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Marianapolis Celebrates Black History Month with Speaker Adrienne Amador Oddi

Marianapolis Celebrates Black History Month with Speaker Adrienne Amador Oddi

To kick-off Black History Month, Marianapolis welcomed Ms. Adrienne Amador Oddi to campus to speak to the community on the power and role of education within the experience of marginalized groups. Ms. Oddi is the Dean of Admission at Trinity College in Hartford, CT.

She spoke to the community about her own experiences working in college admissions and seeing the disparity in access to education for students of color. She decided to devote her career to “bring more people to the table.” Ms. Oddi recounted her experiences at a previous institution and the steps she took with colleagues to achieve their goal of “rectifying problematic and racist policies.”

“In just a few years, working to dismantle boundaries that existed across the institution, we doubled the number of students of color on campus. We reduced the amount of student loans they took on to finance their education. We increased the retention in graduation,” she said.

She encouraged the Marianapolis community to use Black History Month to “give voice to those who are silent.”

“Choose the issues that ignite your fire. The beauty of diversity is that if we each work in areas that we are passionate we can influence positive change in many spheres,” she said. “No one person can bring about the massive change our society needs but each one of us can continue to affect our own universes in small ways that will lead to big change.”

To continue the celebration of diversity, Marianapolis will welcome Natalie Demers on February 28 for Women’s History Month. Ms. Demers is the Director of Research Initiatives & Programs for the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools. She will discuss contemporary topics around gender equality, including the link between sustainability and the education of women.