment where all of the diversity inherent in the university as it exists today is supported. We want all of our students, staff and faculty to feel that they are part of the larger community and that their voices are heard, and their viewpoints are welcome. We want to create classroom experiences that present a range of diversity and give each student the feeling that they are welcomed.

“This doesn’t mean that everyone has to agree, but that everyone has a place to be heard. This has to include all ethnicities, all religions, all political views and all experiences. Of course, with diversity comes conflict and that’s not a bad thing—we grow from that. But we need to say that one of our core values is inclusivity, and we have to work to create and support that all the time—and that’s part of what this office is charged with doing.”

The office is responsible for making sure that the university complies with all state and federal nondiscrimination laws as well as the university’s policies in that area.

In addition, Granberry Russell says, “There are four primary functions within our office. We deal with incidents of discrimination directly and quickly. And then we have to educate and, from that education, prevent such incidents from reoccurring. Then we have to reach out to the community, not just the university community, but the larger community as well, and we have to connect with them to let them know that there are resources available within the university to deal with issues of equity. We look at best practices as well as research and development, both within the university and in the outside world, and then take that knowledge and use it to better inform what we do.”

She points out that the university is a microcosm of the greater society, with the same challenges and opportunities for growth.

The office makes many of its workshops and events, both on and off campus, available to the larger community. Partnering with others, they share resources, both intellectual and financial, in support of their mission.

The office also works in the realm of faculty development in the service of fostering and infusing diversity into the curriculum. While curriculum per se is the domain of the faculty and the office of the provost, Granberry Russell and her staff of 10 work with individual faculty to support sensitivity.

Granberry Russell says, “For instance, we just had a faculty workshop today about mentoring across differences. Close to 50 people participated. We create the opportunities for learning that address issues that develop in the classroom.”

She continues, “I am constantly energized by the work we do. I see things changing and improving as people become comfortable with diversity and all the richness it contains. It is up to all of us to accept others in ways that are authentic and sustainable.”