Princeton University’s Board of Trustees and president Christopher L. Eisgruber have unanimously endorsed a report by a special trustee committee that recommends a strategy to increase the diversity and inclusivity of the university community.
The report, issued by the Ad Hoc Committee on Diversity that included trustees, faculty, graduate students and staff, focuses on graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty and senior administrators. The proposed strategy builds on Princeton’s advances over more than five decades while focusing on areas where more could be accomplished.
The report contains numerous recommendations for heads of academic and administrative departments to consider. Underlying the recommendations are three critical themes.
The first theme is departmental responsibility; the committee said academic and administrative departments should have the freedom and responsibility to determine how to focus their efforts to achieve maximum impact.
Next is central support; according to the report the university must provide departments with resources to pursue diversity in ways that sustain or improve the quality of their programs.
The last theme is university-wide accountability; the committee reported that university leaders need to monitor departmental efforts and provide regular progress reports.
“Our academic departments have the expertise to make the judgments about quality on which Princeton’s excellence depends,” Eisgruber said in a statement. “The committee’s diversity strategy both respects and leverages this critical element of Princeton’s academic culture.”
Eisgruber said that he intends to launch the implementation of the proposed strategy at an upcoming meeting with the chairs of all the academic departments. The report commends a successful graduate recruiting program in the Department of Molecular Biology that rapidly increased the diversity of its doctoral program, and Eisgruber has asked Provost David Lee and Dean of the Faculty David Dobkin to solicit proposals from departments to conduct other pilot projects. Dobkin is creating a special advisory committee to help select, support and monitor these projects.
The Graduate School is creating a diversity committee composed of students, faculty and staff that will work closely with departments on graduate student recruitment, retention and climate issues, and faculty collaboration with minority-serving institutions.
Additionally, the office of human resources has begun working with administrative departments to develop a stronger overall staff diversity and inclusion strategy, with University Services and Campus Life commencing programs to pilot the proposed approaches.
The work of the committee — established in January 2012 by now-President Emerita Shirley M. Tilghman — furthers the progress Princeton has made in fostering a community that welcomes people of every gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status and other backgrounds.
Princeton’s efforts span from the introduction of undergraduate coeducation in 1969 and recruitment of African American, Hispanic, Asian American and Native American students starting in the 1960s and 1970s, to bold expansions of the university’s financial aid program that have greatly increased the number of low- and moderate-income and international students.
Over the years, the university also has established the Center for African American Studies and the Program in Latino Studies; created the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center; and added an associate dean for academic affairs and diversity in the Graduate School.
While the undergraduate student body is vastly more diverse than ever before, diversifying the graduate student body, faculty and senior administration has proceeded more slowly.
“The committee’s work is now done, but our community’s work is only beginning. The committee has given us recommendations, not a blueprint or a set of instructions, much less a self-executing plan. The report will produce results only if we embrace its challenges, give careful thought to its proposals, devise our own strategies and programs, and make diversity and inclusivity integral components of this University’s commitment to scholarly excellence,” Eisgruber said in a statement.
More information is online at princeton.edu/reports/2013/diversity
