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Q&a: Monroe France on strategic vision for Tufts’ dEIJ initiative
by Daniel Vos Deputy News Editor
Monroe France started his position as the first vice provost for diversity, equity, inclusion and justice at Tufts on April 3. Since then, he has met with students, faculty and staff across the university to discover DEIJ opportunities and challenges. The Daily spoke with France about his experience getting to know Tufts and the importance of his office in higher education.
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Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Tufts Daily (TD): Tufts released the initial findings of its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Campus Climate Survey earlier this year. What stood out to you about Tufts, especially in comparison with your time at New York University?
Monroe France (MF): When I look at the climate survey at Tufts, there are no major surprises. When I look at the way Tufts approached the climate assessment — a little bit differently than what we’ve done at NYU when we did our climate assessment — generally, people are liking the climate. The feedback we got across the board is OK, with some dis - tinctions. And some of those distinctions are not surprising: that some of the experiences of some of the staff and faculty of color are not congruent with the experiences of faculty and staff in the majority group. What I would say are some of the differences between the two universities is this conversation around class and economic stability. In my work at NYU, we did not ask those specific types of questions. So I think we have a lot more information here with this climate assessment at Tufts, where we can really understand how people are experiencing the economy. see FRANCE, page 16
TD: What are the next steps with this data set?
MF: We’re engaging an expert in the field, external to Tufts, that’s going to work with us to do a further analysis of the data so that we can develop a set of university-wide themes. The climate assessment is only one tool that we’ll use to create a strategic vision across the institution. My role is to help create strategic vision and strategic alignment across the institution.
