After months of gathering community input and conducting discussions regarding campus climate, the Special Task Force on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion released its recommendations to the University on Wednesday.
The task force was formed in December 2014 under the Council of the Princeton University Community, when University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 called upon the CPUC Executive Committee to assess the current campus climate and develop recommendations to create a safer, more inclusive community.
His charge came in response to students who had openly expressed dismay over the events of Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, N.Y., uncovering related questions of racial discrimination and bias prevalent in University students’ own experiences, according to the Dec. 12 letter from the Executive Committee to the University community as well as interviews with Fields Center Director Tennille Haynes and Zhan Okuda-Lim ’15.
The 51-member task force, chaired by University Provost David Lee GS ’99, consisted of undergraduate and graduate students, faculty members, administrators and staff within the University community. In addition to its steering committee, the task force was further divided into three thematic working groups covering policy and transparency, academics and awareness, and structure and support.
“There was a very high level of engagement,” Lee said."Members of the task force exhibited a great deal of concern and interest. It was wonderful to see."
The task force’s final recommendations fell under four main areas: the student experience; addressing bias, discrimination and harassment; academic and curricular offerings; access to and use of data; learning about diversity and equity outside the classroom; and public programming.
Lee said that he authorized budget allocations for four recommendations that were the most clear and immediately implementable.
One included the hiring of a senior administrator in the Office of the Vice President for Campus Life, who would focus on diversity and inclusion. The second item secured additional staffing for the Fields Center, as well as a programming study to address the space needs of the center.
The third budgeted recommendation was increased funding for student initiatives, particularly those connected to programs in the Fields Center, the Women’s Center and the LGBT Center, as well as other identity-based student groups on campus.
The report called for the expansion of program resources, meeting of staffing needs and increased coordination between these resources to best respond to identity-based populations on campus. It also called for the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students and the Graduate School to make more funding available to cultural and identity-based student initiatives and campus groups.
Representatives of the Women’s Center and LGBT Center could not be reached for comment.
Finally, Lee gave budget authorization for a fourth recommendation to enrich and build the University’s academic programs in cultural studies fields.
In a new initiative called the Provost’s Fund for Cultural Studies, Lee has issued a call for proposals and offered funding in areas such as racial, religious, regional and other cultural studies. As the University is on a trajectory to build its faculty, he said, the initiative’s purpose is to bring visibility to curricular needs, offer incentives for existing faculty and create opportunities for postdoctoral students and visiting faculty.
An example is HIS 270: Asian American History, the University’s first Asian-American studies course, taught by assistant history professor Beth Lew-Williams in Spring 2015. Okuda-Lim, a member of the Task Force’s steering committee and the Executive Committee, took the course and said he was encouraged by the University’s response to this curricular need.
“Students have been fighting for classes such as Professor Lew-Williams’ class for several decades now. Finally seeing the University take action on it was really exciting to hear, and to be in that inaugural class was also really exciting,” he said.
Okuda-Lim said he hoped for continued student and faculty engagement to push these recommendations into changing the University’s climate.
“I do hope that students, faculty, administrators and staff who are going to be on campus over the summer and continuing into the next academic year keep up that momentum,” he said. “I do not want to see this report become another report on a bookshelf collecting dust. I want this report to actually move forward and cause positive action to happen.”
Haynes, a member of the working group on structure and support, noted that committee discussions throughout the spring semester were highly fruitful.
“It was a really great conversation to have about what’s going on on campus, how students of color are feeling in the classroom and outside the classroom, what’s needed, how [to] support them better as a community and also as a university,” she said.
The task force also solicited feedback from students and other community members through online surveys, one-on-one meetings and wider group discussions.
Lee noted that there was variability to how these recommendations would develop, moving forward. The report was certainly a first step to understanding the climate issues present and to spur further action on the part of various other University offices. However, the task force recommended certain items that could be acted upon immediately.
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