The Diversity & Inclusion for All podcast captures conversations with professors, practitioners, and people of interest who are teaching, pursuing, and engaging diversity & inclusion in inspirational and effective ways. By exploring a range of diversity topics, this podcast provides on-ramps to better understanding and awareness of issues related to diversity & inclusion work in our communities today. Supported by Calvin University and the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship, these conversations provide information, insights, and stories to inform the diversity work of both Christian and secular organizations.
Episode 1-001 Welcome
In our current moment, with the long overdue national crisis of conscience related to race in America that was sparked and a big part of our summer 2020 with the death of George Floyd and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement and with the anti-Asian bias, for example, that's been happening during COVID and especially recently in spring of 2021, we more than ever, I think, are really in a place where more people are wanting to do something or wanting to get engaged in diversity and inclusion work, or at least want to like know a little more and become more aware.
And Calvin University's Diversity & Inclusion for All project is a great place to go to get some of that information, to get those on ramps, to get inspiration and perspectives from different people on different topics in diversity and inclusion.
Welcome to the Diversity and Inclusion for All project, supported by Calvin University and the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship.
Together we’ll listen to key perspectives, build our knowledge, inform our thinking, and get a little better equipped to engage our world.
Welcome to the Diversity & Inclusion for All a podcast from Calvin University. It's summer 2021. I'm Pennylyn Dykstra-Pruim and I'm here today to introduce the Diversity & Inclusion for All project.
This project of Calvin University aims to provide accessible, on-ramp content on a range of issues centered on diversity and inclusion in our world today.
We've interviewed and tapped different persons from across our campus and from our broader Calvin University community who are all pursuing and teaching and engaging diversity and inclusion in innovative, inspirational, and effective ways.
And you get to benefit from their experiences and expertise.
The Diversity & Inclusion for All project offers learning packages on a range of topics, and here are some of the topics at the top of our list.
Land acknowledgements. We explore a little bit what they are, why they matter and how more of us could get started and think about this process of integrating land acknowledgements into our communities.
Disabilities and inclusive communities is another one of our topics at the top of the list. We kind of look at some of the important perspectives on why this work matters and how to do it well.
We're also planning a few different learning packages on each of these two special topic areas because they're so important for us today. The first area that is going to have multiple packages is Muslim-Christian Engagement, and the second area that will have multiple packages is Race in America.
It doesn't take a lot of thought really to understand why these two topics would be very important for our current moment. For each of our topics, we're going to provide a learning package, and each learning package will include content for up to, I would say, maybe 4 hours of training, And they'll have components such as these: a podcast with practitioners, professors and persons of interest; some recommended texts with discussion guides or reading guides, or both; some recorded faculty mini lectures on key concepts and topics; and there’ll be in either an FAQ or a top 10 facts list, or an engaging warm up type of activity that you can use with your group to spark conversation and engagement.
And we hope that in every learning package there’ll be a list of resources. Kind of a place you can go for learning more on your own or with your team so your team, your organization, university, house of worship, a youth Group, a support Group, a dorm floor--almost any small group --can use some or all of a particular learning package as content and resources to learn about a diversity and inclusion topic.
So, at Calvin University, we're putting together this Diversity & Inclusion for All project and these learning packages, but we don't necessarily have all the answers. We, just like you, are on a journey. And this is a journey of discovery and discussion and learning and working with others to value diversity, embody inclusive excellence, and engage in our world for good.
The Diversity & Inclusion for All podcasts will be a cornerstone of our different learning packages.
This first episode is just the introduction to the project, but will you join us on this journey?
Go ahead and hit subscribe to be notified when new podcasts are posted soon.
Will post a link to the website which will host the podcast but will more importantly host those learning packages that you'll be able to access. So when you see that link, go ahead and bookmark that and then check back regularly to see what learning packages are available. And then share the podcast and the website with your team, in your friends group, in your houses of worship. Any place where you think people are interested in learning more, becoming more aware, and exploring different areas, different topics in diversity and inclusion.
Together we can listen to important perspectives, build our knowledge, inform our thinking, and get a little better equipped to engage our world.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe to our podcast to stay informed about future episodes. Do you have a friend who would be interested in today's topic? We'd love it if you share our work with them. Our hope is that this project will spark good conversations and provide learning resources that inspire diversity and inclusion work.
All views and opinions expressed in our episodes are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of Calvin University or the Calvin Institute for Christian worship.