Boiler Plate: The University of Rochester is committed to creating a supportive and inclusive environment for our faculty. To accomplish this, we bring together faculty, students, and staff who have achieved excellence and who are dedicated to building an inclusive community that encourages all of its members to succeed and grow. A diverse faculty has the greatest potential and power to transform the campus climate by providing a rich variety of perspectives that will enable students to be global thinkers and actors, to respect diverse values, and to attain a competitive edge as distinguished leaders in their fields. The University draws on the talents of a diverse faculty to build, sustain and enhance institutional excellence and capability through leading-edge research, innovative approaches to teaching and learning, and scholarship that reflects a rich plurality of perspectives.
“We continue to make incremental progress in our diversity initiatives. At the start of the 2011–12 academic year, 32.2 percent of our faculty were women, compared to 28.6 percent in 2006. This represents an increase from 411 women faculty members in fall 2006 to 613 in fall 2011. The proportion of faculty who identified themselves as members of an underrepresented racial or ethnic minority group was 3.5 percent in fall 2011, compared to 2.6 percent in 2006. This represents an increase from 37 underrepresented minority faculty members in fall 2006 to 66 in fall 2011...As valuable as this progress has been, the University still has far to go to achieve as diverse and inclusive a community as is consistent with being a world-class research University. Our future as a University will increasingly be one of racial, gender, ethnic, and intellectual diversity. I am gratified to be associated with a University where a commitment to diversity is consistently reflected in the decisions of our Board and our senior leadership.
To read more: http://www.rochester.edu/president/assets/pdf/DiversityReport2012.pdf
Vivian Lewis appointed July 1, 2010 to Vice Provost of Faculty Development and Diversity
Vision: The University strives to reflect, celebrate, and incorporate the richness of individual and group differences in all our pursuits.
The mission of the OFDD and Faculty Diversity Officer’s is to collaborate with academic leadership and faculty in the hiring, retention, and advancement of a diverse faculty.
The strategies to achieve this mission are to:
Diversity related scholarly activity is another new direction for the OFDD. With Vivian Lewis as primary investigator, the University was recently awarded approximately two million dollars by the National Institutes of Health to help improve diversity in the scientific workforce. Over the next three years, Vivian Lewis will study the effects of different mentoring interventions in promoting resilience among biomedical researchers and trainees from underrepresented groups. The study will be a collaborative effort including faculty and graduate students from the University at Buffalo and Upstate Medical College along with the University of Rochester.
Faculty Development Officers: Each school has 2 faculty diversity officers, and many schools have diversity councils.
Special Opportunities Fund (SOF): The goal of SOF is to assist deans and department chairs in the recruitment or retention of faculty candidates who will contribute to the diversity of the faculty and who might otherwise not be recruited because of lack of departmental resources. There was $600,000 available in the fund for FY 2011 and there will be $750,000 available in FY 2012.
Building the Applicant Pool: OFDD strives to help the University’s academic units expand their faculty applicant pools. For example, in FY 2009 OFDD launched a recruitment grant program to encourage faculty to attend academic conferences, symposia, and other professional association meetings that have large underrepresented faculty audiences; faculty request up to $1,500 to support travel and conference fees. The office has also created a new initiative to research and monitor faculty development and diversity related grants University-wide. In addition, we have created a new database to match potential underrepresented minority candidates with postdoctoral and faculty positions at the University.
Job Postings and Recruitment Packets: During FY 2011, OFDD assisted in academic searches by posting 13 positions in Inside Higher Education and the Higher Education Recruitment Consortium of Upstate New York. Our office provided more than 400 recruitment packets to various academic units in FY2011 (approximately 100 more packets from FY 2010). These faculty recruitment packets include materials to give prospective faculty an overview of cultural resources in the Rochester community, the University’s “family-friendly” policies, the UR Home Mortgage Program, the UR Year One Program, and more.
Web Resources: OFDD distributes the Faculty Development News electronically to all faculty three times per year. This popular publication includes news about upcoming faculty development events, awards, and newcomers to the University.
We also maintain a Diversity calendarthat includes more general University and local diversity events.
Building Community
Presidential Diversity Award
Campus-wide Workshops
3rd Annual Diversity Conference, “Change the Conversation”
University-wide Coordination of Celebrations of Diversity
Access Rochester: The University of Rochester is a pluralistic community, one that values the contributions of our diverse population. People with disabilities are an essential part of the University community, bringing a broad spectrum of talent and achievement to our endeavors. We believe in and respect the capacity of individuals to learn, grow, and achieve in different ways. In recognition of this, the University has developed a variety of services and offices with responsibility for ensuring a system and a culture that fosters opportunity and achievement for individuals with disabilities.
Affinity Groups: The University has the following affinity and networking groups:
Updated: September 25, 2012
We continue to make incremental progress in our diversity initiatives. At the start
of the 2011–12 academic year, 32.2 percent of our faculty were women, compared
to 28.6 percent in 2006. This represents an increase from 411 women faculty
members in fall 2006 to 613 in fall 2011. The proportion of faculty who identified
themselves as members of an underrepresented racial or ethnic minority group
was 3.5 percent in fall 2011, compared to 2.6 percent in 2006. This represents an
increase from 37 underrepresented minority faculty members in fall 2006 to 66 in
fall 2011. Between July 1, 2010 and July 1, 2011, the University hired 96 new faculty,
of whom 38.5 percent were women and 4.2 percent were underrepresented
minorities. During that same period, 76 faculty left the University, of whom 32.9
percent were women and 9.2 percent were underrepresented minorities.