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The position of a director for diversity integration, an upper-level administrator who deals with diversity issues at all levels of the college or university, is fairly new to higher education.

Although most institutions of higher education have diversity staff members, Hamline has now joined the select few with one leader to tie together all the various pieces of the puzzle.

“It’s rare where you find a position where you’re dealing with diversity policy across the university, up and down and across,” Nakagawa said. The director will be responsible for strategic planning and coordinating diversity policies with faculty, staff, and students from all five schools in the university.

Faculty Coordinator for Diversity Resources Jim Bonilla and Associate Dean of Students for Diversity and Community Carlos Sneed have expressed high hopes for Nakagawa.

“He brings a great deal of depth and breadth in his understanding, experience and skills that can help us continue to strengthen our diversity efforts in a wide range of areas,” said Sneed.

“I think we may in fact create some synergy. The whole is going to be greater than the sum of the parts,” said Bonilla.

Only in his third week here at Hamline, Nakagawa is diving right into his work. Nakagawa’s first mission is to find out where Hamline is right now. “I really need to get a sense of the university, getting to know the culture, the people, the history,” Nakagawa said. To do that, he is reading past documents and trying to get to know the “dynamics of decision making” at Hamline, he said.

Hamline is a different environment for Dr. Nakagawa than his previos position in southern California where students of color constituted 60-65 percent of the population. “Out west there’s a tendency to take diversity for granted. In Minnesota people cannot become complacent about it because it’s still very fresh,” said Nakagawa.

When asked about his impressions of Hamline’s diversity grade so far, Nakagawa said, “In some respects Hamline is ahead of the curve and in some ways it’s not.” Nakagawa listed the “This is My Story” series as one of the Hamline diversity programs he is most impressed with. Dr. Nakagawa said he plans to build on this and other programs in addition to new efforts.

Nakagawa will focus his energy on working with groups who have not received enough attention in the past, such as faculty and staff. He emphasized that it will be a slow process and he can’t solve every problem. “My name is Gordon, not Ghandi,” Nakagawa said.

“I don’t expect him to be the one-man, one-stop shop for all the answers, but I do think his leadership is key to helping members of the community who are strong diversity advocates, as well as those who are challenged by diversity, make progress of the critical issues that continue to divide, frighten, stall, impede and/or prevent us from being the Hamline we are capable of becoming,” Sneed said. As Bonilla put it, “it’s an ambitious undertaking.”