Chancellor Responds to Diversity Task Force
Letter to the University Community | September 1, 2005
Dear Carolina Community:
Over the past academic year, the faculty, staff and students who served on the Chancellor's Task Force on Diversity worked diligently to assess the state of diversity at Carolina . We undertook this process because diversity is identified in our 2003 Academic Plan as one of six priorities of our vision for academic excellence. Our purpose was to understand better what we are doing well at Carolina with regard to diversity and to identify areas where we can improve as a leading public institution.
The scope of the assessment was substantial: The task force examined faculty, staff and student engagement with diversity across schools, departments and units, and considered a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative data.
The complete report of the task force is now available at www.unc.edu/diversity/assessment. This report includes eight specific recommendations for achieving the University's ideals for a diverse and inclusive community. These recommendations have great merit and will be useful as a guide in the future. In support of these recommendations, we will undertake the following initial actions:
We will clearly define and communicate our commitment to diversity, and we will adopt the core values for diversity proposed by the Task Force. We also will expand the University's focus on diversity by creating a new Associate Provost for Diversity and Multicultural Affairs position. I have appointed Dr. Archie Ervin to serve in this role, and I have charged him to provide leadership as the chief diversity officer for our campus.
We will ensure accountability for achieving diversity objectives by developing a diversity plan that will allow us to monitor our progress annually.
We will support innovative approaches to enhancing diversity at all levels of the University, and we will continue the support of programs that are instrumental to bringing diverse students to Carolina .
We will make diversity education, orientation and training available to members of the University community, with particular attention to developing innovative strategies to offer relevant learning and cross cultural opportunities for members of our community.
We will create and sustain a respectful climate and take greater leadership to promote diversity competency. As part of this effort, we will seek to support new, creative University sponsored initiatives that enhance our community's engagement with diversity. These initiatives will be coordinated through the Office of the Associate Provost for Diversity and Multicultural Affairs.
We will support further research to advance the University's commitment to diversity, including the development of research agendas that will inform our policy decisions and program development on the state of diversity at our University.
Presentation of this report concludes the work of the full Task Force. I am encouraged by what we have learned from this assessment, and I feel very positive about our ability to build upon what we already do well to make Carolina an even more diverse and inclusive community.
Sincerely,
James Moeser
Chancellor