On July 2, Oswego State appointed Rodmon King as chief diversity and inclusion officer.

King said his position, simply put, is community building. 

“Community building, that’s what’s at the heart of it,” King said. “Understanding people’s needs, helping people get in touch with their needs a lot and creating context for understanding and creating the structures within our community.”

King’s bright, open-windowed office is high in Culkin hall and looks brand new, much as he is to the Oswego community.

His role, according to the school, is to be the instrumental force for diversity and inclusion goals, while promoting and sustaining an environment of inclusion and equality throughout the campus community.

Since arriving to the campus in July, King has spent much of his time meeting with members of faculty, staff and students to get a feel for the community at large.

“The overall general mission in this first term, especially in this first year for me, is to try to understand the community,” King said. “What kind of resources are there, what kind of needs do people have – to understand from people themselves what kinds of things are going on and get a full, comprehensive understanding of the community.”

King believes his most effective way of interacting with and getting to know the community is by listening.

“There’s the whole literature on how to engage communities on stuff like this, from experience, and just theoretically, I think it’s correct – listening first,” King said. “A lot of what I’m doing, I’m explaining to people what I think about this job and things like that. But always, every meeting I’m having, whether it’s meeting with some office staff or it’s meeting with a department or it’s meeting with students or a club or organization, whatever it is, I want to listen.”

King’s listening experience goes hand in hand with how he got his current position, and he feels that his previous roles have helped prepare him for his current position.

King has been working in positions similar to his new role as chief officer for many years. He started as faculty at Roberts Wesleyan College, University of Rochester and Hobart and William Smith Colleges. King also served as the associate vice president for academic affairs and diversity initiatives at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky before coming back up north to Oswego.

“A lot of times, I draw from my experiences as a faculty member. I taught philosophy at Hobart and William Smith for a number of years, and a lot of that work there prepared me to do this,” King said.

  Having worked in a myriad of positions in hospitals, non-profits, and educational institutions, King said he feels prepared to work with the Oswego community.

Before becoming an academic ,King worked in human services, with community organizations and for a while as a psychiatric case manager.

“Rodmon King’s extensive experience working as an advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education, and collaboration with all stakeholders across the academy and in the wider community, have prepared him to make immediate contributions as our chief diversity and inclusion officer,” Oswego State President Deborah Stanley said in a statement.

Although he has not been a part of the Oswego State community for very long, King influenced the college in that short time.

“I have already seen the impact Rodmon has had on our campus,” said Wayne Westervelt, Oswego State chief communication officer, in a statement. “His proactive engagement with all members of our campus community and genuine desire to embrace and promote cultural competence, civil discourse and active engagement shines bright in SUNY Oswego’s quest for inclusive excellence.”

One of King’s most notable desires for the campus is that of learning and growing, but not in the typical academic sense.

“As an educational entity, as a community that is connected to an institute for higher learning, my hope would be that people who come here…are growing in some kinds of ways,” King said. “I myself don’t want to be the same person four years, two years, five years from now that I am now. I should be growing as well.”

The growth King is suggesting plays into part with how he wants to try and make the campus more mindful and learn to challenge each other in the right kinds of ways.

“There may be beliefs that individuals have that are actually having an impact of the living experiences of other people,’ King said. “Understanding that and taking ownership of that is going to be important.”

King’s work is something he is aware will not happen overnight, and he is confident it is something that will not come from a cookie-cutter response. He has no bound plan, but that is exactly how he wants it to be.

“I could have come in here with some master plan and pushed that on this community,” King said.

“There’s some real reasons why I don’t think that’s the way to go, because then there’s ways in which people are disconnected from that, and it’s this external thing in which I’ve imposed upon this community. I think a better way is to engage people in genuine ways.”

Photo provided by Wayne Westervelt