OHIO — Ohio Wesleyan University is taking proactive steps to enhance diversity on its campus among students, faculty and staff.  

What You Need To Know

  • A sister school agreement was established between Ohio Wesleyan University and Claflin University in South Carolina
  • As a part of the PWI-HBCU partnership, faculty and staff are aiming to work together on research projects, professional development and entrepreneurship initiatives
  • Both will also develop a student exchange and faculty exchange program so that each can be exposed to different backgrounds and lived experiences 

Recent graduates of Ohio Wesleyan have taken on opportunities to pursue new degree pathways at Claflin University in South Carolina. As degree programs are added, Matt vandenBerg, president of Ohio Wesleyan, said he hopes OWU can share with Claflin’s students grant opportunities. 

“Envision joint entrepreneurship initiatives. We have what’s called the Delaware Entrepreneurial Center, which is a first in kind liberal arts business accelerator, and Claflin is just getting into that entrepreneurship work,” vandenBerg said. “I believe they just got a significant grant to start an incubator in their downtown, and we have expertise and experience that we’re willing to share with them.”

He said this was the perfect connection in that both schools had so many things in common, from valuing religious pluralism to having “a growing focus on entrepreneurship, on environmental sustainability and environmental stewardship.”

He said the hope is to build racial diversity in the faculty and staff, but that while it would take time, there would be huge benefits.

“One of the benefits of a partnership like this is that there’s an immediate infusion of diversity in terms of perspective, background, lived experience, geographic differences that we wouldn’t have had otherwise,” he said.

While pieces of the partnership have started to come together already, vandenBerg expects more of it to unfold this upcoming academic year.