Diversity

We expect several of our initiatives to help us become more diverse, but we must continue to take steps aimed expressly at the issue. Some of these stem from the work of our Faculty Diversity Committee which has recommended:

  • Understanding best practices for recruiting and retaining faculty and for making these widely known
  • Developing guidelines to make faculty searches maximally inclusive and attractive
  • Developing support mechanisms to help retain faculty

Although we have made recent progress in expanding the diversity of our student body, and have some distinguished programs that help foster it (for example the Kearns Center for Leadership and Diversity in Science and Engineering and the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program), more remains to be done.

A working group has been established to examine what additional steps we should take to strengthen our enrollment and retention of students from groups who have not traditionally had full access to private higher education.

The Plan in Detail

Building on the Success of the Renaissance Plan

The Renaissance Plan, instituted in 1995, created the College from the union of the College of Arts and Science with the School of Engineering and Applied Science. This was a bold initiative to strengthen Arts and Sciences and Engineering. The number of undergraduates was reduced to permit greater selectivity in enrollment and to improve the quality of the undergraduate experience. The number of faculty was reduced somewhat, as was the size and scope of some graduate programs.

Over the next several years the College assumed responsibility for all undergraduate affairs on the River Campus, including Career Services (1998), Athletics, Residential Life and the operations of the Dean of Students (2001), and Admissions and Financial Aid (2002). The coherence and focus brought by the Renaissance Plan, coupled with our concurrently-developed distinctive Rochester Curriculum, have transformed life on campus. This transformation has positioned us for growth.

The plan described here takes us from the stability brought about by the Renaissance Plan into a genuine post-renaissance period in which, through the execution of a constellation of potent initiatives, we will greatly strengthen our faculty and our graduate and undergraduate programs.

 

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