At NWTC, we don’t just talk the talk, we walk the walk …
The message from the President of NWTC reads: “As the population of Northeast Wisconsin continues to change, Northeast Wisconsin Technical College continues to embrace the richness of our diverse community. Striving to broaden our student population, the College has improved communication with traditionally underrepresented populations, increased activities to attract diverse faculty and staff, increased visitation and presentation at area high schools in order to attract students of color, and conducted ongoing diversity training for faculty and staff district-wide. Diversity is everybody’s business.”
We live and work in a world where social, economic and cultural borders are fading away rapidly. It is a world where the concept of being able to live separately in a country dominated solely by one culture is no longer feasible. Moreover, advances in transportation and satellite-based communication allow all of us to transcend geographic and political boundaries.
As Americans, our success in this highly competitive and rapidly changing world will depend upon how we interact with each other nationally and internationally. Our College’s drive to promote diversity should be viewed as an active response to our rapidly changing world. The college believes that cultural diversity is an inclusive concept that embraces everyone. It encompasses ethnic, age, and gender; people with different physical and mental abilities; people from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds.
Northeast Wisconsin Technical College views diversity as a humanistic call in tone imploring us not to judge each other by physical characteristics, cultures, or value differences, but rather to acknowledge, understand, accept and celebrate our differences because of the unlimited possibilities involved. NWTC views valuing and promoting cultural diversity as a commitment to working with each other to ensure that everyone has opportunities for growth and advancement in our society. The college is committed to education, to embracing all cultures, to creating culture-inclusive campuses and to preparing all learners to “successfully engage in a career that enhances their quality of life in a global community.”
Moreover, NWTC is convinced that culture inclusive education will provide our institution with an opportunity to expand the basis of our knowledge and help us to (1) create social and academic climate conducive to intellectual growth and development, (2) attract the best and the brightest students from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds (3) increase our enrollment and graduation rates for all of our citizens and (4) help the college to attract and train the next generation of talented youth and meet our nation’s workforce need to compete in a global marketplace. To that end, NWTC has been and continues to take steps such as:
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Making it mandatory for all benefit eligible faculty and staff to receive Cultural Awareness Training as part of staff development. As of today, 100 percent benefit eligible employees have received cultural awareness training.
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In addition to series of ethnic, gender and culture inclusive events and activities, the college celebrates September as Latino/a American month, October as Native American month, November as Asian American month, February as African American month, and March as Women’s History month for the campus community. During each month, posters reflecting the key contributions of individual men and women in all areas of human endeavor to our nation and the world are displayed.
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As part of its commitment to creating and sustaining inclusive campuses, NWTC conducts the “Vision of Success” program designed to remove key barriers to students of color’s enrollment in post-secondary education. Details of the “Vision of Success” program are attached.
Dr. Alem Asres
Director of College Diversity/Affirmative Action