Committee on Institutional Diversity and Equity Report - 6/01
The committee, which included faculty, administrators, staff, and students representing a wide variety of campus perspectives and personal backgrounds, was appointed by Provost Susan Westerberg Prager in November 2000 (see Appendix A for a list of committee members.)
Service on this committee afforded its members an unmatched opportunity to learn from one another and from the many individuals and groups who involved themselves so passionately in our work; we are very grateful to these remarkable people. Each of us brought to our collective task the benefit of our own unique insights, rooted in our personal experiences, backgrounds, perspectives and beliefs. Our work as a committee, and indeed this document itself, reflects our efforts to find common ground while honoring each of our individual perspectives. Members disagreed about some details and emphases of this report, but agreed in its overall conclusions. Looking back, it is easy to see that our diversity was also our greatest strength, and we tried to use it to make us responsive to the experiences and insights of other members of the campus community. We challenge the readers of this report to reflect on their own experiences with diversity at Dartmouth as they consider this document.
Much of the data we collected centered on racial and ethnic diversity, because although diversity was defined more broadly within the committee, that has been the primary focus of many of the conversations and reports on this campus to date. As a committee, we acknowledge the range of identities and perspectives that encompass true diversity. We have not intentionally excluded any groups from our consideration, and we encourage the College to ensure that any ongoing work is as inclusive as possible.
Committee members recognized early on that there was much more involved in fulfilling our mandate than we could accomplish by ourselves and in the time allotted. We realized that we will best serve the College's long-term needs if we conduct additional research, visit other colleges and universities to examine their initiatives and strategies, and engage some of the many educators and consultants in the field whose work might help us in formulating our ideas. We also discerned that the Dartmouth community has engaged in very little discussion following the previous diversity reports, though we firmly believe that such discussions can play an important role in the life of our community. Therefore, we urge that this report be made available as a public document as soon as possible and that members of the committee help promote campus discussions following its release.
In addition, the co-chairs of the committee would like to assist in setting up the ongoing committees and other structures recommended in this report. Further, the co-chairs and those committee members whose schedules permit are willing to continue their work through summer and fall 2001 to expedite the process of implementing measures that we believe will advance the College's diversity efforts. To that end, we will forward additional suggestions received during the outreach process but not included in this document to those offices most appropriate to consider them.
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