Botanical Garden at University of Michigan Employs a DEI Manager
“It recommitted itself to diversity, equity and inclusion by developing a strategic plan in the wake of COVID and George Floyd’s death”
Progressive academia seems to believe that absolutely everything needs a committed diversity staffer.
The College Fix reports:
UMich botanical garden employs DEI manager, hosts ‘confronting racism’ training
University of Michigan’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum is committed to diversity – but not simply the diversity of the plants and animals that call the facility home.
It also employs a DEI manager and actively works to combat racism within its 700 acres of gardens and natural preserves to make up for its “participation in systemic injustices.”
Efforts have included unconscious bias trainings, live-streamed DEI events, food justice and seed rematriation programs, and DEI workshops covering topics like “confronting racism, cross-cultural difference, and bystander intervention,” according to university memos from 2020 and 2022.
In September 2021 the Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum hired a full-time DEI manager, Ivana Lopez Espinosa, for close to $60,000 per year, thus adding to the University of Michigan’s expansive DEI bureaucracy.
The Matthaei Botanical Gardens & Nichols Arboretum, or MBGNA, boasts extensive grounds, walking trails and a gift shop, as well as a variety of programming for children and adults. It employs about 40 people as well as volunteers.
It recommitted itself to diversity, equity and inclusion by developing a strategic plan in the wake of COVID and George Floyd’s death, gardens and arboretum Director Tony Kolenic stated in a letter posted online.
“MBGNA is committed to catalyzing equity and justice, and will continue to reckon with itself and the history of living collections to do so,” Kolenic stated. “This strategic plan is our road map for how that commitment is turned into action; how MBGNA will continue to thoroughly examine and combat its participation in systemic injustices, and how we will co-create new ways forward with historically excluded communities through the years ahead.”
The efforts toward DEI in the gardens dates back to at least 2016, however, as revealed by the pair of documents from 2020 and 2022. According to the 2022 document, a DEI plan was launched in 2016 to facilitate “efforts for internal learning, reflection, and action,” as well as outreach and the development of new relationships and community-based projects.
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Comments
“It recommitted itself to diversity, equity and inclusion by developing a strategic plan in the wake of COVID and George Floyd’s death”
The race-mongers are sure getting a lot of mileage out of the death of a drugged-up ne’er-do-well.
I suppose all the daisies and Full Sail, Pope John Paul II, and Tranquility roses. White, you know…!
I suppose all the daisies and Full Sail, Pope John Paul II, and Tranquility roses will be removed from the gardens.
/me raises hand during tour/
“Ummm, so what does this have to do with plants?”
Reply: RACIST!!!!!
Weeds and weevils deserve equity, too!
From here on out, the gardens will be goaled to produce plants and pests in their natural proportions in nature.
I understand that they have been discriminating against weeds.
This caused me to go to the website of my local botanical garden, the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia…I discovered at the top of the main page the name of the place, superimposed upon a multi-colored symbol virtually identical to a gay pride flag. That main page also attests to the Garden’s commitment to DE&I, with a link to their DE&I page. When I dug into their “Leadership”, I discovered that their Director of Human Resources is a female of color (not a white color) whose bio says that she is “is interested in expanding the Garden’s workforce through creative recruiting to expand the diversity of the Garden’s staff. ”
It is everwhere.
Donate now.
“Creative recruiting” sounds like discrimination.
They should be getting the word out so that. as many qualified people as possible know of the opening and can apply. They can also take steps to avoid discriminating against qualified people based on race, ethnicity, sex, or religion.
Personally I would just as soon have all the DEI hires working in gardens and not in medicine or building bridges.