Recommending ways to enhance efforts by benchmarking campus diversity, equity and inclusion practices; contributing to the development of a diversity statement; collaborating in curricular and co-curricular diversity efforts; and reviewing programs at similar institutions.
A message from President Vaughn:
On June 1, James MacLeod, chair of UT’s Board of Trustees, Stephanie Russell Krebs, David Stern and I sent a message expressing our outrage at the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbury, Nina Pop and others. We reaffirmed the University’s commitment to diversity and inclusion and to combatting racism in all its forms. Our message acknowledged that we need to further exemplify our core values.
Since that time, we have met twice with a group of faculty and staff who authored a letter about diversity matters, and also with the student-focused Dean of Students Diversity Advisory Group. We listened and discussed views on actions that we might consider taking. Those conversations were fruitful. I am writing today to give an update on important actions UT is taking and next steps for the coming year.
The first step is to emphasize the importance of diversity and inclusion at an institutional level. To this end, I have appointed Drs. Krebs and Stern as co-chief diversity officers. They already co-lead the Diversity Advisory Group, and both are committed to diversity and social justice.
I will also appoint a Diversity Working Group — led by Krebs and Stern — that will consist of faculty, staff and student representatives. A call for nominations and self-nominations will be issued soon. The charge will be manifold, including creating an inventory of UT’s curricular and co-curricular diversity efforts, benchmarking diversity, equity and inclusion practices and programs at other similar institutions, helping to develop a diversity statement for UT, and recommending ways that UT could enhance its diversity, inclusion and racial equity efforts.
While we have a variety of on-going diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, services and activities in place, several new action steps have been initiated. These include:
Of note, more than 25 staff and faculty members participated this summer in a 10-week Sustained Dialogue series. This series taught the participants how to build spaces for challenging conversations about issues that matter and how to create meetings where talking about big issues are celebrated.
The nominations process yielded a significant amount of interest from community members, and we are happy to announce the core task force and subcommittee membership.
Lonnie Bryant
Faculty, Finance
Claire Cilien
Student, Resident Assistant, Black Student Union
Sabrina Griffith
Staff, Student Care and Advocacy
Art Goon
Staff, Graduate Admissions
Leander Hamilton
Staff, Human Resources
Arthur Hollist
Faculty, English, Faculty Community Engagement and Responsible Citizenship Committee
Stephanie Russell Krebs
Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students
Hannah Lammon
Student, Dean of Students Diversity Advisory Group member
Ana Maia
Staff, Leadership and Engagement
Marte Marshall
Student, Graduate Assistant for Retention Initiatives
Brian Spencer
Graduate Student
David Stern
Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
J Sumerau
Faculty, Sociology
Adrianne Wilson
Faculty, Education, Faculty Diversity Committee
Questions? Please email diversitytaskforce@ut.edu.