A new Center for Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion and an additional $50 million to promote diversity, inclusion and equity campuswide will augment University of Southern California efforts to broaden and deepen cultural diversity at the 47,500-student school.
USC Provost Dr. Michael W. Quick announced the initiatives Thursday in a memo emailed to faculty. He said his office will work with each school in a dollar-to-dollar match as they access the $50 million for tenure-track faculty recruitment and retention. Additionally, the funds will support pipeline programs for the transition of postdoctoral fellows to USC faculty positions.
Meanwhile, Quick said, the new center will serve as the focal point for those endeavors and development of related institutional initiatives.
“We will conduct a national search for the director,” he said. “We will consult with the Provost’s Diversity and Inclusion Council, the Academic Senate, and other leaders on campus to determine the center’s specific mission, but it will likely serve as the primary entity overseeing and coordinating campus diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and initiatives, and provide professional development training and support for faculty, hiring managers, search committees, and new leaders.”
USC has been one of higher education’s leaders in terms of extolling the value of diversity and following the words with concrete actions. The initiatives announced this week will add to a growing list of more than a dozen innovative programs and practices at USC, including an annual Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Awareness Week, diversity and inclusion research awards, a Campus Climate Committee and the nationally renowned USC Race and Equity Center.
“Since I became provost three years ago, I have worked with the Academic Senate, faculty, staff and students to develop new programs, recruit and retain excellent faculty and allocate resources to promote diversity, equity and inclusion on our campus,” Quick told Diverse. “Our 2018 strategic plan makes clear that diversity and inclusion are essential as we evolve into a national model in these areas. As we have been building our efforts, I realized that we could better support our faculty, students and staff by allocating new resource – in collaboration with the schools – and create a center to coordinate all of our activities.”
In terms of spending the new $50-million pot, Quick said, he expects it to allocate $10 million each year over five years with half coming from his office and half from the university’s 21 schools and academic units.
