INDIANAPOLIS, IN - Recent SUNY Oneonta graduate and men's basketball player Seidina Doukoure (Bronx, NY/The MacDuffie School) had the opportunity to attend the 2024 NCAA Inclusion Forum this past April. The NCAA Inclusion Forum brings together leaders within higher education and intercollegiate athletics, including student-athletes, to engage in robust programming and enhance efforts on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives. Educational programming focuses on each of the office of inclusion's five core areas of disability, international, LGBTQ, race/ethnicity, and women.
"It was a great experience and opportunity for me as a student-athlete to become more invested in my role as a campus leader," said Doukoure. "Learning different perspectives and methods on how other schools work to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion standards and sharing ways that we promote those standards at Oneonta definitely helped advance the conversation!"
The first day began with a first-time attendee orientation and opening remarks from award-winning ESPN Basketball Analyst and host LaChina Robinson, Senior Vice President of NCAA Inclusion, Education, and Community Engagement Felicia Martin, and Managing Director of the NCAA Office of Inclusion Dr. Amy Wilson. Afterward, South Carolina women's basketball national championship coach Dawn Staley discussed using her platform to help diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The 2024 program was rich in content, featuring a variety of breakout sessions and panel discussions. These covered a wide range of topics, from the development of adaptive sports programs to understanding implicit bias and effectively coaching Generation Z student-athletes. The diversity of the discussions mirrored the forum's commitment to inclusivity and provided attendees with a holistic understanding of the issues at hand. The forum also included a community service project, where attendees wrote notes of encouragement inside books related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, which were then donated to a local elementary school.
"Sid was such a great representative of our basketball program and our college," said Oneonta men's basketball head coach Cameron Conover. "He enjoyed getting involved on our campus and in our community. Attending this Forum was the culmination of a career filled with great service. Sid understands the importance of students and, in particular, athletes using their voice in a positive manner to see growth and development."
The 2024 NCAA Inclusion Forum was marked by the launch of a new initiative, the Student-Athlete Symposium. This symposium, hosted in conjunction with the forum, was designed to provide student-athlete attendees with individualized educational programming. The goal was to equip and empower them to actively participate and contribute to the diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives within their teams, athletics departments, campuses, and communities. This initiative holds great promise for the future of student-athlete engagement in DEIB initiatives.
