Syracuse University updated the campus community on several diversity and inclusion initiatives on Wednesday, including the appointment of a chief diversity officer and the creation of programs for educating faculty and staff on diversity issues.  

An interim chief diversity officer will be appointed by June 30 while the university searches for a CDO, according to a SU News release. The CDO will provide oversight on SU’s programs, policies and services and will be a member of Chancellor Kent Syverud’s executive team, which includes administrators such as Michele Wheatly, SU’s vice chancellor and provost.

Creating the position was one of the Chancellor’s Workgroup on Diversity and Inclusion’s long-term goals, per the release.

The workgroup, made up of students, faculty and administration, was created in 2015 to handle issues of diversity and inclusion on campus. It has since been disbanded, but the university-wide Council on Diversity and Inclusion continues to advise Syverud.

The creation of diversity education programs for faculty and staff will include areas such as the recruitment process, orientation, workshops and campus conferences, per the release.

SU also has plans to make the campus more physically accessible through the development of a Physical Access Plan. An audit on the campus’s physical accessibility was completed in December 2017, according to the release. A timeline has not been issued on when the plan will be implemented.

Some of the workgroup’s short-term goals have already been implemented, such as group tutoring.

Free group tutoring, first offered in fall 2017, was suggested by the workgroup to “retain undergraduates from marginalized and underrepresented groups,” according to the release.

The university will also launch the Syracuse Reads Program, a new shared reading program for all first-year and transfer students. It will explore “themes of diversity, inclusion and belonging,” per the release.

Groups of students will discuss Trevor Noah’s “Born a Crime,” which has been selected as the program’s book for the 2018-19 academic year. The book details Noah’s early childhood in South Africa, where apartheid made his birth to a white father and a black mother illegal.

Published on May 9, 2018 at 4:10 pm

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