December 18, 2015 Dear Members of Ethos, BlackOUT, Black Women’s Ministry, Wellesley African Students Association, Wellesley for Caribbean Development, and Wellesley Minority Association of Premedical Students: Thank you for your letter from December 8. We share your concerns and your commitment to addressing them—and we welcome your partnership in moving forward. We also believe that the issues you have raised are systemic and institutional and must be approached systematically and institutionally. Real progress will require broad engagement. The entire faculty, for example, has an important role to play in creating a campus climate that promotes equity. At the same time, we must hear the voices and engage the energies of all people of color and others from underrepresented groups who are members of our community, in all roles, including people of African descent. To continue this dialogue and collaboration with you, we propose a meeting with you at the start of next semester. President Bottomly and Dean Wolfson will be reaching out to you very soon to set dates. As a next step, this letter describes some of our ongoing efforts, as well as additional actions we plan to take, and suggests a way for us to work with you and other student groups to develop a plan of action. Together, we can make a difference for the future of Wellesley. Faculty Hiring It is essential that Wellesley hire additional faculty of color, including additional faculty members of African descent, and we believe that we can be successful in this area by continuing and expanding the initiatives that we have undertaken over the past several years. For example, we have expanded our recruitment networks through the Compact for Faculty Diversity and our collaboration with the Liberal Arts Diversity Officers. Every faculty search is also now guided by a member of the committee designated as a “diversity liaison.” As a result of these efforts, the Wellesley faculty has become more diverse over time, so that the assistant professor and associate professor ranks are significantly more diverse than the full professor rank. To be clear, we agree that the goals you stated for hiring faculty of African descent outside the Africana Studies department are desirable and attainable. In relation to the history position within Africana Studies, the Provost’s Office has been working closely with the department, and we are confident that a search to fill the position will take place in 2016-17. Recruitment is a first step; we must also strengthen faculty retention. Provost Shennan has previously met—and will continue to meet—with students at Harambee House to talk about the tenure and promotion process, and how students can contribute to that process. Faculty must become increasingly aware of how they can improve the experiences of new colleagues and strengthen the rate of success at which we retain and successfully promote faculty from underrepresented groups. Members of the Committee on Faculty Appointments (CFA) have participated in training to understand the impact of
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