UPDATE:

Center for Diversity and Inclusion

Everyone is Welcome

Ringling College of Art and Design lives and breathes our commitment to developing holistic students who are ethical artists and equity-minded practitioners. The Center for Diversity and Inclusion opened in August 2019 as a manifestation of a commitment to cultivate, promote, and advance the diversity and inclusion of students, faculty, and staff on our vibrant and inclusive campus.

Students embrace all dimensions of diversity and inclusion through creativity and self-expression, practice cultural awareness, and are willing to engage in the necessary and often difficult conversations and decision-making that leads to transformational change.

The CDI is dedicated to empowering students to create positive, deep cultural change and transformational impact in the ever-changing world. From our rich assembly of student, staff, and faculty constituents on campus to the vast opportunities offered to learn and serve in community artistic contexts, the center strives to celebrate diversity and inclusion on our campus and throughout our community.

Contact

Center for Diversity and Inclusion
Ulla Searing Building, second floor in the Student Life Suite
1130 Greensboro Lane
Sarasota, FL 34234
941-309-4099
diversity@ringling.edu

About Us

What We Do

The Center for Diversity and Inclusion provides a wide array of programs, events, and support services for our campus community. Initiatives not only advance diversity and inclusion education, awareness, and action, but also foster and cultivate a welcoming and inclusive campus climate. CDI provides a number of resources — safe and brave spaces of support for discourse, and education focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, intersectionality, and the arts.

Mission

Create an inclusive center rooted in cultivating an engaged campus climate founded on care and respect that provides all members of the college community with access, opportunity, representation, equity, and a sense of belonging.

Vision

The overall vision of Ringling’s CDI is to help promote student success through holistic development. The CDI strives to hold the institution and our campus community accountable to support and encourage advocacy, access, and equity.

Our Programs

Special Projects:

Documentary projects
Queer Closet
Remy’s Cupboard

D.E.E.P. Program:

Lunch & Learns
Q-Chats

Community Building:

Drag bingo
Speed Friending
Block Parties
Social Hours

Special Events:

National Coming Out Day Celebrations
First Gen Celebration
Drag Show

Special Projects

The Narrative Collective Project is a multidisciplinary, intergenerational, and multimedia framework that brings awareness to social justice issues while elevating, celebrating, and raising the voices of marginalized stories that need to be told in the intentional spirit of advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion through the arts, education, and dialogue.

Violet Stripes

Violet Stripes brings together an intergenerational LGBTQ collective of folx, including Ringling College students and community residents, to share stories of their individual journeys. These powerful stories range from personal discovery and acceptance to coming out, to facing intolerance and discrimination, to embracing love.

Warriors of Sarasota

Warriors of Sarasota: Powerful Women of Color in Sarasota is CDI’s second multi-part documentary and gallery project featuring the powerful stories of women of color in Sarasota who are working in service of bettering our community and shifting systemic oppression and other social injustices within our Sarasota-Manatee communities.

D.E.E.P. Program

The Diversity and Equality Education Program (D.E.E.P.) is an educational certificate program that strives to educate the campus community on diversity and inclusivity. This program focuses on educating students, faculty, and staff about recognizing and confronting micro-aggressions and bias, as well as increasing awareness for underrepresented populations.

D.E.E.P. host a series of “Conversations” each semester that introduces and provides information about specific topics and fosters an environment for safe dialogue and communication.

Get Involved

CDI is a hub where students, faculty, staff, and alumni can connect and support one another in myriad ways. Stop by or reach out to the Center to learn more about engaging with diversity, inclusion, intersectional and 2SLGBTQIAP+ life on campus and beyond.

