Signatures

A U News Beverly challenged to nurture diversity on AU campus A nderson University has always been intent on being a culturally diverse campus. To help in these efforts, Dr. Aleza Beverly, AU alumna and former dean of the university's School of Adult Learning, as been named the dean of intercultural engagement. For this new role, Beverly works to foster a campus community of diversity. Although Beverly is leading these initiatives, she explained, "To truly transform the AU community, it will take the efforts of each person in our institution to see this as a part of their responsibility, too." Intercultural engagement is not only a new initiative of AU but also important in the Christian community as a whole. "This role and these diversity initiatives are vital for the growth of AU as it directly reflects our mission as we prepare students for a life of service for church and society." It also follows the university's desire to foster a learning environment that prepares students for the diverse, ANDERSON UNIVERSITY Alumni Quarterly, Winter 2014 global society in which AU graduates will live and work. Among Beverly's duties are to provide strategic leadership toward increasing the number of ethnically diverse faculty and staff, to assist in the recruitment of ethnically diverse faculty and staff, serve as a hiring consultant for all institutional searches, foster the retention of ethnically diverse faculty and staff, contribute to creating a welcoming and interculturally responsive campus environment, and to positively represent AU internally and externally and building collaborative partnerships with organizations committed to ethnic diversity. In her beginning months in the job, Beverly is focusing on creating a global community that empowers the university to transform lives through intercultural competence. Intercultural competence, explains Beveraly, is a major component of excellence. She has spent the first several months of her new assign- ment researching how other colleges and universities focus on diversity initiatives. Through this, she has also been forming valuable relationships that should greatly benefit her work as well as the university's endeavors. For Beverly, one of the most rewarding experiences so far in her new role as dean of intercultural engagement has been her participation in a reunion of black AU alumni from the early 1970s that took place this past summer (see the fall 2013 issue of Signatures). "To hear their stories and the challenges of the late '60s and early '70s was heart wrenching but also so very heart warming. It reminded me of how special this place is." Beverly added, "It was because of them — their challenges, their persistence, their success — that I came to a better institution in the late '70s and early '80s." As the dean of intercultural engagement, she hopes to continue that work. —CHELSEA DAWSON page 4

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