As many colleges and universities across the country scale back or cut their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, Illinois Wesleyan University has doubled down on its efforts to make all students feel welcome.
Dakesa Piña is a month into her new job as IWU’s vice president for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). The inaugural cabinet position means a seat at the table for DEI at the highest echelons of the Bloomington university.
“It’s really important to have this position in a space where I am able to talk with those folks who have that decision- making power,” Piña said in an interview with WGLT. She reports to president Georgia Nugent and will touch nearly every aspect of IWU. The breadth of her role means infusing DEI in every academic program, student life, faculty and staff, admissions and marketing.
“I’m not saying that our students, faculty or staff couldn’t directly communicate with the president, because they do,” Piña said. “It’s just that I have set aside times to meet with the cabinet, to hear all of the great things that are going on on campus and to be able to share my expertise within that room.”
Piña previously worked as diversity director for the College of Education at Illinois State University. She studied marriage and family therapy and has 16 years of experience in diversity, equity and inclusion work.
“I grew up with parents and grandparents who were not provided opportunity,” Piña said. “My mother wanted to be a flight attendant, but they were not hiring African American flight attendants at that time. I think she was a secretary and that molded the trajectory of her life. The same thing with my father; the same thing with my grandmother. When she was growing up she could not purchase her own shoes. She had to go to the shoe store and pretend she was purchasing shoes for a white woman that she worked for. So, when I was growing up, I remember hearing those stories and in my little child, 11-year-old mind I thought, ‘Well, that’s not fair.’ That little fire sparked inside of me to figure out: Why is this world not fair?”
Prior to her role at ISU, Piña worked as a counselor with college students and children, as well as adults dealing with domestic violence. She has expertise in conflict resolution, identifying personal bias and building empathy, compassion and humility.
Her own bias was something Piña grappled with as she thought about applying to work at IWU.
“I did my homework,” she said. “We all walk around with bias and I had biases about what a small, liberal arts, private college is. I started to get to know people on campus and honestly, I got a different perspective of what Illinois Wesleyan is, what it does, who it tries to service — and I was really excited about that.”
Beginning in August, Illinois Wesleyan’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion will report to Piña. In addition to supporting current IWU students from diverse backgrounds, the office hosts a pre-orientation campus immersion program and alumni network.
Widespread criticism of president Nugent’s response to George Floyd’s murder and calls for racial justice in 2020 prompted better transparency among the administration and students, faculty and staff — and may be one reason why they pushed for a cabinet-level position dedicated to diversity. Piña said that accountability and transparency are what attracted her to the job.
“The university-wide strategy is what I will bring to the table,” she said, “making sure that equity, diversity and inclusion is embedded into all of our units and making sure all of our faculty, staff and students feel valued.”
That is easier said than done, particularly given Piña’s broad definition of her role. She plans to launch a dashboard of ongoing projects to demonstrate progress on curricular, facilities and programmatic changes that may be slow-going and will require significant time and financial investment.
Capital improvements such as updating restrooms and building access for people with disabilities are on her long to-do list. She also plans to work toward standardized practices to better serve students with disabilities in the classroom, including documents formatted to respond to text readers and captioning of virtual meetings.
The extent to which faculty, staff, donors and trustees will lean into these goals — some more ambitious than others — remains to be seen. And Piña is acutely aware that positions like hers have been vilified and politicized across the country.
“When people hear the words EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion), they mostly think about race,” Piña said. “Some folks think about unfairness. But if you think about what those terms actually mean, they mean innovation, they mean excellence and they mean student success, which is what higher education is all about.”
In May, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill banning DEI initiatives in public colleges. State legislatures nationwide have introduced or passed more than 30 bills limiting college and universities’ ability to put resources into DEI, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
And a June 29 Supreme Court ruling eliminating race-based admissions practices threatens progress toward diversifying campuses — particularly at elite, private colleges. That may ultimately hurt the bottom line at universities who cannot attract or retain a growing pool of diverse applicants.
“Diversity is a fact,” Piña said. “We are a diverse country. Equity is about giving people what they need to succeed. I don’t think anybody would not want to give our college students what they need to be successful. If you take that political view off of what diversity, equity and inclusion actually is, it’s something that I believe most people would agree is a positive thing.”
