September 13, 2011

Noor Azizan-Gardner has taken on the role of interim Chief Diversity Officer for MU after serving as the director of diversity programming and professional development.

“It took me five minutes to pick her,” Deputy Chancellor Mike Middleton said. “I know her well, I know what she can do, and I know what her talents are. It wasn’t a difficult decision at all. Her vast experience throughout life equips her well to many tasks and relationship issues.”

Azizan-Gardner has worked with the organization since its start in 2006.

“I was the first hired at the time,” Azizan-Gardner said. “I think that the long relationship that I had with the university, with many different people on campus and the different colleges as well as the breadth and depth of work I have done are probably the reasons why I was named interim.”

Azizan-Gardener has spent more than 18 years working on intercultural issues locally, nationally and internationally. She has also given intercultural competency lectures and workshops and consulted on diversity and intercultural competency for the private and public sector and the police and armed forces.

“I worked with her for 12 years,” MU Equity Director Noel English said. “She is an excellent colleague and really knows her field well. She’s an expert in cultural competency and I think, by virtue of that position, she really is known on campus as being the diversity person. She really talks the talk.”

Azizan-Gardner’s job responsibilities will include providing leadership, consultation and support to enhance diversity for the time being. She will also head the Chancellor’s Diversity initiative.

“This is just an interim appointment until the position is filled on a permanent basis,” English said. “It’s not that we aren’t going to fill it, we’re just going to wait until, I suspect, a better fiscal environment, to do so. Until that time, we have an interim person.”

In the meantime, Azizan-Gardner has her own goals she plans to enforce on campus to further diversity. These include increasing synergy between student governments and organizations with CDI and continuing to focus on the diversity goals in MU’s strategic plan.

“The three things in the plan are, No. 1, how do we enhance the numbers at MU?” Azizan-Gardner said. “And No. 2, how do we develop a community of scholars and a curriculum that embraces, understands and advances an increasingly diverse and global society? No. 3, how do we develop services and programs that make the campus that much more inclusive and welcoming?”

Colleagues have shown support for Azizan-Gardner’s newly appointed position and subsequent goals.

“I think she will do a fantastic job,” English said. “She has a lot of vision for what she thinks our office should be doing and how we can help the campus move forward. We have a lot of plans going. It is going to be an exciting year. I think it was an excellent decision.”

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