Department Initiatives Diversity, Equity, Inclusion We have been very successful in achieving our goals of implementing a comprehensive diversity, equity, and inclusion plan. Following are our achievements, our goals for the coming year, and recently identified issues still to be addressed. Achievements • We conducted an internal survey of faculty, staff, and graduate students about our department’s climate, with results showing general approval of our internal environment. Two issues raised by students were lack of diversity of People of Color faculty and staff and lack of BIPOC scholarship in teaching. • We drafted and revised texts for the department’s new DEI webpage, which includes initiatives and resources. • We formed a book club to read How to be an Antiracist, which was useful in preparing faculty for difficult classroom conversations. • During our annual retreat, we discussed DEI objectives and actions, outlining initiatives for both the undergraduate and graduate committees. • The Graduate Program Committee focused its DEI initiatives on increasing the recruitment of underrepresented minority (URM) students, resulting in a more diverse applicant pool and two URM offers. • The Undergraduate Curriculum Committee created a syllabus diversity statement and compiled a list of social science concepts and in-class activities useful for teaching DEI concepts. They urged faculty to incorporate readings by POC scholars and incorporate assignments that reflect on DEI issues. • We invited university DEI leaders to share the Cornell’s DEI visions and data about our undergraduate students’ sense of belonging. We were surprised that transfer students are more satisfied with their Cornell experiences than our regularly admitted students are. We are exploring ways to help regularly admitted students feel a stronger sense of belonging to our department. • We launched the COMM-Unity Program. (See page 7.) • We incorporated 15 to 20-minute DEI training sessions into our faculty meetings. Goals for the summer and upcoming academic year • We are resuming the summer book club. • We are focusing on matriculating URM and first-gen undergraduate students. • We will attend the URM graduate recruitment virtual fair again this year. We aim to maintain a similar level of increase in the diversity of candidates in the new academic year. • For our new faculty search this fall, we are actively working to encourage a diverse applicant pool. Issues to be addressed • How do we better support students with disabilities? • How do we better mentor students? • How do we handle difficult conversations in classrooms? • How do we diversify our pool of applicants in our recruitment of faculty, students, and staff? • How do we support faculty of color without increasing their emotional labor burden? • How do we contribute to a positive climate for members of URM groups in our department and at the university?
12 Fall 2020/Spring 2021
