Running Head: MY EXPERIENCE AT DEI

My Experience at DEI
Dwain Ross II
Kent State University

Running Head: MY EXPERIENCE AT DEI

My experience working at the Division of Diversity Equity, and Inclusion has been a very
interesting, eye opening, fulfilling and very appreciated experience. Although I only interned for
the Division of Diversity Equity, and Inclusion for 4 months I learned a lot about how the
organization works and how day to day tasks can change at the drop of a dime. For anyone that is
curious I will give a quick background of what the Division of Diversity Equity, and Inclusion is.
The division was established by Kent State University in 2010 and it focuses on engagement and
collaboration with constituents across the campuses and within the greater community. For
everyone reading this I will focus on four areas which are, culture, structure, my role here as an
intern and what Ive taken from this opportunity.
Touching on the culture aspect, it really is one that is loose and very family oriented.
From the day that I stepped foot in the door of the office I instantly felt that family vibe. I knew
from the beginning that everyone genuinely cared about each others thoughts, feelings and well
being. If there was any issue that someone had the door was always open, literally. Unless there
was an important meeting or discussion that needed to be had the full time staff always had their
door open and were ready and willing to talk to you. Although the office wasnt an open concept
it felt that way which allowed my ideas to flow well and work to be very productive. The full
time staff there was also very open minded when it came to the ideas of the workers. No idea
was dumb or considered to be too irrational. If an intern had an idea or plan that they felt could
be beneficial to the division their ideas were always listened to. The focus was simply to
implement ideas, concepts or initiatives that allowed for the betterment of the entire Division of
Diversity Equity and Inclusion no matter who it came from. Since everyone worked across the
hall from the Presidents office our dress code for the duration of the internship was that of
business professional. Everyday I had to come in a button down shirt, tie and dress shoes. I

Running Head: MY EXPERIENCE AT DEI

didnt mind this though due to the fact that more likely than not this will be the normal dress
code for my future career. I viewed this requirement as simple preparation for future employment
and it got me ready for the real life culture.
Another wake up call per say was how things can change so quickly on a day to day
basis. What I mean by this is when I first received my job title of Student Marketing Coordinator
it had very specific roles that we were to complete in order to satisfy our practicum. By me not
working in that type of environment before I assumed that I would maintain all of those job
duties that were given to me initially. Simply put, I was wrong. I didnt realize how busy and
important the Division of Diversity Equity and Inclusion was and everything they did on a day to
day operation. After seeing how busy they were and how short staffed we were when it came to
the interns we began to scrap the idea of defined roles. Instead of my main focus being the
promotion and creation of events, initiatives and slogans to help build the brand and increase the
visibility of the division I found myself in a much different role. My main focus shifted from
mainly marketing the division to helping with graphic design duties. The main graphic designer,
Courtney, found herself to be swamped with projects and with the next man or woman up
attitude that exist in the workplace it was my job to help her with some work she had. Looking
back, I appreciate gaining that experience though because from now on I will be prepared and
will better understand what comes with organizations and the distribution of duties.
When it comes to the structure of the division it was pretty simple due to the small
amount of workers in the office. At the top you had Vice President Dr. Alfreda Brown, next was
Dana who was the boss of Avery Danage Jr. Finally you had the secretary Connie who was
responsible for keeping the order of the office and ensuring things ran smoothly. Due to the small
amount of full time staff in the office everyone interacted with them which allowed for an open

