(Posted April 24, 2017)

Cephas Archie speaks in Neff Hall.
Cephas Archie speaks in Neff Hall.

Juniata College is currently in the search process for a Dean of Institutional Equity and Inclusive Excellence. They have narrowed it down to three candidates, and each one will be interviewed by a panel, in addition to giving an open forum for the community, faculty and students.

The first candidate was Cephas Archie. At his open forum, he talked about the school’s need to work collaboratively through all of our intersections and value communication amongst individuals and groups. He specializes in using technology and data to engage with the community. He demonstrated this by using an interactive texting poll with the crowd that came to see his presentation.

He has had experience at other campuses previously. He hopes to work collaboratively with all of the stakeholders at Juniata, in order to define what diversity and inclusion means for Juniata College.

He already has great ideas on how to make Juniata more inclusive, working towards the goal of integration. He wants to work with all of the stakeholders at Juniata, including the faculty, students, staff and alumni. Part of his plan involves adding yearly benchmarks to our 7-year diversity and inclusion plan so that we are actively checking in on ourselves and our progress.

He wants to engage everyone by strategic implementation of programs. That means putting it into the curriculum, the first-year experience and residential life programming. His best advice was give students a voice, before they act out in a negative way.

We have to, “honor our differences and our intersections,” and look at the whole human and their story. Knowing that, “who they are is not a threat to who I am.”

The second open forum will be taking place with Sumita Furlong on April 24, and the third presentation will be with Wazir Jefferson.

Isabella Bennett, Juniata Online Journalist 

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.