“You’ll have to excuse me, I don’t think linearly – but give me some time and I’ll get there,” Dr. Denise Henning interrupts herself to answer a question from the audience. The title of her speech, “Rethinking Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education,” coincides with an article she was asked to write by the same name. Henning, a member of the Cherokee and Choctaw nations, became the first American Indian woman to be president of an American university when she became president of the University of the North, the youngest institution of higher learning in the Americas.

“She came up without favor of institutions, which gave her a deeper understanding of what institutional racism is,” said Marshall Jeffries, vice president of the Native Club, which co-sponsored the event with the Africana Community. “Along the same lines, that gave her a particular advantage at realizing all of the other problems that come with working in the academy as an institution.”

Beginning her speech, she relates how she was told that her status as a minority along with achieving such a high status in the academic world would allow her to “write her own ticket” in the academic arena. “It’s a bunch of hooey,” she says, recalling what her biography calls “her experiences in the academe, not only as a faculty/administrator, but also more importantly as a student beginning at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.”

She says that this experience “instilled in her what constitutes effective inclusive academic leadership and in the development of a life-long, living-learning environment.”

Her response to the question posed to her in writing the article on which her speech was based was, “So much work, so little progress.”

She reasserts the mission as a possible one, however, saying, “The challenge is to be more inclusive, more accessible. We have colleges and universities creating women’s and ethnic studies programs to say they celebrate diversity, yet here we are, 40 years later, still having the same debate. The once blatant racism has given way to a much softer one, and we must realize when it comes to a truly multicultural environment, one is either on the path or in the way.”

She also confronts the institutional and societal barriers that have been used as an excuse to justify institutions that call themselves anti-racist yet still foster the racist sentiments of the societies that they inhabit. “Institutions must question Western tradition and white privilege . until that line is erased. Students of color and difference cannot have success, student success, not just academic. Administrators cannot continue to rely on students to be their only proponents.”

“I really agree with that,” said Jeffries. “In anti-racism training, we learn that we have to stop thinking along binary lines of good and bad. What might be right or appropriate in Western tradition cannot transcend culture, so the very nature of this institution can be exclusionary.”

Henning warns against resting on the laurels of efforts that are well intentioned but ineffective: “Race neutral and color blind admission processes do not improve diversity. In the United States, resistance is how we cope. We must come to terms with the perspective that the ivory tower is one that excludes. It was meant to perpetuate one group of people, and if you succeed in it, it will cost you dear . that’s a reality, and it needs to be recognized. Inclusion is vital for every institution to be viable in the future – especially economically.”

After this string of insights, Henning addressed another problem: “Student apathy is the one issue that makes multicultural programs fail.”

“I love this woman,” said Alyzza Callahan, a first-year who attended the speech. “She really made me think about the power I have as a student to make change in multicultural education.”

“She’s right,” said Casey Thomas, another attendee, adding, “She spoke the truth about tackling multicultural programs on to institutions instead of actually changing from within.”

“We are at a crossroads. It is time for universities and colleges to rethink diversity and inclusion,” said Henning. “We will see conflicts arise. There must be conflict, but we have to start addressing the needs of who our students of the future are going to be.