President's Message

President’s Message
Dear NADOHE Colleagues:

I trust that this communication finds you well and that you have managed to find time over the past couple of months to recharge your batteries, enjoy your families and prepare for what will be another year of challenges and rewards as leaders in higher education. Our work as senior level diversity professionals is often quite taxing personally and we must remind ourselves to exercise self-care as we exert ourselves as institutional leaders.

I write to provide some updates about our association since the 2018 annual conference in Washington, D.C., where NADOHE had its largest conference ever with more than five hundred attendees, including international participants and presenters. Additionally, this was NADOHE's first stand-alone conference, which allowed for more education and professional development opportunities, including more than thirty concurrent sessions, three keynote presentations, and exhibits. Plans are underway for the 2019 Annual Conference, March 6 - 9, at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel, in Philadelphia, PA, where the next NADOHE. As in 2018, the conference will immediately precede the ACE Annual Conference.

I am excited to report that NADOHE held its second annual Standards of Professional Practice Institute (SPPI) June 2018, at the Georgia Institute of Technology Global Learning Center! Forty diversity professionals attending the SPPI were led by a national faculty of researchers and diversity practitioners. Participants evaluated the Institute as a tremendous success with a first-rate curriculum that provides research-based standards to increase their capacity to lead institutional diversity and inclusion programs and practices. The SPPI committee, led by Dr. Clyde Wilson Pickett, CDO, Minnesota State and Dr. Rosemary Kilkenny, VP and CDO at Georgetown University, is busy planning the 2019 Institute. More information on this will be available shortly.

NADOHE’s Board of Directors met in July 2018 and the results of this convening include a continuing commitment to the Insight Into Diversity Scholarship Fund, a Presidential Task Force to lead a review and update of the Standards of Professional Practice for CDOs in Higher Education, momentum on the 2019 - 2021 NADOHE Strategic Plan, a renewed focus on chapter and membership development, as well as the continuation of initiatives such as the CDO Fellows Program, Inclusive Excellence Awards, and development of the NADOHE Member Resources section of the website.

Another important board action was the decision to recruit more NADOHE members to participate on NADOHE’s standing committees, which conduct the routine business for NADOHE. We have ten standing committees ranging from the annual conference planning committee to our marketing and communications committee. Our goal is to recruit 50-60 new committee members in the coming year to take important leadership roles within NADOHE. We invite you to visit NADOHE’s website at http://www.nadohe.org/ to review the list of committees and the contact information of committee chairs to become involved as a leader in NADOHE.

Please know that NADOHE continues to monitor national issues that affect diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education. Our Public Policy Committees continues to prepare NADOHE position statements in support of DACA students, Harvard University's defense of its admissions processes that enhance diversity in its student body and in partnership with our colleagues at ACE and other higher education associations.  Our continued vigilance will permit us to represent the interests of all diversity professionals in higher education as we continue to lead the way toward inclusive excellence as the leading voice for diversity and inclusion in higher education both nationally and in the international arena. 

In closing, I invite all members to tell us how we may better support you in your work and recommend ways we may improve our association to enhance the return of your investment as members of NADOHE.

On behalf of the Board of Directors, best wishes to everyone for a healthy and productive year.

Best,

Archie W. Ervin, Ph.D.