Breadcrumb Navigation

print email

President's Reading Group on Diversity – 2006

A president's reading group on diversity was created by former SJSU President Don Kassing in 2006. From this reading group made up of staff, faculty, students, and administrators, there sprouted the seed for our Diversity Master Plan effort.

Members of the 2006 President's Diversity Reading Group were:

• Maria Alaniz, professor, Social Science, College of Social Sciences, Academic Affairs
• Gonzaga da Gama, associate professor, Hospitality, Recreation, and Tourism Management, College of Applied Sciences & Arts, Academic Affairs
• Mary Yoko Brannen, professor, Organization & Management, College of Business, Academic Affairs
• Henry Gutierrez, associate professor, Social Science, College of Social Sciences, Academic Affairs
• Don W. Kassing, former SJSU president
• Annette Nellen, professor, Accounting & Finance, College of Business, Academic Affairs
• Judy Rickard, senior lead, International and Extended Studies Marketing and Publications, Academic Affairs
• Martin Schulter, director, Disability Resource Center, Student Affairs
• Wiggsy Sivertsen, chair of Campus Climate, professor of Counseling Services, Student Affairs
• Eloise Stiglitz, associate vice president of Student Services, Student Affairs
• Sally Veregge, professor, Biological Sciences, College of Science, Academic Affairs
• Hyon Chu Yi-Baker, director, MOSAIC Cross-Cultural Center, Student Affairs

These members now serve as the Inclusive Excellence/Diversity Plan Steering Committee Members (President's Reading Group on Diversity).

Appointment of a Director of Inclusive Excellence

In July 2007, former SJSU President Kassing appointed Rona T. Halualani, professor of Intercultural Communication, Communication Studies, as director of Institutional Planning and Inclusive Excellence and charged her with the development, design, and implementation of an Inclusive Excellence/Diversity (IE/Diversity) Master Plan for the campus.

Halualani was hired as an assistant professor of language and intercultural communication in the Department of Communication Studies in 1998 and has achieved the rank of full professor at San José State University. She earned her Ph.D. in intercultural communication from the first-established U.S. doctoral program in Intercultural Communication at Arizona State University. She has been working on the Diversity Master Plan project since July 2007, along with two graduate research assistants, Christopher Lancaster and Hugh Haiker. Halualani has expertise in and has published on intercultural communication and quantitative, qualitative, and critical research methods.

Halualani ended her appointment as Director of Inclusive Excellence and returned to her faculty role as Professor of Intercultural Communication in the Department of Communication Studies on August 20, 2009.