Robert Morris University (RMU) affirms its commitment to diversity. The institution is proud of its recent accomplishments in this area but is also aware that it can do more. The university’s administrators, faculty and staff believe that promoting diversity will ensure that RMU stays at the forefront of empowering African-American young men. Moreover, we see promoting diversity off campus and in our communities as consistent with one of our core university values: changing lives.

As RMU’s Civic Action Plan (CAP) committee completed the plan, it leveraged a key existing program to demonstrate the positive impact that diversity programs can have. The university highlights its ongoing initiative, with the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh, called the Black Male Leadership Development Institute. BMLDI is a year-long cohort program for 9th through 12th grade African-American males with the principal goal of increasing their educational and leadership potential.

Building on the strong commitment to BMLDI and harnessing the efforts of the university’s African-American Student Retention Task Force, the university is creating a program of activities associated with Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP). Beginning in the Fall 2017 semester, the university will offer monthly programs dissecting important elements of CRP, which will be delivered to the university’s faculty, staff and students, and will welcome current and new external partners to engage with the university.