Table 1: DEI training powerpoint JMU HR to provide context (who are the students and how has the racial make-up of the student body changed over 40 years). Note that the term "multi-racial" was not an option prior to 2011and its inclusion mirrors the change in the U.S. Census categories. Source, Nash, Carole.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in the Fall of 2018, of full-time faculty in U.S. degree-granting postsecondary institutions, 25% were faculty of color. With 7 percent identifying as Asian/Pacific Islander males, 5 percent as Asian/Pacific Islander females, and 3 percent in each of the following categories: Black males, Black females, Hispanic males, and Hispanic females.

An increasingly diversifying student body should be served by a diverse faculty. The numbers above are clear. JMU needs a more diverse Faculty and Staff. According to students, diversifying the faculty creates an increased sense of safety for them. Above all, it broadens our understanding of pressing public problems and how to address them. Our class wishes to emphasize a heightened sense of urgency to make progress at JMU. In our collective experiences, there are far too many students on campus who have felt uncomfortable and unsafe in their classrooms due to harmful practices on the part of their professor or their peers. We are well aware that the liberal arts experience should stimulate and challenge students intellectually. What we refer to here, though, are discriminatory experiences that JMU students have been forced to endure. Some students have been willing to publicly share their experiences through "I, too, am JMU" and the "JMU Through Living Color" exhibit.

Diversifying the faculty will take time, work, and resources. However, this work will pay off in a more inclusive environment, an increasingly more diverse student body, and a community that is knowledgeable and capable of fighting racism and discrimination at our University and beyond.