IHCC To Host Diversity Conference

Indian Hills

OTTUMWA — The annual Diversity Conference, hosted by Indian Hills Community College, will be held on Friday, Mar. 22, on the IHCC Ottumwa campus. The mission of the conference, which is being offered for the 15th year in a row, is to educate attendees about diversity-related topics, including such things as age, race, creed, color, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, religion, disability, background, intellect, language, and socio-economic status.

The opening keynote will be given by Tania Rashid, an award-winning journalist currently working as a special correspondent for PBS NewsHour. Her work has focused on human rights and women’s issues. Rashid’s breakout story was at Al Jazeera English where she was the first female journalist on the ground at the collapse of Rana Plaza, the largest industrial disaster in Bangladesh, which killed thousands of factory workers.

The afternoon keynote address will be from JJ Kapur, a student at Stanford University studying political science. He recently won the most prestigious high school speech and debate competition in

the U.S. Kapur’s desire to share his community’s story led him to found a community service group focused on eliminating the negative stigma surrounding Sikhism.
Both of the keynotes will take place in St. John Auditorium.

There will be breakout sessions in the morning and afternoon that will feature a choice of topics that influence local, state and national communities.
Registration begins at 8 a.m. with the opening keynote at 9:00

For more details on the conference and to register go to www.indianhills.edu/news/events/diversity.