Status Report on Diversity Efforts

April 26, 2007

Members of the Rutgers Community:

Next week Rutgers will conduct its second annual Leaders in Diversity awards ceremony, applauding members of the university community who are promoting diversity through their research, teaching, or service. Earlier this month, we presented Human Dignity Awards to five individuals and organizations for their efforts to foster tolerance, respect, and diversity at Rutgers.  In the spirit of these events, I want to inform you of our progress in promoting diversity across the university, in particular among our faculty. Forgive the length of this message, but I believe it is critical to make you aware of our efforts in this regard.

Three years ago, on the recommendation of a faculty committee, I established an Office of Faculty Diversity Initiatives (OFDI) to supplement the efforts of deans and provosts in enhancing the diversity of our educational and scholarly activities. Deans and provosts have received assistance from the office in recruiting and appointing highly qualified junior- or senior-level candidates whose presence either increases the diversity of our research and instructional offerings or increases the diversity of our faculty. OFDI assistance typically accounts for half of a new faculty member's salary for three years, after which the unit assumes the full salary costs.  Funding assistance is also available for recruitment, startup, or research costs. The office gives particular attention to attracting senior scholars of excellence and to making cluster hires that cross units and departments. 

OFDI also sponsors the Presidential Postdoctoral Fellowship program. Fellows are selected for two-year appointments based on their excellence in scholarship and teaching and their contribution to diversifying departments or programs for the benefit of our students.

Over the past three years, OFDI funding has been used to make offers to 39 faculty candidates, of whom 27 have accepted to date. The program has committed to various units a total of $2.26 million toward the hiring of faculty and provision of fellowships. Ranging across disciplines and touching all three campuses, the women and men we have helped to recruit are of exceptional academic caliber and have already begun to contribute actively to our academic community.

Rutgers is strongly committed to the success of this initiative, but it is only one of the many ways in which the university expresses the value it places on diversity. In addition to establishing OFDI, we have undertaken several other initiatives relating to our commitment to diversity.

• Last year Rutgers appointed Associate Vice President Joan Bennett, a highly distinguished scientist and nationally recognized and award-winning figure in the area of promoting women in the sciences. Under her leadership, we have established an office to advance women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics at Rutgers.  Among its first public programs will be a statewide summit in June on engaging and retaining women in the science and technology workforce.
   
• The university recently awarded Board of Governors Professorships to three faculty members whose work contributes immeasurably to the promotion of diversity in our research and curricular offerings:
  • Keith Wailoo, Martin Luther King Jr. Chair, an internationally respected scholar in American medical history whose work explores the intertwined histories of race, medicine, and social change.
     
  • Cheryl Wall, Board of Governors Professor of English, who has played a central role in developing, defining, and shaping the study of African-American literature and in ensuring that critical attention is focused on the writings of African-American women.
     
  • Deborah Gray White, Board of Governors Professor of History, whose groundbreaking book, Ar'n't I a Woman?: Female Slaves in the Plantation South, was the first significant archival study of women in U.S. slavery.
     
• The university has funded a new Center for Race & Ethnicity, led by Dr. Wailoo, to facilitate research and enrich education on matters of race and ethnicity in contemporary life in New Jersey, the nation, and the world. My administration has provided substantial startup, research, and salary support for this office.
   
• Three years ago, Rutgers and Princeton University created the New Jersey Higher Education Recruitment Consortium, a web-based job-posting site for colleges and universities in our state. By expanding the availability of information concerning these positions, we have greatly increased and diversified our applicant pools.
   
• Most recently, I endorsed (and committed funding to) a proposal to the Ford Foundation for Rutgers to conduct and host a National Summit on Diversity in Higher Education in 2008. The summit will build on the highly acclaimed Ford-funded project, "Re-Affirming Action: Designs for Diversity in Higher Education."

Rutgers takes seriously its commitment to diversity and recognizes the educational value that diversity brings to our students and to the state we serve. We value and must never take for granted the rich diversity of our staff and of our student body. A study conducted earlier this year, for example, showed that in the difficult process of layoffs that followed state funding cuts last year, we did not diminish the diversity of our full-time staff. Similarly, we are also committed to ensuring that the implementation of significant changes in the undergraduate structure in New Brunswick does not adversely affect student diversity.

The community of Rutgers thrives on the multiplicity of our backgrounds, cultures, interests, and fields of study. At a time when we have been dramatically reminded of continued racial and gender biases in our society, it is appropriate that we reaffirm this commitment to diversity at the university. We will continue striving to maintain and enhance that diversity through the Office of Faculty Diversity Initiatives and through other vital projects like those mentioned here. Please join me in supporting these initiatives, which are so essential to our success.

Richard L. McCormick
President
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey