Amid about 100 people Thursday night, only a smattering of hands went up when Willie McKether asked, “Who feels included?”

Mr. McKether, associate dean in the college of languages, literature, and social sciences at the University of Toledo, was the moderator for a conversation on diversity. 

One woman, an engineering student, said she feels that her college “is for white, heterosexual men. I have to prove myself every day when I’m in the classroom, every day when I’m on campus.”

Another woman said: “One thing that bothers me is that people judge me by my skin color and people judge me before they talk to me, just because I'm brown.”

The participants, mostly students, spoke freely about race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disabilities during the session in the student union.

Mr. McKether said the event was meant to be a conversation in which he asked questions to find out how students feel about their sense of belonging as well as having equal access to resources.

“If you feel positive about those things, great, wonderful, but if you don’t, how can we fix those things?” Mr. McKether said. “This provides a wonderful opportunity for you as students to participate in a process of looking forward. 

“Tonight really is about looking to the future. You’re the generation of now because you have the chance to shape the direction of this institution as we move forward.”

Students jotted down suggestions and then spoke about them, such as making diversity education mandatory, the way alcohol education is.

The university had already planned a series of “conversations on diversity” when a black student said he was assaulted and racial slurs were used early Sunday at the off-campus fraternity house of Pi Kappa Phi.

Rayshawn Watkins, 19, of Pepper Pike, Ohio, told police that several people punched and kicked him and used slurs during a quarrel over Christmas lights that fell. Mr. Watkins said a man yelled a racial term as he approached the house.

UT President Sharon Gaber said in a campus-wide email that the university had no tolerance for violence against its students.

She said UT police were in contact with Toledo police, who are leading the investigation. A vice president of the fraternity chapter said Mr. Watkins and his friends trespassed during a private birthday party and called his account “absolutely ludicrous” and said race was not involved. Chapter operations were suspended pending the investigation, a national fraternity spokesman said.

Brad Higgs, a senior social work major, asked early in Thursday’s event for an update on the investigation. Kaye Patten, senior vice president for student affairs, said an investigation is ongoing based on the code of student conduct.

“What I’m asking the university community to do is let the process unfold,” Ms. Patten said.

Ms. Gaber, UT president since July, promoted diversity efforts when she came to the university as a candidate for the presidency.

In November, she appointed Mr. McKether as special assistant to the president for diversity to identify issues and make recommendations on recruiting and retaining minority students and faculty — and on ensuring UT offers an inclusive welcoming community.

Aside from his academic roles, Mr. McKether has been adviser to UT’s Black Student Union. He helped found a mentoring program, Brothers on the Rise, to connect black and Latino male students to faculty and community members. He is a member of the Association of Black Faculty and Staff.

He began his work several months ago by speaking with members of the campus community to understand UT’s “culture of diversity.”

“There have been these ongoing questions about why are we losing or why can we not retain faculty and staff of color at the university,” Mr. McKether told The Blade then.

UT faculty in fall of 2014, the most recent available data, was 79 percent white, while 77 percent of the staff were white. The student body that year was 67 percent white, 12 percent black, and 4 percent Hispanic.

Ms. Gaber, in her email this week, said the community conversations are the start of Mr. McKether’s “comprehensive outreach efforts across campus and in the community to gather input and develop a strategic diversity plan to continually strengthen UT’s commitment to diversity in the years ahead.”

Another conversation with students is scheduled from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday in Room 100, Health Education Building, on the Health Science Campus, the former Medical College of Ohio. A faculty conversation is to be from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in Room 103, Health Education Building. The staff session is noon to 2 p.m. Thursday in the same room.

A conversation open to all will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Monday in the Kent branch of the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library.

Contact Mark Zaborney at: mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.

First Published January 29, 2016, 5:00 a.m.