By: Mikala McBride, staff writer
Begoña Caballero-Garcia has been an active part of the diversity and inclusion effort at Wofford for as long as she has been teaching here. Only when the provost announced a new opening for Dean of Diversity and Inclusion did she really consider turning her passion for service and social justice into a career. Caballero-Garcia has been teaching Spanish at Wofford for many years, but behind the scenes, she also volunteered, advocated and brought lessons of equality to her classroom.
She has brought playwrights from Spain and groups of singers from different continents, implemented social justice lessons into her Spanish lectures and written articles to give educators ideas of how to incorporate equality into their language classrooms. She is an anti-poverty activist, participating in monthly meetings on Wofford’s campus. Caballero-Garcia has spent time volunteering to help at-risk children and offered her services translating in schools. She describes this position as an opportunity to do more of what she had been doing, but to really expand her efforts and reach more groups on campus.
For instance, the Office of Diversity has hosted many events to celebrate Black History Month and continues to promote events on campus that serve to share different experiences, bring attention to current problems and celebrate black history. In March, Caballero-Garcia and the rest of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion have plans to celebrate Women’s History Month with many different events, panels and movie screenings.
In meeting with the Women’s History Month committee, they are very excited to host different types of anticipated events: ‘Wear a Hijab’ day to celebrate Muslim women, a screening of “Hidden Figures” and a discussion of gender micro aggressions. Although many of the dates are not yet set in stone, March should be filled with many events and lectures on campus to spread awareness of current issues and celebrate women in history and today.
Some other ideas thrown around at the committee meeting include a STEM panel to acknowledge women in different fields, a trivia event to celebrate women in history, a mile run to spread awareness of gender relations and sexual violence against women and a ‘Before I Graduate’ poster for students to recognize problems that still exist on Wofford’s campus. An official list of events for Women’s History Month has not been released yet, but it should be in the near future so students can attend, participate and learn.
Caballero-Garcia is very excited for March and all of the upcoming events, reflecting on Black History Month as a success and hoping Women’s History Month will turn out well. Following March, she is also looking forward to having LGBTQ experts on campus in April to host a workshop for faculty and staff and having a march to really involve all members of the Wofford community.
In parting, Caballero-Garcia expressed that her time so far has been successful and has one main goal for her position: to make everybody at Wofford feel that they belong. She wants to focus her efforts on the concept that everybody does not have one identity, but each person has many characteristics and stories that make them unique.
