In response to several incidents of racist grafitti found on the Eastern Michigan University campus in recent months, a "President's Commission on Diversity and Inclusion" has been named by Dr. James Smith.
There are 14 members on the commission made up of Eastern faculty members, students, and a university police department crime prevention officer.
Eastern professor of Africology and African American Studies Ronald Woods will chair the commission, which he says he hopes will have an impact both locally and around the country.
"What we do in conjunction with what other universities are doing will hopefully allow us as a society to move academia forward in a way that will filter into the community around us in a very positive way," Woods says.
Woods says this is the third or fourth generation of a commission of this sort and is not intended to be a short-term project.
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— Lisa Barry is a reporter, and host of All Things Considered on 89.1 WEMU. Contact her at 734.487.3363, on twitter @LisaWEMU, or email her lbarryma@emich.edu