CDI renamed to The Center for Community and Belonging

By Grace Bertrand

Rider’s Center for Diversity and Inclusion has been renamed to The Center for Community and Belonging, among other new initiatives listed in a Sept. 24 universitywide email from Darryl Mace, vice president of Community Engagement and Belonging.  

Mace introduced himself in his new role and Rider’s new division of CEB in the email, while also proposing new efforts for the program. Some projects include rebuilding the Office of Service and Civic Engagement, extending more support to service-focused student organizations, strengthening connections with the Educational Opportunity Program and expanding the visibility of the Dr. Eugene Marsh Center for Veterans and Military Affairs and the Julius and Dorothy Koppelman Holocaust Genocide Resource Center.

A call for collaboration 

Mace’s vision focuses on supporting both service and faith-based organizations to better equip every Rider student in community service and engagement. 

“If we don’t help students learn how to be engaged citizens in the world, then we’re not doing a full education. We’re actually not doing our job fully,” Mace said in an Oct. 6 interview with The Rider News. “And so community engagement, community service, civic engagement, understanding how political, social, cultural, and structures work is essential to understanding how to be a full human being.”

In the Sept. 24 email, Mace explained that the new name for the center captures its “ethos,” or character, and the new vision he has for the center, which he said he shared with Pamela Pruitt, former executive director of the center and one of its originators. 

Jasmine Johnson, director of CCB, emphasized that the center would still remain committed to planning events for identity-based months like Hispanic Heritage Month, which is annually observed from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. 

“I think one thing I would stress to the Rider community is that the heart and essence of the center is still here,” Johnson said in an Oct. 6 interview with The Rider News. “We’re still going to continue to welcome students and student-orgs into our spaces . . . We continue to build on it, adding the community piece to it, because we are a community.” 

In the email, Johnson was announced as taking on directorship of the Rider Bonner Community Leaders Program, a group of community leaders who serve in civic engagement on and off campus. 

Mace said he hopes to bring to Rider many of the initiatives he had at Alvernia University, his previous employer where Rider President John Loyack also worked. 

With Alvernia being a Catholic institution, Mace said he is excited to bring a similar strong interfaith program to Rider, promoting collaboration and civil dialogue among Rider’s faith-based organizations like Hillel, the Jewish Student Organization, Muslim Student Organization, Catholic Campus Ministry and Rider Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. 

“We want students to be able to find their belonging in whatever it is and for some of our students, that is based on their faith tradition and identity. That piece of their identity is primary for some students … and those exist in faith-based organizations,” Mace said. “What’s also important is to be able to have conversations outside of those groups. We don’t want students to feel siloed into particular organizations.” 

In his vision for the future of the Rider community, Mace said he plans to create an incentive system where the CEB will provide additional funding to all student organizations that is based on how much they collaborate with each other. 

Mace said, “If [a student organization] collaborates with one other organization, [they] get a certain amount of money. If they collaborate with ten other organizations, they get more money.” 

Mace also plans to introduce an internal interfaith assessment to better understand the campus climate around interfaith and a climate survey to better understand inclusion and community on campus. He said the division will then use the data collected to help make future decisions for the different programs. 

Opening the conversation 

In the Sept. 24 email, Mace opened his door to have conversations with members of the Rider community through weekly one-on-one meetings beginning Oct. 8. He said all of the available slots were filled up that day and more slots would be added soon. 

“I need to learn Rider and I need to learn the Rider way,” Mace said. “I’m not coming in to build Dr. Mace’s vision of what should happen. It’s a collaborative effort. You can’t do belonging without collaboration, right?” 

Mace said students and faculty were meeting with him to propose ideas for the CCB and inquire about the name change of the center. Mace hopes to provide more transparency on the vision of CCB, a virtue he said he and Loyack had at Alvernia. 

For the long term, Mace said future training and programming will also be focused on having more civil discourse across Rider. 

He said, “We are going to bring in programming that’s going to help to support our civic civil dialogue so that we are a place where people can voice their opinions and differences, but in a way that builds trust and collaboration as opposed to dissension.” 

Additionally, Mace hopes to place a stronger emphasis on community outreach and facilitate more donated meal swipes, a winter coat drive and a career closet, making professional attire accessible for students to borrow from for career fairs and internship interviews. 

“Learning in a classroom and experiencing things with your peers is great, and it’s so much of what happens in the college experience,” Mace said. “But when you graduate, when students graduate, they have to be able to engage in the world.”