6/11/2020

The actions of those who took George Floyd’s life, as well as the lives of Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery and so many others, are unforgivable and expose once again the ongoing, damaging impact of systemic racism on the lives of Black Americans. Black Lives Matter and rather than merely empathizing with these tragedies, it is incumbent upon all of us to take real actions to support communities of color and to be part of the solutions if we are to truly be an institution that stands up to its values of equity, inclusion, and anti-racism.

The strategic plan of the College of Arts and Sciences firmly states that one of our goals as a community is to develop meaningful exchanges among people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints that advance a better understanding of our society. Achieving this goal is ongoing work and requires committed attention and action from all of us. Recent events have only exposed the enormity and urgency of the problem. As the dean of this college, I will take the following actions:

1. Prioritize the hiring of an associate or full professor to lead the Africana Studies program and resourcing a hiring plan that prioritizes the recruitment of additional faculty members jointly appointed to AAF and to other departments within A&S. The A&S Dean’s office is committed to reinvigorating the Africana Studies program and will prioritize and reallocate resources to do so.

2. Convene an Ad Hoc Committee to investigate the General Education curriculum and to examine, for example, whether the C3 outcome (“Develop and exercise diversity and inclusion responsibilities”) addresses adequately what A&S students need to understand white supremacy and institutional racism. This committee will also be asked to provide recommendations for how to engage the college in developing anti-racist pedagogies.

3. Incentivize professional development for departments to have all faculty engage in education, training, self-reflection, and curricular and pedagogical changes to address social justice and anti-racism.

4. Conduct targeted outreach in order to recruit more diverse personnel; build stronger support structures to support current and incoming Black, Native American, Latinx and Asian and Asian American faculty, historically discriminated against in the U.S., in balancing workload through both on and off campus mentoring programs; and, work with the Office of Community, Equity and Inclusion and AAEOD to develop search trainings for committees to ensure open, equitable search processes across the college.

5. Include a new requirement to departmental annual reports, where each department will be required to address the specific steps they have taken in the past academic year to contribute to the college goals of social justice and equity.

6. Apply to be part of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program, which is focused on diversifying the faculty ranks in institutions of higher education (see https://www.mmuf.org/).

7. Initiate a new Visiting African American and Black Scholars program beginning in Fall 2021. The Diversity Committee will be asked to create an RFP this fall.

We have much work to do as a college to fully enact the values that shape our mission. In the coming academic year, I will work with the college Strategic Planning committee, among others, to identify concrete strategies and a timeline to move us towards the seven action steps listed above. In addition, in my role as co-chair of the University Diversity Council, I have committed to strengthening URI’s commitment to social justice, and the A&S Dean’s office staff will complete the Social Justice & Inclusion Microcredential program being offered by Dr. Joanna Ravello.

The valuable input of members of the A&S Dean’s Advisory and Diversity committees, as well as others in our community, guided my thinking about actions to take and this statement, but it will take all of us – faculty and staff – to build a more inclusive and equitable college. I encourage you to consider the following opportunities:

• Participate in inclusive pedagogy workshops and take action to diversify your curricular content in terms of classes offered and the content of their syllabi.
•  Join the committees (curricular committee; student recruitment committee; cultural programming committee) organized to reinvigorate the Africana Studies program and assist Africana and Black faculty leaders to develop a strong program with diverse and robust curricular offerings across the college.
• Develop a 1-credit course for fall 2020 from your disciplinary perspective addressing issues of race, racism, equity and inclusion.
• Complete the CED Diversity Inclusion program.
• Offer opportunities for faculty, staff and students to engage together in symposia, conversations and cultural events to further our understanding of the systems that devalue under-represented communities (the A&S Dean’s Event fund will support these events).
• Reevaluate your department’s search processes to create more inclusive committees and interview practices to recruit faculty and staff from diverse backgrounds (see, for example, institutions that require the STRIDE (Strategies and Tactics for Recruiting to Improve Diversity and Excellence) workshop for search committees before any search can be completed; e.g. UMichigan: https://advance.umich.edu/stride/)

I am sure you will have other ideas for action, and I encourage you to share them with the Dean’s office: https://forms.gle/NHmHk2tuNr18aG39A. I recognize that all of our efforts must be both prioritized and resourced, and the Dean’s office, as part of shared governance, will work collaboratively with departments, programs, and college committees.

 

Sincerely,

Jeannette E. Riley

Dean, Arts and Sciences