There are a number of ways to get connected and involved with the community:

Visit the center and check out the CDI Lounge, and connect with peers and colleagues.
Sign up for the Center for Diversity and Inclusion email list to stay current with upcoming events.
Register to volunteer to help us with programs and events, drop-in Food and Hygiene Pantry hours, CDI Narrative Collective Documentary and Gallery Project, tabling, chalking, hanging fliers, and so much more.
Follow us on Ringlink and check out our programs and events.
Check out and get involved in one of the many 2SLGBTQIAP+ student organizations on campus and sign up for their email lists to get information about their events and meetings.
Join our programs, student organizations, events, leadership opportunities, and discussion groups, which are all designed to support your academic and professional growth and social success.
Meet with our team for direct support and help navigating campus resources.
Come to a discussion group or workshop to listen, learn, and discuss.
Explore the ways our campus serves students of color, 2SLGBTQIAP+, international students, and our veteran student community to support as an advocate and ally.
Apply for one of our Student Assistant roles to help us run some of the major functions of our Center.
Visit our CDI lending library.
Act as a liaison between CDI and other organizations you are involved with.
Study, hang out, join us for lunch, or browse through our resources.

Benefits of Getting Involved

The Center for Diversity and Inclusion offers students an opportunity to learn more about various aspects of diversity, inclusion, intersectionality, social justice, communities of color, and 2SLGBTQIAP+ communities through a cultural and artistic lens by engaging our community in immersion and dialogic experiences.

By getting involved and staying engaged with CDI, students will learn and benefit from the following:

Historical and Socio-cultural Learning

Enhance academic learning and civic education
Develop and improve critical thinking and reflection skills
Approach history with an attitude of respect and equality
Learn that history can mean being present with people

Community Engagement

Become aware of and ask critical questions about current local, national, and global concerns
Understand the dynamic nature of community life and that every member’s contribution is valuable and necessary
Demonstrate an openness to transformation through experiences with other communities
Be in solidarity with people who are materially poor or marginalized

Diversity

Increase awareness of societies, cultures, diverse world-views, and perspectives
Recognize the assets (strength, wisdom, and aspirations) of other communities
Recognize the inherent value and dignity of each person
Develop relationships with people of diverse backgrounds and recognize the way in which these relationships enrich our lives
Acknowledge and appreciate the differences between other communities and one’s own

Justice and Social Change

Expand awareness and knowledge of local, national, and global social justice issues
Learn about privilege (cultural, racial, gender, class, and sexuality)
Analyze one’s position in terms of privilege, power, and oppression
Recognize injustice and the structures that cause and maintain oppression (e.g. racism, classism, and sexism)
Understand how systemic oppression negatively effects and impacts individual lives
Expand knowledge of existing networks and groups working for social change
Identify unjust language and use more inclusive and just language

Personal Growth/Emotional Development

Develop knowledge of self through habits of critical personal reflection;
Understand how justice activities can help to discover one’s meaning and purpose in life;
Learn to collaborate effectively with fellow students, faculty and staff, and community members;
Improve interpersonal and social skills.

Artistic Growth

Learn skills for becoming an ethical practitioner of your craft and strategies for engaging in truthful and transformational narratives-shifting;
Learn infrastructure-building and how to build creative strategies for community mobilization and support through the arts;
Learn how to create cultural policy oriented toward access and equity for artists.

Professionalism

Be a positive role model in terms of behavior, attitude, and language
Improve one’s organizational skills of time management and planning
Develop leadership skills (communication, collaboration, affirmation, motivation, facilitation, delegation, evaluation, supervision, goal setting, and problem solving)

Clubs

The International Cultures Club

The International Cultures Club celebrates and promotes international and cultural diversity and understanding on campus through the organization of diverse cultural and educational events. For more information, contact Amy Pettengill.

Students of Color Alliance

The Students of Color Alliance is dedicated to providing support and building community for students of color and their allies, as well as raising awareness throughout campus. For more information, send an email.

Veteran’s Club

The Veteran’s Club is a student-led organization that allows students who have served in the military to discuss their experiences and how it connects to their art. It also helps connect Veterans with resources available. For more information, contact the club advisor via email.