Gettysburg College Introduces New Chief Diversity Officer
By Sydney Dyer, Staff Writer
Chief Diversity Officer Eloísa Gordon-Mora (Photo courtesy of Gettysburg College).
After months of searching, Gettysburg College introduced Dr. Eloísa Gordon-Mora to the President’s Council as the new Chief Diversity Officer heading all strategic, policy, and educational diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) concerns for the 2022-2023 academic year.
Dr. Gordon-Mora holds a doctorate in Political Science with a concentration on transitions to democracy from the University of Notre Dame. After graduate school she began her career as a professor at Bates College. Desiring to work with a broader community, inside and outside higher education, she started working in administrative, as well as community organizing positions on issues of diversity while in New York City. There she worked at the New School, Marymount Manhattan College, and Safe Horizon, the nation’s largest victim services non-profit, serving survivors of all forms of violence.
At Safe Horizon, Gordon-Mora was Vice President of Government Affairs. In her position, she witnessed many different situations of poverty, violence and oppression of marginalized groups. She described how it struck her to see these experiences in America, where devotion to democracy is high but the access to it is quite limited to those in the oppressed groups her work supported. According to her, these moments inspired her to continue her work.
After Gordon-Mora’s time in New York City, she moved to Puerto Rico for several years, where she worked as Dean of Social Sciences before coming back to the mainland U.S. Upon her arrival, she lived in Nevada and worked as University Diversity and Inclusion Officer at the University of Nevada, Reno for several years before finally finding her way to Gettysburg.
“I feel that Gettysburg, because of its history and its people…there ought to be a constant reevaluation of [DEI] understandings.”
“It’s in a moment of transition and redefinition,” Gordon-Mora described her office.
Currently, she is working to evaluate the work done on campus in the past and figure out how to move forward. Gordon-Mora is working to connect with the community—students, faculty and staff alike, and is moving towards more active, frequent and effective communication with these groups.
“I think there are places that inspire more possibility than others within the challenges [of DEI work], and I feel that Gettysburg, because of its history and its people…there ought to be a constant reevaluation of those understandings,” she said.
When talking about DEI work, Gordon-Mora addressed that the field is still developing, and that ideas on what diversity is and how it should be instituted are not universally understood.
According to Gordon-Mora, the needs and desires of all groups need to be considered in DEI work, creating an environment of success and comfort for all in the Gettysburg community. She wants to take these ideas and make them into a workable plan for the entire college to follow, creating strong bonds with other offices and groups to accomplish these goals as a whole. As described by her, diversity work is not just the burden of her office or other singular groups alone; it is work we all need to share to make a better community for everyone. Gordon-Mora described her plan to continue to embed diversity, equity and inclusion into the foundation of our community by instilling diversity work in every sector of the institution.
As DEI work becomes more prevalent and continues to develop as a professional field, Eloísa described how there is no room for complacency in higher education. It is instead a time for change and new direction, and while these new directions are still being developed, she is devoted to the strategic work needed to make these aspirations a reality.
This article originally appeared on page 22 of the September 2022 edition of The Gettysburgian’s magazine.
