The Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA) has a small but passionate team of three staff members and a wide network of student organizations.
This team is made up of Office Director Jesse Martinez, Academic Retention Specialist Corrin Bond and Jeanette Orozco, the CAMP/OMA Retention Specialist.
“One thing about our office, it’s very team-oriented,” Bond said. “It’s not hierarchical, we’re all working together while collaborating and we’re constantly keeping each other updated.”
The additional unfilled positions are the Administrative Coordinator/Assistant, which is in the process of being filled, and Multicultural Programs Coordinator. These used to be the only two additional full-time positions adjacent to the director when Martinez first took on his role about seven years ago, with one additional part-time academic retention specialist.
“We’ve been able to add another member to our team due to the success of our program and the students advocating and most importantly benefitting from the services we’re providing,” Martinez said.
Despite having two unfilled staff positions, the OMA team maintains their open-door policy and encourages students of all backgrounds who are interested in strengthening their multicultural education and engaging and learning more about multicultural aspects and views, to come by their office or reach out virtually and get involved.
“It’s a little bit limited with the pandemic but for the most part anyone can either email us or they can stop by, depending on what they are looking for,” Orozco said. If they’re just looking to get involved they try “connecting them with Unity and the organizations they need specifically.”
Unity is the Umbrella Organization of multicultural and diverse student groups of all kinds.
“It’s a space for all multicultural and diverse student organizations to get together,” Orozco said.
The OMA tries to stay connected so they can remain in tune with the student experience. These groups range in interests from leadership, cultural, dance and multicultural Greek organizations.
The Diversity Scholars program is one of the highlights of the OMA’s student involvement but it is not the only program they host. As one of the five Equity and Diversity Units on campus, they host heritage events, cultural celebrations, workshops, training and other presentations for many groups on campus.
“It’s those different cultural programs that we do to make sure all students at the UI are learning from one another and understanding better our backgrounds and histories,” said Martinez.
Although they come from different backgrounds and found their job’s in different ways, each of the staff members has one thing in common, passion.
Bond, who focuses on first-year freshman and transfer students, was looking for an intersection between teaching higher education and multicultural education, support and awareness after doing both her graduate and undergraduate here at the UI. She found that within the OMA and enjoys the community between the other offices: College Assistant Migrants Program, Native American Student Center, Women’s Center, and the LGBTQA Office with whom they share a physical space in the TLC 230.
“There’s such a strong sense of community and it’s very welcoming, supporting, encouraging… all the descriptors I could use for this office are warm and just really community-oriented,” Bond said. “That’s the case for our office and I’d say that’s the case for our four other Equity and Diversity Units.”
The best part of the job for Bond is not all the paperwork and administrative tasks but the interacting and socializing with the students she helps.
Orozco focuses on keeping returning scholars involved in whatever capacity they need and was hired by the OMA about a month ago. She has significant qualifications and experience as a CAMP scholar herself in 2016 as well as personal involvement with the OMA during her undergrad.
Orozco received a sociology degree and knew that the goal was always to help people. The experience these programs provide is so important that they pulled her back into her purpose of being a provider and a safe space for cultural awareness.
“I just graduated in May so I was a student helping a lot with the Unity Program with the umbrella organizations for the multicultural and diverse student organizations,” Orozco said.
She was inspired by the Equity and Diversity staff that helped her along the college journey and admired the way they were able to help students. The mentorship aspect of the position is what drew her in, she said. According to Orozco, the end goal is “giving back to those specific programs that gave so much to me.”
Martinez is also a graduate from the UI who has found many benefits from the programs provided by the OMA both during his time as a student and as a director.
“Our students have the opportunity to not only share their culture but for some others to learn about other cultures and sometimes even their own,” Martinez said.
Learning about the origins and reasoning behind the celebration, Día de los Muertos at the UI gave Martinez an understanding he never knew as a kid when his family would celebrate in Mexico and later in the US. The celebration at UI prompted conversations with his family he had never thought of having before that lead to further understanding.
“It was much more difficult for them to participate as a lot of our loved ones were not buried in the US… here it looked very different,” Martinez recalled.
Beyond this cultural education, the diversity scholars receive one-on-one monthly advising along with mandatory study table hours, grade checks, tutoring and individual assistance with anything else they may be struggling with within their school, work or personal lives.
“We’re all very invested in what’s happening at home,” said Martinez. “Because we know everything our students are experiencing inside or outside the university has the potential to affect them positively or negatively. We want to be considered like a one-stop-shop.”
The staff works along with other offices to break barriers and ensure all students receive the support they need.
“We are (going to) do anything to make sure if they need any additional support even if it’s not something that we can provide directly, we commit to direct them to the right place or that we will be the best advocates we can to help them achieve and receive the support that they need,” Martinez said.
The name Diversity Scholar may be confusing to some but this program is open to anyone interested.
“We do have a lot of support from our student staff and our work studies and tutors and everybody that works with our office so even though it’s at the moment three staff members, we like to say it’s not, it’s so many other hands helping us,” Orozco said.
The students are the best recruiters for the OMA because they are out ‘in the field.’ They interact with their peers more and then can bring people in.
This staff truly has a mutual relationship with and for the students because of their close ties to the university and the programming they offer. These dedicated mentors are guiding several students on their road to success.
Paige Fiske can be reached at [email protected]