Mean Green Athletics Announces UNiTy Initiative
10/27/2020 9:00:00 AM | Cross Country, Football, General, Men's Basketball, Men's Golf, Softball, Swimming and Diving, Women's Tennis, Track & Field/XC, Women's Basketball, Women's Golf, Women's Soccer, Women's Volleyball, Compliance, Athletics Communications, Student-Athlete Advisory Committee
DENTON - Mean Green Athletics has announced the launch of the UNiTy initiative. The UNiTy initiative is designed to serve as a starting point for student-athletes and department staff to communicate and learn from each other while promoting diversity, equality and inclusion.
Several strategic initiatives have been identified as part of the overall campaign, including:
- Allocating funds specifically for athletic department programming and facilitators focused on diversity, equality and inclusion to provide better education for student-athletes and staff.
- Developing a campaign to educate and register student-athletes to vote, and having coaches make time on election days for voting.
- Providing selected reading(s) for all staff members focused on diversity, equality, and/or inclusion.
- Developing a plan to build a tribute to UNT's history in desegregating college football in Texas and emphasizing overall importance of equality.
- Creating educational video board spots at games with messages from our student-athletes on diversity and inclusion.
- Facilitating conversations with UNT leadership and UNT student-athletes.
- Creating a personal responsibility pledge, which outlines individual responsibilities to create and promote equality, for all staff and student-athletes to sign.
- Adding questions to the annual student-athlete survey and senior exit interviews related specifically to minority student-athletes and their UNT experience.
- Creating an internship or graduate assistantship to assist the athletic executive team with diversity and inclusion initiatives.
These initiatives will continue to expand and evolve over time to further meet the needs of student-athletes and staff members.
Also introduced with the UNiTy initiative is a news series of conversations between student-athletes titled The Platform. This series is designed to encourage student-athletes to use their platform to have difficult discussions with one another on topics that impact society and provide an outlet for constructive dialogues that promote respect, compassion and empathy. Click here to watch the first episode of The Platform.
