[GSC-Diversity-All] Fwd: Response to the Diversity Committee

[Elizabeth Margarette Clay]

Great news guys- take a look at the outcomes from our advocacy meeting in
December. Not everything is perfect of course (that's why we still NEED a
diversity committee)- but I think they listened.

----- Forwarded message from plclay at MIT.EDU -----
    Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 16:01:57 -0500
    From: "Phillip L. Clay" <plclay at MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: "Phillip L. Clay" <plclay at MIT.EDU>
 Subject: Response to the Diversity Committee
      To: liz <eclay at mit.edu>, nakeischea at hotmail.com

We are delighted to respond to the requests you made in our
discussion some weeks ago. We are happy to support the goals of the
GSC Diversity Committee to improve outreach and recruitment of a
diverse body of graduate students.  For many years, we have valued
the active engagement of graduate students and the GSC, which I hope
to see sustained in the future. The voice of current graduate
students that attracts minority students is a critical component of
institutional commitment.

We are anxious to gain more progress than ever before to achieve the
goals, which the faculty in its May 2004 vote committed us to
pursue.  To that end, the administration will:

1.     Hire a full-time Diversity Coordinator in GSO.  We did this
with the hiring of Jennifer Jenkins who will begin very soon. The
Diversity Coordinator position comes from a grant that the GSO
obtained in 2006 from the Amgen Foundation.

2.     We will provide tuition and stipend in TA appointments for two
student assistants who will work with the GSO, student groups, and
departments on recruiting efforts.

3.     The Chancellor will chair a new group of departmental and
school representatives. Composed of senior faculty and staff, this
group will share best practice and coordinate efforts to advance
diversity outreach and recruitment. The goal will be to deepen and
expand current efforts. We will include graduate student
representatives in the group, based on a process formulated in
consultation with the GSC Diversity Committee and the GSO.

4.     The Institute budget for FY ’08 will be released shortly.  We
expect to provide a significant increase in resources to support
expansion of efforts such as Converge and MSRP. The precise use of
the funds will depend on an assessment of how best to use the new
resources.  We feel these new resources will provide significant new
flexibility.

Your committee also asked that the prospective appointment of an
Associate Provost for Diversity include a focus on graduate student
diversity.  We cannot make this commitment.  The challenge in
promoting faculty diversity is sufficient charge for this position.
We do not believe it is appropriate to add graduate student diversity
to the responsibility of the Provost’s Office.  Instead, the
responsibility should be that of the GSO and the Chancellor’s
Office.  Point #3 above represents a new commitment to making this
role more substantial and accountable.

We are committed to greatly improving our graduate student diversity
outcomes. We welcome support and engagement from the GSC.  We look
forward to your energy and these new resources to make the difference.

Rafael Reif
Provost

Professor Phillip L.Clay
Chancellor



----- End forwarded message -----


Master of City Planning Candidate, 2007
Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Co-Chair, Diversity Committee, GSC
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

617.699.1514 (Mobile)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/gsc-diversity-all/attachments/20070206/a784ecea/attachment.htm