Jordan Shelby West charts the future of GW’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement as one of potential and opportunity. Staff turnover and student concern about the office may prove that to be inevitable. 

West, who has served as the associate vice provost of the office for six years, said she hopes for a time ahead in which the ODECE has the money to launch a scholarship fund, offer “experiential learning” in locations across the country and offer more retreats, like Horizons Summit — a multiday social justice retreat that began in 2023. She said the office is “building out” its resources for grant writing and opportunities for members of ODECE to meet with potential donors, like alumni, and amplifying the stories of students, faculty and staff to grow partnerships that bring in funding.

“What am I imagining? What am I hoping for? It’s really that we have the resources to be able to provide students with those types of experiences,” West said.

Throughout her tenure, West said the ODECE’s central programming has expanded, with the annual Diversity Summit growing into a multiday event centered around social justice, a “Race in America” lecture series with guest speakers in 2020 and 2021 and earlier this year, the start of a Viva Voce series — a program that highlights faculty scholarship. West said she also established a University-wide bias incident reporting system in 2019 where students can meet with a staff member in Conflict Education & Student Accountability about their reports. 

She also said she replaced EverFi, the online education platform the University used for mandatory diversity training for first-year and transfer students in 2019 because it wasn’t “GW enough” and created her own diversity curriculum, which she said has generated positive feedback from students.

But West holds a leadership role in ODECE during a time of change and skepticism. The office currently lacks a primary leader after the departure of Caroline Laguerre-Brown, the former vice provost of diversity, equity and community engagement, in July. West now reports directly to Provost Chris Bracey and directly oversees the Multicultural Student Services Center — one of ODECE’s four hubs — as Catherine Guttman-McCabe, an outside hire from the Potomac Law Group, oversees Title IX and Disability Support Services. The search for a new vice provost is “ongoing,” according to a University spokesperson.

Dwayne Kwaysee Wright, the director for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at the Graduate School of Education and Human Development, said the ODECE is in an “era of transition” following Brown’s departure and oversight changes, leaving the University without a chief diversity officer.

Wright said he’s a part of the Council on Inclusive Excellence, an informal group of DEI administrators at GW, which formed in 2020, and West has been “immensely valuable” to the group through offering services, like training faculty to reviewing applications and performing inclusive bias training when a bias incident report is filed. 

“I hope that she sticks around, whether it’s in an interim role, the actual chief diversity officer role or in the role that she is right now because she is an invaluable source to GW, and there are hard times coming, regardless of how this election comes out,” Wright said.

Over the last few years, the MSSC has faced turbulence. Sudden MSSC staff departures and turnover in February left the center with only one full-time staff member, and the center’s relocation to the University Student Center from its former G Street townhouse grew concerns among some community members that the center was losing autonomy.

But West said the center is “expanding,” stating that the hiring of MSSC Director Vanice Antrum in August and the staff members that they have subsequently brought in were “really significant.” She said the center’s new program coordinator for race, ethnicity and culture hired in August has been running programs “multiple times a week” and engaging with several student organizations to support students who are overseeing the heritage celebration months.

The center also hired Hannah Youssef, an assistant director, in August, but she is no longer listed on the center’s staff page as of Monday. The MSSC has since hired a program coordinator for gender and sexuality, who West said begins next week.

“As it relates specifically to the MSSC, the staff is pretty much new, with the exception of Elise Greenfield and so continuing to support them around ‘What is a programming framework, and how do we assess it? How do we measure long term impact?’” West said.

West said she also hired Eunice “Eunz” Dollete as the ODECE’s inaugural assistant director for cultural programming and social justice education in 2022, who hosts “Breaking Bread” — a weekly dialogue program on Wednesdays about topics including student activism and patriarchy. 

Early this year, the Division for Student Affairs adopted oversight for religious and spiritual life at GW, a component of University programming that was originally housed under the MSSC. The MSSC’s former graduate assistant for religious and spiritual life said in April that he resigned from his position after officials canceled the center’s original plans for its annual Interfaith Week in January and transferred religious and spiritual life to the DSA, with the department later hosting its own version of the week in April and establishing a Center for Interfaith and Spiritual Life in June. 

“I don’t have an answer for you about that right now,” West said in response to why the MSSC’s original Interfaith Week schedule was canceled. 

She said the MSSC has two pillars: gender and sexuality and race, ethnicity and culture — omitting religious and spiritual life, which past leaders said was a core component of the center. She said past University announcements have been “clear” that these components belong in DSA.

“What we will always do is welcome all students with open arms and be a space where students can contemplate identity, question their beliefs and thoughts,” she said.

West said the ODECE is “in conversation” with officials about expanding the MSSC to the entirety of the fifth floor of the student center, which it currently occupies half of after officials relocated the center in spring 2023 due to renovations of its former location in the G Street townhouse.

Former MSSC Director Dustin Pickett, who resigned in February, said last October that the MSSC was set to take over the entire fifth floor of the student center by the end of last spring semester, but West said finding space for the Center for Career Services, which occupies the other half of the floor, has slowed the process.

“If you think about it as like a puzzle piece, it’s ensuring, again, that Career and Student Success get the space that they need and deserve and then expand across the fifth floor,” West said. 

Dominique “Dommie” Hollingsworth, a 2024 alum who spoke at the MSSC’s commencement ceremony in May, said he worked as a student staffer at the MSSC for two and a half years. He said he’s noticed an increase in “censorship” within the MSSC about what type of events the center could have and last spring, pitched a topic for the ODECE’s weekly “Breaking Bread” discussion about genocide, but officials told him it wasn’t a topic they could do.

“It never happened because they basically said ‘We can’t do that topic,’” Hollingsworth said.

An Instagram account with the user handle “MSSC Solidarity” also posted flyers throughout campus last semester alleging the MSSC has “fallen victim” to a “toxic institutional culture.” A representative of the MSSC solidarity group and Student Coalition for Palestine said the group consists of students who use the MSSC and formed as a direct response to the ODECE’s Interfaith Week after the cancelation of the MSSC’s rendition in January.

The representative said current MSSC staff and programming have been “great” but worries the same restrictions and obstacles their predecessors faced will follow them and limit their goals.

“I’m looking at the future, and what they will or won’t be able to do is what I’m most worried about with the MSSC,” the representative said.

But as the center enters its 55th year on campus, West says she, alongside other officials, will continue to assess the center’s long-term framework, and she remains focused on helping the MSSC reach its “highest potential.”

Amid the uncertainty of shuffling positions, a push for increased funding and hopes for expanded programming and spaces, West says her burgeoning vision for the center still brings a smile to her face.

“There’s a lot of things I dream of, and there’s a lot of things that I imagine,” West said.

Brooke Forgette contributed reporting.