Since we, concerned graduate students at Princeton University, published our last opposite editorial on the state of diversity in the Graduate School, there has been another unfortunate change to the administration. Diana H. Mitchell ’10 abruptly left her post as an Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs and Diversity during the middle of the academic year, not six months after her predecessor, Karen Y. Jackson-Weaver ’94. Typically the Office of Academic Affairs and Diversity manages several retention efforts for Princeton students from underrepresented backgrounds. The recent changes to the Office bring uncertainty to the fate of these crucial programs.
These changes continue to raise concern, in both underrepresented minority graduate students and allies of diversity and inclusion. While we understand that the Graduate School’s current administration is in a state of transition, we cannot afford even a semester of stalled progress or—worse —backsliding. Even with a positive development like the organization of the Special Task Force on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion by the Council of the Princeton University Community, we need progress now. While we are aware that efforts like the Task Force on Diversity function to open discussion on the environment at Princeton, we want to ensure that the climate for underrepresented minority graduate students—whether enrolled or prospective—continues to improve. To that end, we offer the following recommendations for the University community to consider:
- Continue to improve transparency between University administrators and the Princeton community in ways that illuminate climate issues while still protecting the identities of faculty, staff and students who make complaints against abuses.
- Expand the mission of the Office of Academic Affairs and Diversity, which should be accompanied by an expansion of its budget, as well as an expansion of staff that are available to work on this mission. This will ensure that graduate students who have been historically identified as underrepresented minorities —blacks and Latinos especially —will not see an effective disinvestment under the expansion.
- Implement diversity sensitivity training for the entire Princeton community, including faculty, staff, graduate and undergraduate students, especially those engaged in teaching or assisting in instruction.
- The Office of the Provost should help to financially support the Princeton Summer Undergraduate Research Experience, a program that is central to the University’s ability to fill its pipeline with black and Latino doctoral applicants, a number of whom enroll either at the University or at other Ivy League and Ivy Plus schools.
- The Princeton community should establish clear metrics when hiring staff members who, as a portion of their University portfolio, are responsible for diversity. Administrators should have already demonstrated a clear commitment to promoting diversity in the past through actions such as establishing and supporting programming, interacting with students and more.
- There should be an expansion of the staffs of the Fields Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding, the LGBT Center and the Women’s Center, so that they might better serve graduate students.
- Finally, the University should establish either a permanent council or a task force made up of University administrators, faculty, staff and students in order to continue dialogue on climate issues and to ensure that a broader, much more diverse set of voices has a say in the major decisions impacting diversity on Princeton’s campus.
The below group of students sign this op-ed in order to make it eligible for publication in The Daily Princetonian.
By order of last name:
Kessie Alexandre
Shasti Conrad
Janeria Easley
Linsey Edwards
Eric Glover
Clifton L. Granby
Meagan Grant
Eugene Hillsman
LaTasha Holden
Vladimir Medenica
Iwa Nawrocki
Sophia Nunez
Richard J. Spiegel
Angelina Sylvain
Julia Wittes
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