History

The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion was created in response to students’ desires to create a campus climate sensitive to its diverse identities, as well as domestic and global events regarding DEI topics. Particularly, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020, students sought a space where their injustices and concerns could be addressed and offered tangible solutions by the university.

President Feasel appointed Maya Gunaseharan to lead the office, where she began to develop campus-wide strategies that reinforced the mission and core values of DEI. Today, the Office aims to continuously attend to the evolving needs of the campus with each incoming class, doing so by regularly consulting with the Student Advisory Board and soliciting feedback from the community.

Soka University of America (SUA) acknowledges and appreciates the work of the members and leaders of the BIWOC (Black, Indigenous, Women of Color), SOCC (Students of Color Coalition), BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) Collective, and all Affinity Groups*. The work of these student leaders has and will continue to help us actualize our ideals now and into the future. They have contributed to our campus consciousness surrounding issues of race and efforts to advance inclusion. We thank them, and all the SUA students of the past, present, and future for their collective efforts to increase belonging, and we express our continued commitment to working together to do so.