KINGSTON, R.I. — September 13, 2006 — The 10th Annual Diversity Week will be held on the University of Rhode Island’s Kingston Campus to celebrate the importance of diversity and identity in higher education, the workplace, the community and the world. The mission of Diversity Week is to enable diverse learners to develop the awareness, knowledge, and skills to interact, understand, and collaborate with each other in an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world. Themes for the week include politics in academia; immigration and the American political landscape; the role of gender, race, and culture in transforming the sciences; and music as societal protest/music as societal community building.

This year, the Diversity Week Committee has prepared a reading list and a guide to help teachers to incorporate Diversity Week programs into their course curriculums. The week is brimming with arts, music, dance, film and other activities and features such crowd-pleasing favorites as the Poetry Slam, the Diversity Video and Film Festival, the Pangaea Roots Music Series, among over 60 workshops.

Most events are free and open to the public. Download the complete schedule (pdf).

A few of the week’s highlights include:

At noon on Monday, Sept. 25, students, faculty, staff, and members of the community are invited to the “Fiesta de Diversidad,” (Celebration of Diversity). This will feature music, dance, drama and other expressions of diverse groups of American society. The afternoon programs include a discussion on Latino Immigration in the US. and the Poetry Slam that evening.

On Tuesday, the Diversity Video and Film Festival will feature discussions about such topics as “Immigrants and the News Media,” “Human Rights in North Korea,” and “There is No ‘Clash of Civilizations’: Islam and Christianity,” among others. In the evening, the Honors Colloquium will present “Hip Hop: Contesting Meaning and En-gendering Movement in the Postindustrial City” with Dr. Tricia Rose from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and AS220 performers.

The focus of Wednesday will be on ideas, interactions, and dialogue with more than 25 workshops in the Memorial Union. In the evening, the Late Night Players Comedy Troupe performs at Edwards Auditorium with a show tailored for Diversity Week.

Thursday will feature a variety of programs related to art and music including Music of American Social Protest, Israeli and African folk dance, and Latino popular music and dance. All are also invited to the Alumni Professionals of Color Forum that will be held from 4-6 p.m. at the Alumni Center on Upper College Rd.

On Friday, the week comes to an end with a discussion on Gays in the Military, a panel discussion on academic freedom, diversity, and financing as critical but controversial factors in American higher education, and an evening Pangaea performance featuring the group, Ancient Future.

For a complete schedule of the week’s activities, visit the Multicultural Center website.