Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, winter 2021

The Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) enthusiastically onboarded five new professional staff hires this quarter, three of whom work in the Office of the Vice President. Ada Robinson-Perez is our new affirmative action Officer, Korin Kirk joined the UDiversity Educational Institute Team as a diversity education coordinator and Anne Guanciale will oversee the Multicultural Resource Center and Q Center as our new director of intercultural affairs. In addition to on-boarding, the division began the process of revamping our reporting structure for hate/bias reports. The division now subscribes to Maxient, which will be used for bias incident reporting beginning in the spring 2022 semester. A new Report a Bias Incident website is also being implemented. During this quarter, the division has received 10 hate/bias reports thus far, which are being investigated. The trends for this quarter include bias incidents that alleged concerns related to the LGBTQ+ population and discrimination based on race and national origin.

This quarter, the administrative staff conducted search committee training for 193 faculty and staff via Zoom. There were 58 attendees in October, 67 in November and 68 who attended December’s training. DEI submitted its renewal proposal to SUNY regarding PRODiG this quarter, requesting funding support for five faculty hires. Additionally, DEI continues to provide oversight to the search process on our campus, with 111 searches currently being conducted for the state payroll and 10 searches being conducted for the Research Foundation.