(melodic music) - My name is Amy Bergstrom and I am the Chief Diversity Officer here at The College of St. Scholastica.

(light melodic music) One of the things this position does is it really brings strategic leadership if you will around equity, diversity and inclusion.

I am an enrolled member of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe.

My father is Swedish and German.

When you're biracial, those identities can be in conflict with each other.

And so that can create a challenge for people.

But I think, you know, what I've learned over the course of my lifetime is really just being comfortable in your own skin and finding a path that is centering, you know, for you.

And for me that's who I am as an Ojibwe woman.

It's my culture.

It's my teachings.

It's, you know, my spirituality that informs, you know who I am as a person, but also informs my work.

I don't leave my native identity at the door when I come to work every day.

I come here as an Anishinaabe woman.

I have my bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

I have my master's degree from Harvard University, and my doctorate from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus.

My bachelor's degree is in English, teaching English.

So I, by training and was a middle school English language arts teacher.

My master's degree is in Education.

And my doctorate is in Educational Policy and Administration.

I was a teacher out at the Fond Du Lac Ojibwe School which is where I started my career.

And from there, I went to graduate school and got my master's degree.

And when I returned home, I was hired as a instructor at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

And it was there that I began my career teaching in higher ed, and also overseeing native teacher training programs which were specifically focused on the recruitment, retention, and graduation of American Indian students to become teachers.

As a native student growing up with not really seeing native teachers in my classrooms anyway, really recognizing the importance and the need for that.

Having teachers of color, regardless it doesn't just have a positive impact on those students of color, it has a positive impact on the entire classroom.

I bring a lens that not only is a historical lens to how we think about education, but also an inclusive lens, how do we make sure that we're inclusive and open to all in that experience.

I was hired in the summer of 2010.

One of the first things that we did in tandem with restructuring the office was also to elevate our inclusive excellence, 2025 plan.

It's my job and, to put that plan into place and to update it, it's a organic document.

We've created a priorities document for our 2021 academic year.

That was a list of 19 priorities that we came up with.

12 of those are completed.

Some are easier.

Some are gonna take more time.

For example, we were able to update our Center for Just Living, and our Intercultural Center.

(melodies music) Definitely my, you know, worldview is shaped by who I am as an Ojibwe woman, absolutely.

Then that informs the work I do today.

The work I've done, you know, in the past, and it'll continue to inform the work I do moving forward.

To me education was always equated with teaching.

And as I've gotten older, I've expanded, you know, the definition, if you will, of teachers.

I think that, you know, many of us, if not all are teachers in some capacity.

But early on in my career that definition of a teacher was that formal definition, being a classroom, lead a group of students, so forth.

The work of the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion is personal for me.

You know, I was that student who needed those services in a predominantly white institution, absolutely.

And it's because of those services that I succeeded, that I retained and graduated.

You know, I was blessed early on in my educational career to have mentors that looked like me, but also that didn't.

That really came together, that supported me and, you know, so absolutely I know what it's like to be that student who needs that safe space to help persevere and to be successful.

(soothing piano music) - [Reporter] Funding for intersections is brought to you by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.