Drury University, led by the efforts of diversity fellows and assisting faculty, will be hosting its first Diversity and Reconciliation Undergraduate Conference on April 5 in the Olin Library, which will include student presentations and a speaking event from Cheryl Brown Henderson.

The Diversity and Reconciliation Undergraduate Conference will be a celebration of differences and coming together of ideas held to promote the idea of diversity and community on campus whilst also showcasing the academic and creative efforts of students. 

Committee members have been meeting throughout the Fall of 2023 and have continued their planning of this upcoming conference into the Spring semester. Their goal is to create a conference that highlights the diversity of the Drury community and reaches the Springfield community as a whole.

“The hope with something like the diversity conference is that we can kind of all come together to celebrate all of our diverse backgrounds, all of our diverse perspectives, and create just a larger sense of community on campus for those who often feel excluded and left out,” said Maeve Duden, one of the student leaders of the Diversity Conference.

Duden, motivated to become a diversity fellow and a collaborator on the conference because of her trans identity, hopes that the conference can become a tradition for the campus that carries on yearly. 

Duden, along with other leaders of the conference, hope that they can instill a new legacy on Drury and create an event that draws people in continuously. They want to do that by making this an event where students can be heard.

The conference itself, while not entirely set in stone, will largely be held on April 5, with potential additional events on April 4 and April 6. The main speaker will be Cheryl Brown Henderson, the founding president of the Brown Foundation for Educational Equity, Excellence and Research. 

The Brown Foundation has, since its inception, granted scholarships to minority students, given grants to businesses and establishments in low-income communities, and educated teachers and others alike on issues of diversity and equity. 

Henderson is also one of the students that inspired the landmark case of Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, her father being civil rights activist and Springfield preacher Rev. Oliver L. Brown.

In addition to Henderson’s role as speaker, the Diversity Conference will also host presentations submitted by Drury students. Students can propose to talk about a litany of projects they have worked on for a class or in their personal time. 

These projects can be scholarly works, creative literature, performances, artwork, or some other reflection of the conference’s theme of diversity and reconciliation. All are encouraged to apply by conference leaders, especially if the applicant has a story to tell in regard to their own diverse experiences.

Both lunch and dinner will be provided on April 5, and all student presenters will be excused for the day to attend the conference. Students will also be given the opportunity to have their submitted work be published. Renewing itself since its hiatus since 2010, Drury’s literary magazine The Gingko Tree Review will host another issue to spotlight the work of contributing students.