VP of Equity and Belonging welcomes Wildcats for fall quarter 

Like all Central Washington University faculty and staff, Interim Vice President of Equity and Belonging Dr. Charlita Shelton is looking forward to the start of fall quarter.

Dr. Shelton, who joined the Wildcat family this summer, has recorded a video welcome message to campus that shares her office’s plans to provide extensive diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training and development courses for everyone in the CWU community throughout the 2024-25 academic year.

“The office of DEI provides a means for faculty, staff and students to become more interculturally fluent,” she says in the video, produced by Nat Nickel in CWU Multimodal Education. “This is done through training and development, and support involving DEI and belonging opportunities.”

Dr. Shelton also expresses her gratitude for the efforts being led at the state level to promote and enhance DEI educational opportunities for all. As she explains, many states don’t provide the same resources or commitment to supporting DEI initiatives at their higher education institutions.

“CWU is fortunate to be located in the great state of Washington,” she says. “Our state actually provides funding so that we, as an institution, can continue offering efforts around DEI, recruitment, and retention, and (provide) training and development.”

If you would like to learn more about DEI efforts at CWU, visit the department’s webpage or email charlita.shelton@cwu.edu.