Iowa State will celebrate the 20th anniversary of its conference on race and ethnicity Friday.

The Thomas L. Hill Iowa State Conference on Race and Ethnicity (ISCORE) is an annual comprehensive forum on issues of race and ethnicity at Iowa State and beyond. The local conference is designed to model the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE).

“We know racism, discrimination and bigotry exist and are causing hurt and harm on our campus and in society,” said President Wendy Wintersteen in a letter attached to the ISCORE program. “ISCORE is one important way we can raise awareness and understanding of these issues and work together to take action to create a more welcoming and inclusive university and community.”

ISCORE will take place from 8:15 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday in multiple rooms in the Memorial Union. This comprehensive forum on issues of race and ethnicity is free and open to the Iowa State community, including students, faculty and staff.

“About 20 years ago the senior vice president for student affairs put together a team of staff, faculty and students to go to NCORE and bring back information with the idea that we would put on a conference here for our community at Iowa State,” said Japannah Kellogg, director of the NCORE-ISCORE Project. “2000 was the first year of Iowa State’s Conference on Race and Ethnicity.”

Kellogg said the reason the senior vice president for student affairs decided to bring this conference to Iowa State was that Iowa is a predominately white state and Iowa State is a predominately white campus and having conversations around race and ethnicity is not the easiest conversations to be had.

“I think his thought behind it was this would be something that both our multicultural students would benefit from and our white students,” Kellogg said.

Kellogg said although the topic of race and ethnicity can be a hard topic to discuss, it is still an important one.

“I think it is a topic that is not easily had, but it impacts us in so many different ways, both on campus, and off campus,” Kellogg said. “We bring people to Iowa State from so many different communities and I think it is just being responsible to further the knowledge and understanding and appreciation of human difference.”

Kellogg said ISCORE has grown and evolved in many ways, such as other universities modeling conferences off of ISCORE, professionals becoming more interested in attending ISCORE so much that a pre-conference had to be created and attendance overall growing so much that there are now over 40 breakout sessions.

“ISCORE 2020 marks 20 years of bringing together members of the Iowa State community for important conversations on race and ethnicity,” Wintersteen said in a letter attached to the ISCORE program. “It is encouraging and inspiring to see how this conference has grown from 400 attendees the first year, to more than 1,100 last year, and the positive impact it has on our campus.”

The schedule of the day is available online and in paper form at registration.

From 8:15-9 a.m. is registration and a continental breakfast.

From 9-10 a.m. is the welcome and opening address. The opening address will be Vijay Kanagala, an associate professor of secondary and higher education and coordinator of the Higher Education in Student Affairs Program in the School of Education at Salem State University.

From 10-10:50 a.m. is the first set of concurrent sessions.

From 11-11:50 a.m. is the second set of concurrent sessions.

From noon to 2 p.m. is lunch and a keynote by NCORE-ISCORE alumni.

NCORE-ISCORE student scholar alumni will reflect on their Iowa State experience and how the NCORE-ISCORE project shaped their personal and professional lives.

“This year’s conference, the highlight is we’re bringing back some alumni from over the years and they are going to be featured speakers,” Kellogg said. “They are going to be able to talk about how the project and the leadership has played out in their career path. So I am excited to see what that has shown and what it has done for some of our students.”

Kellogg said there will be around eight alumni who will be featured speakers, but more than 100 will be able to come back for the conference.

From 2:10-3 p.m. is the third and final set of concurrent sessions.

From 3:10-4 p.m. is the closing general session, “What does this have to do with me? How administration, faculty, staff and students can support and impact campus climate through participation in a 20 year history of ISCORE” in the Sun Room/South Ballroom/Great Hall.

This session will provide insight and support into how staff, administrators and students can move new awareness and knowledge gained at ISCORE into an actionable plan in support of Iowa State’s diversity and inclusion initiatives. Case studies will be used as a method to identify ways participants can increase their multicultural competencies through small group discussions to influence campus climate.

From 4-5 p.m. is the ISCORE 20th Year Anniversary Reception and the end of the conference.