Center will focus on issues of diversity and pluralism

Connecticut College has created its sixth academic center that will be the home for the study of diversity and pluralism issues across history and cultures.

Called the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE), the center will integrate a number of subjects – race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender/gender identity and religion. Faculty and students will explore topics such as power, structural inequality and social justice at the center.

CCSRE will sponsor guest lectures, coordinate special seminars and serve as a resource and think tank for issues related to the study of race and ethnicity. Additionally, the center will provide extra oversight of College efforts to ensure that students are prepared to be citizens of the global world they will enter, according to Frances Hoffmann, dean of the faculty.

“CCSRE will help ensure that Connecticut College students understand the complexities of our increasingly multicultural and global society,” Hoffmann said. “I look forward to CCSRE being at the core of spirited campus learning and discussion of all issues related to diversity.”

Like the College’s other interdisciplinary centers, CCSRE will serve as a site for student learning as well as for staff and faculty development. Unlike the other centers, it will not offer a certificate; rather, it will develop partnerships with other centers, programs, departments and administrative units to enhance academic and co-curricular programming across the College.

CCSRE was derived from the Presidential Commission on a Pluralistic Community, which summarized the state of diversity at the College and provided a comprehensive set of recommendations for creating a more genuinely pluralistic campus community.

The College’s Board of Trustees approved the center at its May 21 meeting.