Buffalo State Receives Insight into Diversity Award

Buffalo State received the 2014 Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine, the oldest and largest diversity-focused publication in higher education. As a recipient of the annual HEED award—a national honor recognizing U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion—Buffalo State will be featured along with 82 other recipients in INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine’s November 2014 issue. This is the second year Buffalo State has been named a HEED award recipient.

"We are pleased but not surprised to learn that Buffalo State again was named a recipient of the HEED award," said Karen A. Clinton Jones, Buffalo State’s chief diversity officer. "We make it a priority to recruit a diverse group of students — socioeconomically, racially, and culturally. We also offer numerous programs to help students from a variety of backgrounds thrive academically and socially on our campus.”

INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine selected SUNY Buffalo State based on its exemplary diversity and inclusion initiatives and ability to embrace a broad definition of diversity on campus, including gender, race, ethnicity, veterans, people with disabilities, members of the LGBT community, and well as all others.

Specifically, Buffalo State is continuing its “Diversity Dialogue” program series that began in 2013 and brings awareness to sexuality, disabilities, gender quality, socioeconomic status, and race. Also, Buffalo State offers Equity and Campus Diversity mini-grants that provide financial assistance to projects, workshops and activities that have institutional impact and support diversity as described by the college’s mission statement, core values, and strategic plan. Recipients include the Global Book Hour, which serves the city’s culturally diverse schoolchildren, the National Coalition Building Institute, Zambia Intercultural Awareness Educational Program, and the Anne Frank Project, a three-day annual conference that explores social justice through storytelling and the arts.

“We hope the HEED award serves as a way to honor those institutions of higher education that recognize the importance of diversity and inclusion as part of their everyday campus culture,” said Lenore Pearlstein, publisher of INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine.