Calvin Hill, the university’s new diversity and inclusion officer, will work to advance diversity and inclusion in the community through both current programs and the development of new ones.

Before coming to St. Thomas, Hill worked as a diversity officer at Worcester State University in Massachusetts for eight years. Hill, who began work at St. Thomas on Jan. 26, said he is passionate about his work because of both personal and professional experience with diversity and inclusion.

“I attended a predominantly white college in Kansas and have had experiences being the only person like myself in the classroom,” Hill said. “I am excited to bring those perspectives and ideas here as they’ve been part of who I am.”

Hill said the main goal he wants to focus on is community building.

“When you look at diversity and inclusion, too many people look at it as thinking about our separateness,” Hill said. “I want us to be an inclusive environment where we are looking at how we contribute to the better good of not only obviously this campus but also the region as well as the globe.”

To inspire and support this idea of community, Hill said he has two policies that he wants to address. The first is an increased diversity in recruiting new faculty and students for St. Thomas.

“We’re going to be trying to just diversify the campus community in all sorts of ways. Not only in reference to race and ethnicity but also in terms of diversity of thought,” Hill said.

He said he also wants to look at how the university deals with complaints from people who feel like they have not been treated fairly.

“We’re going to be creating a process here where people feel comfortable coming to this office, talking about problems,” he said.

Hill said he recognized that challenges may come with the position. The main one he fears is that people will see him as the only one responsible for diversity.

“It’s about everyone,” he said. “We’re not all of a sudden expecting we’re going to be able to wash our hands and say we fulfilled our diversity quota because Calvin’s going to cover it all.”

To combat this potential challenge, Hill said the community needs to feel like diversity is a part of everything they do in all contexts, including the classroom.

Junior Lindsay Porter said everyone should be a part of the work toward diversity and inclusion.

“Especially the professors because they influence us everyday in the classroom,” Porter said. “It spreads more awareness and gets more people involved, and then it just makes the community more connected.”

Hill said he hopes his position has a positive impact and contributes to the greater good of the university and its community members.

“People will see me as being someone that’s really passionate about diversity and inclusion, someone that people feel comfortable communicating with and sharing perspectives with and someone that is collaborative in terms of wanting to work together to problem-solve,” Hill said.

Hill said he especially hopes to be a resource for students to come and discuss difficult questions or topics with. Junior Bailey Cook said more resources like this are needed on campus.

“People should be included more, I could do more to make that happen,” Cook said. “I just don’t have the resources to do so.”

Hill said that it is important for students to be aware of the difference they can make in someone’s life.

“If we can get that collaborative dialogue around diversity occurring and having students thinking about how they can use their social capital to impact the lives of others, we’re going to be successful,” he said.

Rebecca Mariscal can be reached at mari2162@stthomas.edu.