Loyola held a State of Diversity forum Tuesday, hosted by Interim Chief Diversity Officer Liv Newman. School officials announced the formation of a Multicultural Leadership Council and the future appointment of a Chief Diversity Officer.

The Multicultural Leadership Council aims to integrate multicultural organizations at the university, and the Chief Diversity Officer, who will be appointed by the start of next school year, will spearhead diversity discussion on campus.

The leadership council has begun “Movie Mondays,” screening movies on campus that each include a specific diversity themed message. A primary goal of the diversity officer will be to determine why large dropout rates of certain minority racial groups exist.

Courtney Williams, associate director of student involvement, spoke at the forum, relaying information about programs the university is implementing to increase diversity and inclusion. He said the programs include new diversity and inclusion training for all staff members, a revamped student leaders program with a diversity element and a website update with new sections on diversity.

Williams said he has also started a “Brave Spaces” dialogue series that kicks off this month. The series will include panels of Loyola and New Orleans community members who are fighting for the issues being discussed under each month’s diversity theme. This month’s focus will be #BlackLivesMatter, next month’s speakers will address how to manage community trauma and November’s panel will focus on gentrification. The #BlackLivesMatter panel will be on campus Sept. 19 at 6:30 p.m.

Williams hopes the programs he and other Loyola staff have implemented will grow and prompt real change over the next five years.

Brad Petitfils, senior director of student success and institutional research and effectiveness, discussed new disability programs being implemented at Loyola. He emphasized the importance of catering toward the needs of children with psychiatric disorders and said the faculty would take extra care to make sure those needs are met.

Petitfils also spoke about Optical Character Recognition, a program designed to read information to children that may not be able to do so themselves. He plans on implementing this program at Loyola and urges teachers to post their documents to Blackboard in PDF form because that form is the only one Optical Character Recognition can read.

Patricia Boyett, director of the Women’s Resource Center, spoke about programs and events the center is planning for this year, including the founding of a magazine, upcoming internships, Feminist Friday programs beginning this Friday and an International Women’s Day celebration. She emphasized the resource center’s care for all issues, including #BlackLivesMatter, and said she hopes the center will become the most diverse space on campus.