ISU community members will discuss campus race and ethnicity issues at the 14th Annual Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity, commonly known as ISCORE. The conference will take place on March 1 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Memorial Union.

ISCORE is a multicultural training conference and forum that provides student leadership skills.

Iowa State’s ISCORE students, faculty and staff delegates attend the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education, NCORE, to be able to bring the information back and apply it to Iowa State’s campus. NCORE is a national forum on race and ethnicity issues in higher education. Applicants who are chosen to go to NCORE commit to a year-long experience of learning, researching and studying different cultures as well as attending the four-day national conference.

“Overall, it’s been a very good eye-opening experience that helped me to see other perspectives,” said Mellanie Perez, junior in psychology and ISCORE participant. 

Japannah Kellogg, program coordinator II of the Student Support Services Program and head of ISCORE, explained the goal of ISCORE is to gain information from the conference in order to add a local perspective and develop the information to fit Iowa State. He said without NCORE, there would be no ISCORE.

“I like to think of it as more than just a day — that from having conversations around the topic you can actually feel more comfortable having more in-depth conversations about race and ethnicity,” Kellogg said.

ISCORE is also geared toward developing and enhancing ISU student, faculty and staff awareness of racial and ethnic issues by striving to continue to promote addressing multiculturalism in the classroom, making information regarding issues of race and ethnicity accessible to the entire university and learning how to talk about race in the right manner.

“If you don’t talk about [race and ethnicity], sometimes it never gets better, and it gets easier to avoid those topics. As students grow and learn, they should know how to talk about race in a comfortable and polite way,” Kellogg said.

President Steven Leath and Associate Dean of Students Mary Jo Gonzales will be kicking off the conference with opening remarks. Later in the day, Nancy “Rusty” Barcelo, president of Northern New Mexico College, students that attended the national conference, and representatives from other departments will also be speaking.

A variety of topics will be covered in seminars, including “The Changing Faces of Iowa.”

To see a complete list of the discussions, speakers and times, visit http://www.inside.iastate.edu/article/2013/02/21/iscore.