Good evening,

I hope this message finds you safe and well.

I'd like to thank you for signing the petition to protect ACU's Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ODEI). To date, our petition has accumulated 1,105 signatures. The primary goal of the petition was to call on ACU's leadership to preserve the name and intentions of the ODEI. Almost as important, though, was bringing this issue to the attention of those inside and outside the ACU community.

At the beginning of October, I met with ACU's Chief Diversity Officer and former Abilene mayor, Anthony Williams, to discuss my concerns regarding the potential renaming of the ODEI. That meeting gave me hope that regardless of the Board of Trustees' decision (on whether or not to change the ODEI's name), we could work with people like Mr. Williams to ensure that ACU stays on its course to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Following that meeting, I was informed that representatives from multiple student organizations met and developed some potential names to present to campus administration which would replace the ODEI (in the case of a renaming). While this news essentially confirmed that the ODEI's name was bound to change, conversations surrounding the topic quickly fell silent.

That changed on Thursday, December 14th, when ACU president Dr. Phil Schubert sent an email to faculty and staff announcing the new “Office of Intercultural Engagement and Belonging,” which will combine the ODEI, Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA), and “various culturally-based student organizations.”

As I had feared, ACU’s administration opted to give in to uninformed perspectives on the matters of diversity, equity, and inclusion. While Dr. Schubert’s email claims that “[ACU’s] strategic goals related to diversity remain unchanged,” I am not confident that the administration of my soon-to-be alma mater will stay true to its promises. Holding ACU’s administration accountable to increase diversity should not be the task of anyone but the institution itself. Yet it is a task I believe we must take upon ourselves to complete together. Otherwise, ACU may continue to cave to external pressures and scale back/eliminate its original goals.

I plan on meeting with Mr. Williams again in the near future to discuss what it may look like to hold ACU’s administration accountable, and I will update you again following that meeting. In the meantime, I suggest staying informed on other issues that the ACU community is facing by joining/following the Wildcats for Inclusion movement, which is doing great work advocating for the true message of the Kingdom—to love our neighbors as ourselves.

Blessings,

Hansen Penya, ACU Class of 2024