UPDATE: IowaWatch reporter Maria Curi and KCRG-TV9 reporter Forrest Saunders will moderate the May 3 forum. 5/2/18
IowaWatch will host a public forum in Iowa City to explore ways the University of Iowa can be more inviting to Latino and African American students.
The forum, called “Diversity Reality at Iowa: The Truth Behind the Statistics,” is to take place on Thursday, May 3, 2018, at the University Capitol Center in Room 1117, which is located in the Old Capitol Town Center in downtown Iowa City. It will begin at 7 p.m. and end at 8:30 p.m. and is open to the public. KCRG-TV 9 is a media partner for this event.
The forum will feature a panel of four students, Kimberly Chexnayder, Mario Williams, Gerardo Guerrero, Lilian Sanchez, and a university administrator, Lauren Gracia. Panelists will share their thoughts and conversation will flow into audience participation. From what figures to be a lively discussion, a light will be shined upon this important topic.
“We hope to advance how we talk about questions and comments that are important to African American and Latino students who come to Iowa City to study at the University of Iowa,” said Lyle Muller, the executive director and editor of IowaWatch. “A national study from the nonprofit Hechinger Report showed the university doing a good job statistically of matching Iowa’s population when it comes to minorities. But real people’s stories always add context to statistics and we want to hear them.”
IowaWatch is part of The Iowa Center for Public Affairs Journalism, an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news service whose mission is to build and support in-depth investigative journalism and to train college student journalists to do this work at a high level.
Join us on the evening of May 3.
Diversity reality at the University of Iowa is that these conversations rarely include American Indians on whose stolen lands the University sits. This is called erasure. Why is it so difficult to remember the indigenous people of this land? Jacki Rand
Why does this forum not include the stories and experiences of Indigenous students at the U?
The forum stems from a Hechinger Report on African American and Latino students, only, and our reporting focused on Iowa. We chose to keep the focus narrow because of that, and time constraints. We should talk about indigenous students. I know from conversations with people who formerly recruited strongly Native Americans to the University of Iowa are disappointed now. For example, a summer science camp at the Univ. of Iowa for Native American high school students no longer is held.