After racist incidents rattled the Syracuse University campus, faculty and staff are pushing for progress.

"The overall end goal is to remake this community into a place that outwardly values every single member and makes sure they have everything they need to accomplish their goals,” said Hub Brown, a Syracuse University associate dean.

The Newhouse School of Public Communications’ faculty and staff are taking extra steps to do this. They held a diversity and inclusion forum Thursday.

"What we wanted to do was increase the resources of faculty members, so they can do more to make sure students are part of this inclusive culture,” said Brown.

It will help them learn how to better interact with students.

"And give students different mechanisms to build their support, increasing mentorship, increasing the ability of finding faculty members with whom them can just sit down and talk and be honest,” said Brown.

These are changes that students like Julian Neely support, especially since some expressed their fears of confronting faculty about racist encounters.

"Being able to have an outlet for students to be able to process and talk about things and have a safe space is important on predominantly white institutions,” said Neely, who is a graduate student. “Being able to have representation is very important. Having someone who looks like me, that shares my identity, there's multiple benefits that come from that."

Neely says one solution won't solve everything.

"I am hopeful things are going to change and things will start going to the right direction,” said Neely. “But it's definitely going to be time to show true results."

"I don't know if we're going to be able to stop people from drawing graffiti or those sorts of things,” said Brown. “But I know we can take strong steps so students understand they can come to us, that this is a space where they can learn, they can get skills, they can go out and make a difference in a place that values them.”

The faculty plans to hold more forums, and they’re required to attend a diversity and inclusion workshop later in the semester.