By Rory Dulock | Staff Writer
For several years, Baylor’s diversity initiatives have primarily been overseen by the Campus Diversity Committee, which has been tasked with enhancing and promoting diversity. However, since the committee was first created, the university’s diversity initiatives are now overseen by departments across campus.
One figure who is involved with diversity initiatives is Dr. Kevin Villegas, the dean of intercultural engagement and division of student life initiatives.
“I really came open-minded,” Villegas said. “One of the things that attracted me to Baylor was when I was doing my research of Baylor online, I came across the Commission on Historic Campus Representations. … For me, it was a signal of sorts that Baylor was trying to do some right-making work.”
Villegas said the Campus Diversity Committee has recently been sharing its roles involving diversity and inclusion across campus.
“The work that the Campus Diversity Committee was doing is now embedded in actual people and roles across campus,” Villegas said. “There was a time where I think the Campus Diversity Committee was needed to do this work, because there were no individuals across campus like there [are] today doing that work. But now that there is, the decision was made that the committee is not really needed anymore, and that’s a good thing.”
Villegas said he works with all of the units in the department of student life, and they collaborate to implement aspects of their intercultural engagement model. He said he also has the freedom to work with other departments across campus.
“We’ve incorporated into that [intercultural engagement] model some of the things that were previously in missions, service and public life — like our Better Together, that’s our interfaith organization on campus, our civil discourse programming,” Villegas said. “So those are two elements I think are heavily tied to engaging with differences of all sorts.”
Additionally, Villegas said he has incorporated new things within spiritual life, including Chapel opportunities.
“Working with spiritual life, I led a Chapel last fall called Interfaith Community in Practice, so that’s more of a practical, tangible initiative,” Villegas said. “This Chapel is for students of diverse faiths and provides an opportunity for participants to explore spiritual themes and practices in the context of Baylor’s caring Christian community.”
Villegas said he does this type of work because it’s animated by his faith, and he feels the world could be doing a better job when it comes to issues related to diversity and inclusion.
“I feel called to do that work because of my faith in Christ,” Villegas said. “I am really encouraged that a place like Baylor is trying to do, again, some honest truth-telling and some right-making work.”
Dr. Malcolm Foley, the special adviser to the president for equity and campus engagement, said his current role on campus is to advise, consult and connect across the university in regard to diversity and inclusion.
“When I came in, my thought was wherever I can add my expertise and perspective, that’s where I’ll be,” Foley said. “Right now, I’m working with deans across the university; working with procurement and thinking about diversifying, for example, our supplier base; working with Kevin [Villegas] and students; working with HR and staff. I’m thinking about the whole university on a regular basis.”
For example, Foley said that he and Jason Cook, the vice president for marketing and communications and chief marketing officer, were responsible for several diversity initiatives on campus.
“We were the ones who spearheaded the putting up of the two statues of our first two Black graduates,” Foley said. “We guided the design for the Monument to Unknown Enslaved; we’re going to do the groundbreaking this coming month, and that construction will be taking place over the course for the next year.”
Foley said the Monument to Unknown Enslaved is the project he is most excited about.
“For us as a campus to have a physical space on campus where we not only bear witness to that [type of] history but also bear witness to a commitment to live in a different way and to treat one another in a different way — I think this memorial we’re about to build is the most significant representation on Baylor’s campus,” Foley said.
Foley said it has been exciting to see a commitment to diversity and inclusion spread throughout the university over the years.
“I think it’s important for us that folks understand that all of our conversations about diversity, equity and justice come back to Jesus and scriptures,” Foley said. “That’s the fundamental thing that drives us in our work, and particularly Baylor. The space that we want to occupy in higher education is one where our faith forms everything that we do. In many ways, our faith sets the categories for the work that we do. … All of it comes back to the way that Christ has called us to live and the way that Christ has called us to love one another.”
