The National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADOHE), rapidly emerging as a premier organization of diversity officers in public and private colleges and state systems of higher education, will expand its activities later this year to include state chapters, the organization’s leaders decided in Phoenix at their annual meeting earlier this month.
Giving the young group of seasoned diversity professionals more organized reach in individual states will help NADOHE “collectively advance” the work individuals and smaller groups have already done, says NADOHE President Glen Jones, senior associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at Arkansas State University.
Dr. Jones says having state chapters will also enhance the networking abilities of various local groups around the country as individual and isolated groups find colleagues they can share information with and “collectively advance the work that’s out there” on such efforts as globalization, scholarship policies and new recruitment and retention strategies.
NADOHE has some 150 institutional and 90 individual members working at public and private colleges and in statewide higher education systems. Its expansion move comes at a time when the nation’s weakened economy and a moderating political climate appear to have cooled diversity programs and advocacy in recent years and forced many groups to retrench.
Harnessing NADOHE’s various human resources into a more coordinated network has been discussed among many diversity professionals in higher education for several years. The fine print of how the state chapter process will work will be ironed out over the new few months, says Jones.
Meanwhile, the notion of NADOHE extending its reach is winning praise.
“I’m really encouraged by the state chapters,” idea, says Dr. Wendy Thompson, vice chancellor for access and diversity at the Tennessee Board of Regents, the governance and policy board for the state’s public colleges and universities, except the University of Tennessee. Thompson, who said she joined NADOHE’s board to help promote the participation in the group of state systems and community colleges, says the state chapter concept should help encourage more involvement by those kinds of institutions.
