This year’s EIUnity Diversity Conference will tackle topics such as race, sexuality and bystander awareness from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday.

Workshops in the conference will take place at various places in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

All Eastern faculty, staff and students, as well as community members, are able to participate in the conference.

EIUnity will include safe zone training sessions. One workshop includes an introduction of Making Excellence Inclusive’s new Passport to Diversity initiative.

This new addition would be a way to offer an official recognition of diversity, as seen through a student’s coursework, essays and attended conferences and workshops.

The principal of Charleston Middle School will be presenting a workshop on how a student’s socio-economic status affects their ability and desire to learn.

Other workshops include topics on race, immigration, the language of inclusion and the integration of individuals with disabilities.

A full outline of the days’ events can be found on the Office of Minority Affairs’ website.

English professor Jeannie Ludlow, a member of Making Excellence Inclusive who will present at the conference, said EIUnity started out as a way to share an education on diversity, as well as ways to stay socially respectable.

“One of the things I love about it a lot, as a professor, is that I get to sit in the room and be a learner alongside my students and my colleagues,” Ludlow said. “We don’t do enough of that.”

Brooke Schwartz can be reached at 581-2812 or at bsschwartz@eiu.edu.