Council on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
The Council’s Charge
The following four principal responsibilities, drafted by the President’s Task Force on Diversity in April 2017, charge the Council on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion with the following:
- Expanding the dialogue about diversity, inclusion, and equity to include the entire Barnard community of students, faculty, staff, and alumnae.
- Promoting and coordinating campus-wide participation in the College’s diversity and inclusion efforts.
- Managing and monitoring the implementation of recommendations from the President’s Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion.
- Advising Barnard’s senior leadership and Board of Trustees on ongoing and new initiatives that create a more diverse and inclusive campus community.
Membership
The Council meets monthly. Members include students, faculty members, exempt and nonexempt staff, alumnae, trustees, and an ex officio member from the President’s staff.
Prioritized Goals
- Expanding the dialogue about diversity, inclusion, and equity: The Council will concentrate early efforts on input and outreach to the larger Barnard community. It is tasked with understanding how the College can best support all members of the campus community and promote the representativeness of the student body, faculty, and staff. Following from this, the Council will develop strategies for communicating its findings to the broader community, along with providing timely information about relevant campus-wide activities.
- Creating a structure for reviewing proposals from the community: The Council will articulate a structure, timeline, and budget for evaluating proposals for campus-wide initiatives for enhancing diversity and inclusion coming from students, faculty, staff, and alumnae, including the criteria for accepting proposals, and the scale and timing of events on campus. Leveraging its reach to all community constituents, the Council will prioritize initiatives or proposals that reflect the desires of the Barnard community most broadly.
- Organizing campus-wide events: The Council will develop a plan (including timeline, budget, potential speakers, themes, and structure) for two connected events to be organized each year, including an annual “Grace Lee Boggs Lecture” and a cultural event, that are accessible to all members of the community.
Inclusion Grant
Each year, Barnard faculty, staff, and students are invited to submit proposals that will help foster inclusion, belonging, and equity in our community. Ideas may include speakers and performances; seminars and workshops; gatherings that bring together distinct constituencies for discussion and relationship building; as well as other programming and initiatives.