Running Head: MY EXPERIENCE AT DEI

and healthy relationship to be formed. Due to the small amount of people we, the interns, had to
answer to, most times projects were quickly approved and they were able to be pushed out and
promoted. It was an efficient operation that made everyones day much easier and less stressful.
There were days though where projects hit a back log and werent pumped out quickly. Some
projects that I personally created and had faith were going to be very successful took a while to
be approved. Initially I was very frustrated with this due to my inexperience with this type of
thing happening. I didnt understand why it took so long for a simple thing such as a flyer to get
the green light when in my mind all that had to be done was look at it and say yes or for me to fix
it. As I mentioned earlier though, the division and its small full time staff had an abundance of
work that they were responsible for completing on a day by day basis. I had to realize this and
understand that everything wont get done at the rate I want it to all of the time. Once I realized
this the frustration level I had went down considerably and I simply continued to complete as
much work as I possibly could with as much quality as possible.
I touched on my role as an intern with the Division of Diversity Equity, and Inclusion
briefly, but I want to expound upon that. My internship title was Student Marketing Coordinator,
my duties included but were not limited to, controlling the various social media pages, handling
the marketing aspect for the Division of Diversity Equity and Inclusion, being a contributor to
the creative side of the division. My marketing duties were, creating marketing plans and
initiatives that would increase the visibility as well as the presence of the division. In addition to
that I was in charge of finding marketing materials and ordering them. The marketing materials,
items such as pens, cups and various other materials would contain the Dare to be Diverse
slogan along with the social media handle for all of our active pages. The goal of ordering the
materials was to aid in increasing our visibility to the Kent State community.

Running Head: MY EXPERIENCE AT DEI

The social media duty consisted of me posting on the various pages that we had active
which were the Instagram and Twitter pages. I posted tweets and photos as well as retweeting
various tweets to show support for the various other organizations that are affiliated with the
division. I also was in charge of implementing a social media strategy across the division that
would be used create a more uniform presence for all of the affiliates of the Division of Diversity
Equity, and Inclusion. This was a goal designed to show how far the divisions presence stretched
as well as to allow people to put a face to all of the divisions under the Division of Diversity
Equity and Inclusion umbrella. One other duty that I had when it came to the social media was
tracking the amount of traffic that the Twitter page generated on a monthly basis. In the report
that I generated it showed that the amount of times the tweets the grew from 900 view per month
to over 14,000 view per month. The social media strategy I had was working fine.
Finally, the graphic design role was the role that was my main and busiest focus. I
designed various flyers for the official sub divisions of the Division of Diversity Equity and
Inclusion such as the LGBTQ center along with other division and organizations that worked
with the division. In the end I designed around 10 flyers that ranged from a Black history flyer, a
flyer for autism support and one for the LGBTQ community. I was allowed to fully express my
vision and creativity for this aspect of my job and I was allowed to grow as a designer.
Although my internship was a brief 4 months Ive taken quite a lot from this experience. I
have gained experience in so many fields that I once didnt know much of anything about and
now can say that I am confident in my abilities to complete the job to my best abilities and state
with confidence that I know the job will be done in a way that my future employer will not have
to worry about anything being done in a way that will cause any doubt in the confidence of the
quality of work that I can do.

Running Head: MY EXPERIENCE AT DEI

If I have anything that I would like to tell my future employers, it would be that I knew
before this internship that I would be able to complete my job with both high efficiency and
quality without the need to check in to see if it is being done correctly. With all of this experience
Ive gained in marketing, photography, social media and graphic design all of that
aforementioned confidence that I once had has been strengthened and I can say that if I would be
hired at any job doing any duty assigned that it will be done in a way that will make the
employer realize that theyve made the correct decision in hiring me.
Reflecting back on my internship experience, it was initially a rough experience and there
were trials and error that comes with working in a vastly different environment than you are used
to. Over time though all of that was smoothed out, I gained a lot of confidence over my months
as Students Marketing Coordinator for the Division of Diversity Equity, and Inclusion. Having
the role as the head of my department, allowing me to be creative, firm and confident in the
decisions I made I feel has allowed me to grow as a man and as a confident prospective
employee for whomever is willing to give me a chance. I am greatly humbled and appreciative
for what opportunities I have been granted and will be granted in the future and will always
remember the lessons I learned from this experience. I would especially like to thank Avery
Danage Jr. for being someone who was patient with me and allowed me to express my views and
ideas freely and creatively while giving me constructive criticism. That constructive criticism
allowed me to build on what I had already established and quickly and easily learn from my
mistakes and bounce back. I will be forever grateful and wouldnt change anything with this
experience that I have had.