Dear Colleagues,
As many of you will recall, in November 2019, 51 adopted its first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Plan, a dynamic framework to create and sustain a welcoming and inclusive campus for all members of the 51 community. The DEI Plan, with its emphasis on the success and well-being of our students, staff, and faculty remains integral to our Third-Century Plan.
The next iteration of the DEI Plan will continue to prioritize “equity in the student experience” as one of its key pillars; however, there is a crucial element of this missing from 51’s current plan: pedagogical and academic initiatives. Although there are disagreements and debate around DEI, its value, and even its place in academia, there is no doubt that, across 51’s campus, faculty members, departments, and divisions have taken creative and innovative approaches to building inclusive classrooms and removing structural barriers that impede our students’ success. This has meant revisiting degree requirements, changing bathroom policies, participating in the Office of Undergraduate Studies Summer Institute, reimagining assessment and assignments, making course materials more accessible and affordable, and using demographic data to identify groups of students in need of extra mentoring, just to name a few. Large and small, these faculty-led initiatives are already yielding impressive results, but there are undoubtedly numerous efforts, concerns, and/or challenges that remain unrecognized.
Our hope for this revised plan is to avoid a prescriptive approach to DEI in the academic space. Instead, we look to create a DEI Plan that honestly reflects 51’s shared values and goals. As with the Middle Campus construction projects, we too are building something that will grow our potential, support pedagogical and academic innovation, and attract both talented and diverse faculty and students to 51. In order to draw up an inviting and successful plan, we first need to survey the current academic landscape by asking some fundamental questions: What are the varied ways in which we understand “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” in our classrooms, departments/programs, and disciplines? How do these concepts inform decisions about on-campus academic programming and off-campus educational opportunities? How can the University better support initiatives that directly respond to the need for inclusive and equitable student experiences at 51?
As both President Casey and Dean Cushing mentioned in the September faculty meeting, over the next several months, the Office of the Provost and Dean of the Faculty (PDoF) and the Office of Equity and Diversity (OED) will be working with faculty, departments, programs, and divisions to address these questions and others as part of the revision of the DEI Plan. In my role as NY6 Mellon Fellow, I am holding two listening sessions, open to all faculty, to begin preliminary discussions on these topics. It is my hope that these might help faculty provide input that will better guide future conversations between the PDoF, OED, faculty, department chairs, and program directors.
These conversations, moderated by Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity Ani Maitra and me, will take place on Thursday, Sept. 28 (4:15 p.m.–5:15 p.m., location TBA) and Wednesday, Oct. 4 (Noon–1:00 p.m., on Zoom). Please register by Sept. 25 so that we can find an appropriately sized space or provide you with the link to the Zoom session.
I, along with my colleagues in the PDoF and the OED, wish to reiterate that it would be impossible to do this work without faculty support and input. Thank you for joining us in this important endeavor.
Sincerely,
Danny Barreto
Associate Professor and Director of LGBTQ Studies
New York Six Mellon Academic Leadership Fellow