The Committee on Multicultural Affairs serves as a vehicle for considering policy, practices, and issues of any kind related to, but not limited to, matters of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and other multicultural matters including efforts to:

• support and coordinate with existing groups and committees, e.g., the Committee on Race and Racism concerned with campus community multicultural issues and programs (hereinafter “community concerns”)
• support and sponsor community discussions on campus of community concerns
• support programs of the residence hall staff and others in the residence halls on community concerns and intercultural relations in the hope that inevitable tensions can be defused and education and tolerance increased
• work with those responsible for the orientation of new students, faculty, and staff to be certain that community concerns are adequately addressed
• recommend appropriate education and training programs for faculty, students, and staff to increase multicultural awareness
• work with the dean of faculty on ways to increase the effectiveness of our advising system for those with special needs
• make recommendations to the administration, to the faculty, and to other relevant committees, e.g., the College Affairs Committee, on ways to strengthen the campus community
• hold open forums on topics of general community concern
• make recommendations to the faculty, the College Affairs Committee, and the Presidents’ Council with respect to the changes in the College’s regulations concerning diversity
• work with the Academic Affairs Committee to maintain the integrity and perhaps recommend revisions in the diversity requirement
• review the progress of Colby’s affirmative action programs and suggest ways to strengthen them
• address forums of harassment in its purview.

The committee holds at least one open forum per year on each of the following issues: sexual orientation and homophobia, gender and sexism, ethnicity and ethnic bias, religion and religious discrimination, and social class and socioeconomic bias. The committee organizes a separate task force on one or more of these issues whenever needed. The committee distributes its minutes to the members of the Committee on Race and Racism as well as to its own membership.