Racial tension recently at the University of Missouri Columbia put a national spotlight on diversity education and making all students feel welcome.
Earlier this year, a group of students at Southeast Missouri State University formed the President's Task Force on Diversity Education. It was in response to peaceful protests on the Cape Girardeau campus last November after a grand jury decided not to indict white Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of black teenager Michael Brown.
University President Carlos Vargas - who took over the job on July 1st - says he should be receiving the task force's recommendations any day now.
"They're going to be bringing to us suggestions that I'm going to be then looking at and trying to figure out how to address them and how to respond to them. So, at this point I don't have any specifics as to what the task force is going to be giving us."
Vargas says diversity has many dimensions beyond just ethnicity. He says students will find diversity is important in the business community, something they must adapt to in the working world.
"They're going to find individuals who speak differently, who have different approaches to doing things, who eat differently, who have different religions, who have all kinds of differences, are going to be exposed there. I think it's our responsibility to help our students develop the ability to operate well in that environment."
As he awaits the task force recommendations, Vargas says he wants the entire institution to come together to achieve a welcoming environment for students. He says it's also important to have a faculty and staff that represent the larger community in terms of diversity.