SGA introduced to new diversity officials

The Student Government Association (SGA) welcomed new administrators Jamie Riley, associate dean of diversity and inclusion; Annalise Setorie, assistant director for programming at the Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA); and Christian Pavik, international outreach and engagement coordinator at the Office of International Services (OIS) as guest speakers to their weekly meeting on Tuesday in the Charles Commons Salon.

Terry Martinez, associate vice provost and dean of student life, was also in attendance.

The three guest speakers outlined their goals for the Hopkins community, which revolved primarily around the continued fostering of diversity and inclusion on campus.

They also expressed a desire to work hand-in-hand with the SGA to fulfill their responsibilities and create a more tight-knit University community.

Pavik expressed his desire to bring the needs of international students to the forefront of University’s focus, while also expanding outreach in other areas of the greater Hopkins community.

“There are so many resources at Hopkins that allow you as students to be successful in moving forward,” Pavik said. “My goal is focusing on the international student community and making the inclusion effort to make our international student population known on campus, as well as fostering those other students that are not here on Homewood campus, [such as] students from the Peabody Institute.”

Setorie explained that the OMA will begin to focus extensively on issues of racial identity and its intersectional with ethnic identities.

“We’ve kind of restructured a bit,” Setorie said. “We no longer house academically focused programs. We now have three main areas we focus on: leadership, diversity, education and programming, and we do that through a racial multicultural lens. We are working with our cultural student organizations and SEED [Students Educating and Empowering for Diversity] to make sure that across campus we are facilitating workshops and conversations that students want to have and are necessary to have on campus.”

One of the ways administrators are hoping to help foster dialogue among students on racial awareness and diversity is through a new workshop event called Identity and Inclusion at Hopkins.

Riley explained that the event was being organized specifically for first-year and transfer students.

“We are really focusing on increasing educational efforts to enhance students’ awareness, knowledge and skills as it relates to cross cultural consciousness and interacting and engaging across differences and similarities,” Riley said. “We are helping to organize and facilitate a workshop for first-year and transfer students called Identity and Inclusion at Hopkins. The team will be facilitating that workshop with students, with peer leaders, so we will be using organizations, SEED and diversity educators that will be co-facilitating that experience for all 1300, 1400 first year students. The team is working on training co-facilitators now, but we’ll also be looking as we’re trying to implement this in the future... for student collaboration to help us serve as co-facilitators and to give us student perspective as well.”

Riley, who previously worked as an associate dean at the University of California, Berkeley, discussed what attracted him to Hopkins specifically, in response to an inquiry from junior Anna Du, SGA executive vice president.

“Other campuses do not have leadership at an administrative level that I feel are as fully invested and committed,” Riley said. “To have someone at [Martinez’s] position who promotes and commits to this work was a major reason why I wanted to come here and do this work. There are administrators here who know what needs to happen and who are willing to make the investment and commitment. That is the big difference I have seen.”

However, Riley also addressed the University’s shortcomings, particularly with regards to its inclusivity for different groups of students.

“Hopkins, like many other universities in this country, has not done its best around inclusion for students from certain identity groups,” Riley said. “There is a lot of work that still needs to be done to make students feel like this campus is their campus too. In other campuses I have worked at, I see the same issues repeating themselves.”

Setorie echoed Riley’s sentiments in commending the University for its continued efforts to improve its shortcomings in making the campus environment more inclusive of different groups.

She also advised students that sometimes it was necessary to pause and take a step back, whether it be for their own mental health or simply for the sake of taking a break.

“It’s really empowering to see that Hopkins is recognizing that there are things to change and that they are taking the steps to change them and making sure it is inclusive as it can be,” Setorie said. “One thing I’ve noticed is that I would like to empower students to just be and to be okay with just being. As students, you’re all caught up in academics and doing everything. It’s okay to just be. It’s okay sometimes to sit with yourself and just be who you are. As a professional that is something I would encourage students to do.”