Meet The College’s New Officer For Diversity and Inclusion

Chestnut Hill College has hired Juliana Mosley, Ph.D., as head of the Diversity and Inclusion office introduced in January of 2016. Her office is located in St. Joseph Hall 311.

The Griffin: Why were you initially interested in this position?

Mosley: So my history with diversity and inclusion stems back, from a professional standpoint, to when I was like [college] age. So I always tell students, never underestimate the power of a work-study job. It might lead to your career. So, actually, my very first work-study job when I was an undergraduate at Ball State University, was working working in the office of multicultural affairs. And I did that for basically three and half years and I was an education major so I did student teaching.

Also, I kind of had another connection when I went to do my master’s work and my Ph.D. I was kind of always working in diversity and inclusion related positions. And, in my career, I served as director of multicultural affairs at John Carroll University, a Catholic-Jesuit school in Cleveland, Ohio. When I left that position I went into student affairs but I had also started a consulting business, like kind of basically my side hustle, and I did a lot of training around diversity and inclusion. So I would go into like non-profits, go into other colleges, things of that nature. So, I’ve always had this connection to [diversity and inclusion] even though I wasn’t doing it for about eleven years. And I always call it my first love.

When my time ended at my last institution I kind of took that moment to process and say “What’s really important and what do you really see yourself doing, do you want to go back into student affairs?” And I thought no, I want to go back into diversity and inclusion. And I think with all the stuff that was going on in our country at the time last year, that things were, I hate to say, make a turn for the worse. I thought now is the time for me to go back, when I feel that I could really make a difference. And so I was attracted to the position because of the nature of the work.

Why Chestnut Hill College? Because I do have a background in Catholicism. I went to Catholic schools most of my life, nine year of my K-12 experience. I’ve worker at two other Catholic institutions. I wholeheartedly believe in Catholic teaching, the Catholic social teaching model. And it is really because of my background in Catholic schools that I feel like I was very prepared for diversity. In many of the schools that I attended, our teachings were very diverse and I appreciated that. That was something I was always drawn to. Chestnut Hill kind of ticked that box well.

I love smaller schools. All of my schools have had less than 2,000 students. And I am very intentional about that. Because I want to know students personally. I’m horrible with names but I’ll never forget your face.

I moved to Pennsylvania three years ago to take another job and I fell in love with this part of the country. I’ve lived in eight states. This is part of the country I’ve always wanted to live in. And so I was very intentional about trying to stay here and make this my permanent home.

G: What responsibilities do you have as college officer for diversity and inclusion?

M: So, this is a big position. And it’s really interesting because when [diversity and inclusion] positions started, or when I started in this work fifteen years ago as a director of multicultural affairs, our work was very limited. So, pretty much I worked with students and doing programming and maybe a little work with faculty around curriculum. And that was pretty much all you did. If you were a director level, you reported to a VP. That was it. It was one of the reasons I actually left the field. Because I knew I wanted to continue to progress in my career and that I was not going to be able to move up because there was no place to move up to in the field.

Today, unfortunately, because there have been so much turmoil around diversity related issue and sense of identity and how people identify and what that means and our beliefs and schools being put in potentially negative positions like maybe lawsuits, discrimination claims, things of that nature, that, all of a sudden, higher-eds said we are going to elevate these positions. We are going to make them cabinet level, we are going to have them start report directly to presidents, we are going to give them opportunities to let them influence things at a larger scale.

So, I wanted to give you that background so you understand why the position now is so much more. Basically, a lot of my responsibilities have to do with looking at policy, setting protocol around, in particular, diversity related policies like our nondiscrimination statement, harassment statements — and harassment can be broad in terms of discrimination harassment and it can also be sexual harassment, and then you have Title IX.

When President Obama’s “Dear Colleague” letter came out last year in spring of 2016, that very heavily talked about gender orientation in schools. So looking at those things, because when those come out, we are expected to comply as well. So, looking at any policies that come out and then establishing protocols for which our institution would try to live those things out or practice them.

And so having to do that as well as working then with human resources around doing searches so that we can try, hopefully, to always be more inclusive of a diverse candidate pool any time we are trying to do hiring. That process for me is kind of really just now starting. We’re having our first initial meeting actually scheduled for [Sept. 28] with the cabinet member for whom HR reports to so that we can start to look at how we are doing searches, where we normally advertise, if we are asking the EOC demographic information, which is like do we go back after people have applied and say can you go back and tell me your race and your gender and your disability status and all of those things, and that that information is held separate from the applications. But its just so that you can gain a sense of whether our [candidate] pools are diverse.

