Last June, President Nariman Farvardin and Stevens Vice Presidents endorsed Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) goals and actions in an effort to improve discourse and action surrounding D&I at Stevens. Following those endorsements, the President’s Task Force on Equity and Inclusive Excellence (EIE) was formed.
In an email on April 20, President Farvardin announced the final 12-page report from the Task Force, detailing recommendations for top administration. Plans for these recommendations to be implemented will be happening “in the coming months as Stevens resumes more normal operations,” as noted in President Farvardin’s announcement.
To start, the report details three meetings that the Task Force went through, which were all “conducted via Zoom and lasted from 90 minutes to two hours each […] preceded by information gathering,” during which “information was shared and explored in further detail.”
The first meeting included the distribution of a Google Survey in which members of the Task Force (consisting of Stevens faculty, staff, administration, 4 current students, and 2 alumni) were asked to describe one or two examples where Stevens falls short and where Stevens is succeeding in D&I. The second and third meetings of the Task Force were used to elaborate on and prioritize the most significant D&I challenges, recommendations, and actions.
The report additionally noted that “input from the entire Stevens community was also sought,” in the form of “input from 158 members of the Stevens community in addition to the perspectives of the 23 Task Force members.” Surveys were sent out that resulted in responses from 19 undergraduate students, 29 graduate students, 25 faculty and staff, and 11 alumni.
Four student listening sessions were also held at the end of December 2020 into January 2021, which resulted in the participation and input of 74 students.
The report additionally included several anonymous comments made by Stevens community members, some of which are written below:
“I grew up in a low-income all-Black community. There was nothing in place to help me transition or a safe space to acknowledge this. (It’s better now.)” – Undergraduate Student
“Stevens needs to seriously think about raising stipends and covering health insurance for Ph.D. students if you want any chance of having a diverse group of students.” – Graduate Student
“I have felt like myself and other (URM) students were tokenized by Stevens’ media (promotional materials like photos and videos).” – Young Alum
“After the first year, there isn’t much for people that looked like me (Black man) to stay, unless people like me did the outreach.” – Undergraduate Student
“I would like to see social justice issues be part of the curricula for students and (professional development) for employees.” – Faculty Member
The report also shed light that “several people [survey participants] described times when they encountered micro-aggressions in classrooms and in other interactions.” While D&I-related professional development is being offered to faculty, staff, and top leadership, the report explained that “participation are far from universal, with seemingly the same subset of our community attending. In addition, the process and scheduling for training are problematic. The quality of professional development can also be improved.”
The report concludes with the recommendations of the Task Force which are broken up into five categories: (1) increasing faculty and staff diversity, (2) increasing student diversity, (3) enhancing D&I’s presence in Stevens’ values, culture, and climate, (4) integrating D&I issues/perspectives into curriculum and activities, (5) enrich how D&I issues and opportunities are integrated into Stevens’ strategic planning.
Some specific recommendations outlined include but are not limited to:
- Ensure hiring practices across Stevens consistently utilize best practices, such as checklists and requiring persons serving on search committees to “receive training about unconscious bias, behavioral interviewing,” etc
- Identify a D&I “champion/committee within each school/college” to ensure D&I considerations are fully addressed during hiring processes
- Require faculty candidates to include a D&I statement as part of their submission package, similar to their teaching philosophy statement
- Increase funding for scholarships/fellowships to make Stevens more affordable
- Provide forums university-wide for students, faculty and staff to engage in meaningful dialogue about race, ethnicity and other differences
- Conduct an audit of the campus, stevens.edu website, and social media to ensure that portraits, photos, art and other imagery reflect Stevens’ D&I values and foster belonging, not tokenism
- Provide students with guidelines and context to express peaceful dissent, protest, and advocacy regarding D&I and other issues
- Schools/college should begin a process of curriculum review to identify how D&I-related concepts are currently represented in what and how people learn, and plan to enrich efforts with first-year seminars, lecture series, creation of new courses, etc
- Maintain the EIE Task Force as a standing university committee with a mission that focuses on regularly reviewing D&I progress, challenges, and opportunities
These recommendations were then organized into top priority actions, which can be read in the final report here.
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