Announcing the FAS DEIB Unit Plan Advisory Committee (April 14, 2021)

[Summary: This memo announces the membership of an advisory committee that will assist in efforts to develop an FAS-wide unit plan for achieving the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) goals outlined by President Salovey on October 14, 2020. We are grateful to the committee members for their service.]

To: FAS Faculty and Staff
Cc: FAS Steering, FAS Dean’s Office, President’s office, Provost’s office

Dear Colleagues,

On October 14, 2020, President Salovey issued a set of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) goals for the Yale community, as part of the second phase of the Belonging at Yale initiative. In working towards these goals, each school at Yale is charged with developing a unit plan for improving DEIB on the local level.

In order to develop the FAS’s DEIB unit plan, we will identify a set of action items for which the FAS will be accountable in the coming years. To aid us in identifying actions that will have a meaningful impact in our community, we have convened an advisory committee of faculty from across the FAS divisions. The committee will meet in the coming weeks and will provide their recommendations for action items to the FAS Dean.  

The members of the advisory committee are:

• Claire Bowern, Professor of Linguistics
• Pat Devlin, Lecturer in Mathematics
• Emily Erikson, Associate Professor of Sociology
• Roderick Ferguson, Professor and Chair of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
• Reina Maruyama, Associate Professor of Physics; Chair-elect, Women Faculty Forum
• Steve Pitti, Professor of History, American Studies, and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration; Director, Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration
• Kathryn Slanski, Senior Lecturer in Humanities and in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
• Peter Schiffer, Frederick W. Beinecke Professor of Applied Physics and Professor of Physics
• Rebecca Toseland, Senior Lecturer in Economics and Director of Research Support, Tobin Center for Economic Policy

We encourage all faculty and staff in the FAS to share questions, feedback, and comments. You may send comments and suggestions to Larry Gladney, Dean of Diversity and Faculty Development in the FAS, at larry.gladney@yale.edu, or to any of the advisory committee members.

This next phase of Belonging at Yale is a unique effort to reflect on our current progress on DEI and belonging; align and focus future efforts at the local level with university-wide goals for DEIB; enable faculty, staff, students, and alumni to participate in improving the environment for everyone in FAS; and promote overall transparency and accountability through our combined efforts.  We are grateful to the committee members for their leadership and commitment to this process.  We also offer our thanks to all of the members of our community who work every day to make the FAS more inclusive and welcoming.  

With gratitude,

Tamar and Larry
 

Tamar Szabó Gendler
Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Vincent J. Scully Professor of Philosophy
Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science

Larry Gladney
Phyllis Wallace Dean of Diversity and Faculty Development in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Professor of Physics