Then I also have a curriculum responsibility so I’ll be working with academic affairs and faculty. I’m doing a diversity training for all of our students who are currently enrolled in student teaching this semester. And so I’m working hopefully to train them, working with the faculty to say how can we start to infuse these principles into the classes and so that its obvious that when I take English 101 that I’m actually going to be reading diverse authors or writing about the left out voice, so to speak, of our culture. If we do that we don’t have to worry about like a diversity class that everybody has to take to graduate. It’s instead then interwoven throughout [the curriculum].

Also working with student activities and student life specifically to try to do diversity related programs for students.

And thats kind of the beauty of this job — that I get to work across all of the divisions of the institution. But then also have that strong student component which I probably could not do the job without.

I’ve always, starting as a high school teacher, been very close with students. I’m a former vice president for student affairs so I’ve always had a direct link to students. And I was glad that this job had kind of what we call the ‘view from 30,000 feet’ so the larger leadership and visionary perspective but it also keeps me on the ground to work with students one on one.

G: What do you hope to accomplish this year?

One thing was to start my training agenda and that has started. I actually had the opportunity to train what I call special population students. So I trained the [Leadership, Engagement and Service] students, orientation leaders, and resident assistants when they first came to campus before the freshmen and everyone else moved in. Then I was made a part of the new student orientation this year so I did get to do a little piece with new incoming students.

I would like to do more and try to find creative ways to get to upperclassmen, a senior who if you’re not in one of those groups and you weren’t in student orientation, how do you get some type of training. Whether its going through classes or doing something for students who at least live in the residence halls and trying to figure out other ways to touch that population.

And I’m also starting with some programs. My first student program is called ‘Diversity in Motion Pictures’ and so the first movie is [Sept. 29]. So I’m partnering with student activities office as a part of ‘Friday After Dark.’ Each month I’ve chosen a different identity that will be highlighted. So, actually for this very first one we are starting with race because race is typically what most people think of when you think about diversity and it’s where most of our conversations center around. For October, we will do sexual orientation because National Coming Out day is October 11. And November… will be about religion because that is kind of the start for most holy seasons four our major religions of the world.

With that, its a partnership with my office and student activities but it’s also an opportunity for a student organization to sponsor with us as well and what I’ve asked is that whoever the sponsoring organization is that they send me two students who will preview the movie with me in advance and we will do the discussion questions so that I can also train students how to be facilitators in what I call difficult dialogue. So I don’t want students to come and it’s only me talking. I want their peers to also be able to facilitate discussion so that you guys can learn how to talk about those difficult topics that we have a tendency to overlook or be so politically correct until silence becomes the norm. So our first sponsor are the RA’s.

G: What do you want the college community to know about the diversity and inclusion office?

I want the community to know that this office literally is here for everyone, that the work of diversity and inclusion is not solely focused on students or people of color or people from marginalized groups. If the only people that walk into this office are people of color or people from underrepresented, marginalized groups, then I have not done my job. Because if, all of a sudden, white people or people from the dominant culture do not see themselves here then I’ve missed the mark. So this is an office for everybody. We talk about loving our dear neighbor without distinction and the dear neighbor is everybody. And so it can’t just be select groups who feel like this work is about them. Whether you are faculty, staff, student, administrator, an alumni coming back, I want you to truly feel that this is a place that represents who you are. So thats got to be the overarching theme for this office.

The work that I hope to do and produce is one that will educate people, not in a way to maybe teach you what you don’t know but sometimes to just tap into what’s already there that you didn’t realize. And a lot of self-discovery. I have a little saying that I talk about where I ask people to start to think about making the unconscious conscious. That unconsciousness can be ‘I’ve never sat down and thought about my identity and who I am because I didn’t have to, I just live in a world and I’m me.’ But recognizing who you are then will help you understand why you think the way you do, why you act the way do. Because who I am influences how I see the rest of the world.

So I would hope that people would learn that that’s really what I’m here for, is to help them self-reflect and then learn how to live communally among other, whatever other is.