All-MIT Diversity Forum highlights progress, challenges for campus community
Pieces of tangible progress and reminders of ongoing challenges blended together on Friday at the All-MIT Diversity Forum, a day-long Institute conference where participants addressed the many facets of sustaining an inclusive educational community. “This year, in many ways, our students have become our teachers,” said MIT President L. Rafael Reif, in his opening remarks at the event. Reif was referring to actions the Institute has taken in recent months, partly prompted by requests made by MIT’s Black Students’ Union (BSU) and its Black Graduate Student Association (BGSA). Overall, Reif said, MIT aspires to sustain an ethos of “decency, humility, respect, and kindness” on its campus, especially with regard to matters of ethnicity, religious pluralism, gender, sexual orientation, and physical disability. “I believe that in our best moments, we are that kind of community,” Reif added. The forum also provided a public platform for speakers to emphasize the many benefits of diversity in institutions of...