Compositional Diversity

Workstream:
Compositional Diversity

Goal:
Recognizing that ensuring a diverse community is our responsibility and that excellence does not exist without diversity, the Compositional Diversity Workstream will examine the makeup of our faculty, staff, and students, as well as our academic and administrative leadership, and make specific recommendations on designing new processes to recruit and retain a more diverse university community at all levels, and across all schools, centers, and units of the University. This will include recruiting and retaining diverse faculty and staff, as well as further attracting, admitting, and serving diverse students and ensuring a diverse pipeline.

Charge and Approach:
To advise the President and Tufts’ administration, the Working Group will present data on Tufts’ current compositional diversity along with historical data and context. It will identify key areas on which efforts at achievable improvement should be focused and suggest strategies for that improvement. It will approach its work through gathering historical data from Tufts but also comparative data from other institutions, in order to establish and assess the university’s current compositional diversity. It will then research best practices and gather input from the community before devising its recommendations.

Committee Structure:
The committee will have four subgroups—faculty, staff, students, and academic leadership—with membership from the committee and further members as deemed necessary to give the fullest perspective.

Community Engagement:
The committee will have a webpage/wiki for community input, suggestions, and feedback that will be reviewed in a continuous manner and provided to the committee prior to each meeting. In addition, the committee will send members to faculty meetings at all schools and engage community members through a series of focus groups and large group discussions to ensure it garners input and feedback while developing recommendations. The committee will also seek input from and report to the Faculty Senate and the various student leadership groups.

Membership:

• Kevin Dunn, Vice Provost (Co-chair)
• Chris Swan, Dean of Undergraduate Education, School of Engineering (Co-chair)
• JT Duck, Dean of Admissions, Schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering
• Elizabeth Remick, Associate Professor, Political Science
• Maureen Sonnie, Director of HR Strategies
• Dan Jay, Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS)
• Keith Maddox, Associate Professor, Psychology
• Dawn Terkla, Associate Provost
• Sherri Sklarwitz, Program Director, Tisch College of Civic Life
• Megan Mueller, Assistant Professor, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine
• Roxana Woudstra, Director of Graduate Admissions, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and School of Engineering
• Kim Dao, undergraduate student, School of Engineering
• Cecilia Hinojosa, graduate student, School of Arts and Sciences
• Nirupa Matthan, Assistant Professor, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
• Alfredo Ramirez, graduate student, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy

Phases of Workstream Efforts:

• Conduct a longitudinal analysis of Tufts’ compositional diversity for identified constituency
• Research comparative data from other institutions/benchmarks
• Identify insights and key themes derived from the analysis, which could include the identification of needed cultural changes/shifts and considerations from benchmarking
• Work with Institutional Audit to assess the barriers and processes that workstream identifies and proposes
• Develop presentation and narrative of results

Schedule/Timeline:

• 10/19 — Deliver preliminary data to Institutional Audit and other workstreams
• 11/2 — First draft of results (presentation with narrative)
• 11/16 — Return feedback to Institutional Audit on its preliminary draft
• 12/1 — Final presentation complete