The Center for Cultural Diversity supports a constantly growing number of programs and initiatives. Below are highlights of some of our work.

Global Awareness Programs

• The Global Awareness Committee meets every other week to plan various activities including an ongoing Brown Bag Lunch series as well as film and lecture discussions.

Student Clubs & Activities

• Alternative Spring Break - This year the Center for Cultural Diversity supported student community service trips to the Dominican Republic, New York and San Francisco.

• United Nations Club - Every year, the UN Club convenes a Model UN Conference. This year's conference is scheduled for March 23-24.

• Our staff serves as advisors to The Elias Fund, Americans for Informed Democracy, Africed, Indian Cultural Exchange, and other diversity-centered student organizations.

Campus & Community Collaborations

In addition to addressing diversity at the College, the Center for Cultural Diversity is actively collaborating and working with community organizations who are advancing diversity efforts within the local and state community.

• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day - In recognition of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, the College offers a variety of programs to educate the campus and community on the life and legacy of Dr. King. These offerings include lectures, community service programs, discussions, vigils, and exhibits. This campus-wide community program is coordinated, developed and implemented by the MLK Commemoration Committee.
• Carolina Lowcountry and the Atlantic World (CLAW)
  To mark the bicentennial of the banning of the international slave trade in March 1807, a group of concerned Charlestonians from a variety of faith traditions and embracing representatives both from the City of Charleston and from the College of Charleston will be holding an interfaith memorial ceremony on Liberty Square at 3pm on Sunday, March 25th.
• Inter-institutional Diversity Committee (IIDC)
  We have joined with MUSC, the Citadel, Trident Technical College and the Charleston School of Law in order to make a comprehensive collection of diversity resources more widely available. Currently, a community web site to serve this end is under development.
• Ongoing Partnerships
  In an effort to foster effective diversity programming throughout the community and to better serve our diverse consituents, we are partnering with various organizations including
  • Tricounty Human Resource Management Association (TCHRMA)
  • South Carolina Diversity Council
  • Women & Gender Studies Advisory Board
  • Coalition of Minority Leaders in Higher Education (COML)

Campus Climate Study

In order to better understand the diversity climate of the college, members of the Research & Evaluation Subcommittee coordinated a campus-wide survey for students, staff, and faculty in October 2006. Other strategic planning objectives included the need to develop and establish a long-term assessment instrument to acquire baseline data and monitor our institutional inclusion efforts.

The survey objectives were to assess the overall campus climate in terms of:

• Campus environment in general
• Diversity issues and concerns
• Social interactions with others from different backgrounds (ethnicity, religion, social class, etc.)
• Relationships with others from different backgrounds and campus climate for various groups
• Campus experience with bias and discrimination
• Attitudes toward different groups of people, using questions developed for Social Distance Theory
• Satisfaction with College of Charleston