Diversity at JMU

D.E.E.P. Impact stands for the Diversity Excellence Education Program that was started at James Madison University in 2014 by the center of Multicultural Student Services.

The program was started in hopes to influence meaningful change by heightening awareness, and increasing knowledge about diversity in order to celebtare the value of diversity in all its forms. D.E.E.P. impact also hopes to promote inclusion, advocacy and respect to help students influence how diveristy is viewed in thier communities, campuses and the world.

There are four main ways that D.E.E.P. Impact goes about educating thier publics about what diversiy is.

1. Outreach

-These outreaches are individually developed workshops requested by JMU faculty, staff and/or students. Such programs can be utilized for deeping community in residence halls, or for diving into a topic being discussed in the classroom.

2. Dialogues

-These are monthly discussions hosted by the D.E.E.P. Impact team members that are used to engage students in meaniful dialogue about issues/trends related to diversity and multicultraism.

3. Cultural Series

-These series are open to the JMU community and take place twice each semester. These are events that feature speakers or performanaces that have made a notable contribution to diversity awareness and diversity itself.

4. Action Conference

-This is a one-day conference where students can participate in order to increase abilty to become effective chagne agents within thier commuities and campuses.

While D.E.E.P. Impact is fairly new to JMU, it has made impact on many individuals throuhgout the past two years.

Here is an article that discusses the influence D.E.E.P. Impact had on Caroline Kelsey, a blogger who writes for the JMU Her Campus Blog.

If you are interested in hosting D.E.E.P. Impact for one of thier outreach programs you can find the form here.

Also, if you are interested in attending some of these D.E.E.P. Impact events here is a schedule that outlines everything for Fall 2016.