KMSU Diversity Statement
DIVERSITY STATEMENT
As licensee of KMSU, Minnesota State University, Mankato — a member of Minnesota State — follows state diversity and inclusion guidelines as an equal opportunity employer.
The Minnesota State Board of Trustees serves as KMSU’s Board of Directors. The Board’s Equal Opportunity and Nondiscrimination in Employment and Education policies and procedures can be viewed at: http://www.minnstate.edu/board/policy/index.html
KMSU’s local Community Advisory Board is made aware of the station’s nondiscrimination and equal opportunity policy at the board’s meetings. The board gives input on how KMSU’s programming, and community and volunteer outreach meets the spirit of the policy. KMSU has intentionally sought out diverse community leaders as members of its Community Advisory Board.
KMSU has engendered the values of diversity and inclusion in its programming, staff and volunteers. The age of the community volunteers hosting radio programs ranges from 16 to 65-plus. Our volunteers include over 30 men and women from different ethnicities and language styles.
Our Saturday afternoon programming from 12pm to 4pm is all Spanish Language. The hosts speak in Spanish, playing only Spanish-language music. They also deliver public service messaging, news, and other information in Spanish. From 4pm to 6pm on Saturdays, we have International Students who share their cultural experiences from home and their experiences adjusting to life on campus. They also share native music from their homeland.
Through its locally produced program Human Race Radio, KMSU partners with the Mankato Family YWCA to explore topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion within the Greater Mankato community. Leaders within various diverse communities are interviewed and listeners are exposed to different cultures who are also making their home in Southern Minnesota.
KMSU airs National Native News each weekday morning. NNN provides listeners with relevant, timely coverage on Native American and Indigenous communities. The program began in 1987 and is currently produced in Albuquerque, New Mexico. NNN appeals to radio listeners who are engaged in the world around them and who seek out a broader range of viewpoints. NNN is distributed by Native Voice One (NV1).
Minnesota Native News is a five-minute weekly newscast is produced by AMPERS, the Association of Minnesota Public Educational Radio Stations. The newscast focuses entirely on Native American news stories and key issues. The show features a primary host and several
content producers, who cover issues across the entire state. As a member of AMPERS, KMSU is proud to air this program.
Afropop Worldwide is a Peabody award-winning radio program dedicated to music and cultures that encompass the entire African diaspora. It airs weekly on KMSU. The show’s vision is to increase the profile of African and African diaspora music worldwide, and to see that benefits from this increased profile go back to artists, music industry professionals, and the countries that produce the music.
KMSU features programming dedicated to the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King on his nationally recognized holiday. This programming day includes a variety of Dr. King's speeches and those who worked with the peace leader as well as special program segments from the Public Radio Exchange (PRX).
From a music programming perspective, KMSU is the only source of Native American, World/Global, Americana, Roots, Reggae, Big Band, Blues and Jazz in its primary service area. These musical genres are represented with respective programs and blended within other open format music programming. KMSU has undertaken an intentional focus on increasing the diversity of its on-air content, regularly highlighting black artists, female artists, and other artists who do not get airplay through commercial broadcast channels.
KMSU intends to increase its programming diversity by working more closely with the university’s office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, The Greater Mankato Diversity Council, and the newly formed Mankato office of the NAACP. We also intend to help support the community’s newly created Juneteeth celebration, with an awareness campaign that will include on-air messaging, social media stories, and support of a musical performance at the event. In addition, we will be amplifying the voices of other underserved communities within the campus and Southern Minnesota. For example, we intend to do more public media stories on the LGBTQ culture in Southern Minnesota.
In addition, KMSU continues to actively recruit undergraduate and graduate students of color and of international/cultural backgrounds for on-air opportunities; actively seek diverse artists (gender, race, sexual orientation, age) to perform and support with State of Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage funding; and broadcast diverse content from media partners, such as AMPERS, the Association of Minnesota Public Radio Educational Radio Stations, The Public Radio Exchange (PRX) and National Public Radio (NPR).
