Ame Lambert | Chief diversity officer, Roger Williams University
1. What does your position entail? My role involves helping RWU define diversity, equity and inclusion; creating clear targets and metrics; fostering a culture that supports diversity, equity and inclusion; building capacity and supporting stakeholders to achieve our goals. I was attracted to RWU because it recognizes the world is changing and wants to build a university the world needs now.
2. How do you view your position on campus? I see myself as a bridge builder, translator and capacity builder drawing on a rich and complex understanding of RWU from multiple perspectives. I connect, listen and communicate with women, especially of color, and mothers figuring out if they can have young kids and work; immigrants navigating an American system; and other marginalized communities experiencing a middle-class, European-American system.
3. What are your goals for the diversification of RWU’s student body, faculty and programming? We must start where we are with the experiences of people here today. We have a downtown campus that’s more than 40 percent students of color and a law school that’s 25 percent people of color. We’re serving learners at every stage and age; growing the percentage of women in architecture, business and engineering; serving more low-income, LGBTQ, handicapped and military-veteran students. If we’re known as a place supportive of people from multiple communities, others will want to join us.
4. You held a similar position at Champlain College in Burlington, Vt. How does the task of diversifying RWU’s student body differ? At Champlain, I was doing this for the first time, applying things I knew theoretically. Now I get to do that and add the wisdom and lessons of experience – accelerating efforts. With campuses in Bristol and Providence, RWU is connected to a wider, more diverse constituency we can engage with and draw from.
5. As a higher education administrator, how do you feel college campuses have changed in the 21st century? College students have rapidly changed since the post-World War II, G.I. Bill era. The diversity conversations that grew out of the civil rights movement are changing and the number of folks from all sorts of underrepresented communities present on campus [is] growing.