PORT ANGELES — Opening up the path to higher education for underrepresented students will be the topic of a free online discussion Wednesday at Peninsula College.

Dr. Gariot Louima, the Bahamas-born son of Haitian immigrants who is now at Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., will give a short presentation and then partake in a dialogue with Peninsula College leaders, all on Zoom starting at noon.

To watch, go to www.pencol-edu.zoom.us/j/84298574012 and use meeting ID 842 9857 4012. For more information, contact longhouse@pencol.edu or professor Kate Reavey at kreavey@pencol.edu.

Louima, the first associate vice president for strategic and diversity initiatives in Earlham’s history, is at work on a comprehensive diversity, equity and inclusion plan for the college.

“I am excited about this opportunity to learn more about what Earlham is doing to bring the campus to a place of being more welcoming and more student-ready for students who have been underserved/under-represented/marginalized,” Reavey, a facilitator of Louima’s talk, said in an email to the Peninsula Daily News.

Wednesday’s program was initially planned as an internal discussion for Peninsula College, but then Reavey and her colleagues decided to open it to the public, as they do with the college’s Studium Generale lectures on Thursdays.

Louima’s conversation with college officials also honors Black History Moth, Reavy said. Other college officials include Upward Bound director Nitasha Lewis, Center for Equity Teaching and Learning Director Bruce Hattendorf, ʔaʔk̓ʷustəƞáwt̓xʷ House of Learning Steward Sadie Crowe, and Reavey.

“It is an ‘extra’ Studium opportunity,” Reavey said, adding she hopes Louima will return next year or sometime soon to read his fiction.

“He is an inspiring writer,” and a former reporter for newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald and the Times-Picayune of New Orleans.

Louima has also published short stories such as “Half in the Truth,” which appears in the online literary journal Border Crossing (www.bcrossing.org).

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Jefferson County Senior Reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3509 or durbanidelapaz@peninsuladailynews.com.