Cornell's Commitment to Diversity

Diversity Council Initiatives

In 2007-08, the University Diversity Council is initiating four new programs. These programs were recently featured at a conference co-sponsored by Cornell and The Teagle Foundation on eliminating racial disparities in college completion and achievement.

Cornell Faculty Institute for Diversity

The Faculty Institute helps faculty members incorporate diverse perspectives and experiences into their courses. By engaging small groups of faculty in complex discussions about diversity, this multi-day retreat provides participants with the intellectual and pedagogical tools necessary to effectively infuse diverse perspectives into their courses. As part of the program, faculty participants create or revise course syllabi and learn to facilitate the sharing of diverse perspectives among their students.

Breaking Bread

While student organizations representing various racial, gender, national, and political groups provide their members with support and a sense of belonging, they often do not work together to bridge perceived divides between social groups on campus. The goal of Breaking Bread is to build networks that cross traditional social boundaries by providing student organizations with funding and other resources to organize a joint small group planning dinner and collaborative programming. To qualify for funding, two organizations must work together to plan a joint small group planning dinner (i.e., plan the menu, purchase the ingredients, cook and serve the meal, clean the dishes), during which they will discuss their proposed collaborative projects. They will continue their work together by putting their plans into action via collaborative programming. Through the creation of these new networks, students are encouraged to understand the perspectives and experiences of people different from themselves, form effective collaborations across diverse communities, and live and work in increasingly diverse environments. For more information, please see the Application Guidelines (pdf).

Feedback

The Feedback program invites faculty, staff, and students to share personal experiences that either made them feel welcome or unwelcome at Cornell. Select submissions will be published anonymously as quarter-page ads in the Cornell Daily Sun (see recent ads). The goal of the program is to stimulate a concrete and ongoing conversation about diversity and to improve the campus climate. To participate, email feedbackprogram@cornell.edu with endings to the following sentences:

I feel like a full member of the Cornell community because…
I do not feel like a full member of the Cornell community because…

Diversity and Inclusion Indicators

The Diversity and Inclusion Indicators initiative is based on an Equity Scorecard program developed at the Center for Urban Education at the University of Southern California to assess educational outcomes for traditionally underserved and/or underrepresented students in higher education. Since the first step to addressing inequities at an institution is assessing the scope of the problem, the Diversity and Inclusion Indicators are a mechanism for the annual collection and dissemination of data relevant to student, faculty, and staff success and campus climate. Data are collected to address four dimensions: access, excellence, retention, and institutional receptivity. The Indicators provide students, faculty, and staff with a way to monitor and measure progress in reaching diversity goals.