Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategic Planning

View the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategy for the School of Public Health.

To advance the ideals of academic excellence and its essential relationship with diversity, equity and inclusion, President Schlissel has called upon the university's vast energies and intellectual and planning resources to develop U-M's first five-year strategic plan on diversity, equity, and inclusion. The President's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Strategic Planning Initiative was officially launched in September 2015. Each school, college and unit has been charged to produce their own five-year strategic plan, which will be integrated to create the overall U-M Strategic Plan on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Implementation of the U-M plan began in September 2016. 

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Five-Year Strategic Objectives

School-wide Objectives

  1. Objective: To create an elected and empowered Diversity-Equity-Inclusion Committee to lead the school in developing, evaluating, and prioritizing actions to reflect our commitment.
    Measure of success: Increase the number of people involved in strategic planning, taking action, and evaluating success.

Faculty Objectives 

  1. Objective: To recruit and retain a diverse faculty.
    Measure of success: Increased diversity in our applicant pools, interview pool, and overall faculty.
  2. Objective: To improve faculty's ability to teach and mentor a diverse graduate and undergraduate study body. Teaching faculty of all ranks and roles will increase their experience and skills with inclusive teaching practices, based on a professional development cycle of learning, feedback, reflection, and implementation.
    Measures of success: Increased number of course syllabi reflect DE&I commitment statements. Course DE&I evaluation scores improve. Rackham exit survey scores improve.
  3. Objective: To create a Continuing Professional Education (CPE) system for faculty focused on the leadership, communication, and supervision skills to develop and maintain a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment.
    Measures of success: Improve the climate survey scores pertaining to faculty behavior. Reduce the number of faculty-student and faculty-staff incidents reported.

Staff Objectives 

  1. Objective: To recruit and retain a diverse research and administrative staff.
    Measure of success: Increased diversity of the staff.
  2. Objective: To promote an inclusive and supportive staff environment.
    Measure of success: Improved climate survey scores around inclusion.
  3. Objective: To create a Continuing Professional Education (CPE) system for staff focused on the leadership, communication, and supervision skills to develop and maintain a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment.
    Measures of success: Improve the climate survey scores pertaining to staff supervisor behavior. Reduce the number of staff-staff and staff-student reported incidents.

Student Objectives

  1. Objective: To recruit and retain a diverse student body.
    Measures of success: Broaden the applicant pool by increasing applications from under-represented minority students. Improve student satisfaction with the SPH climate.
  2. Objective: To improve student-student interactions in the classroom.
    Measure of success: Reduce negative interactions (assess via climate survey).
  3. Objective: To increase students' understanding of the role of diversity and inclusion in public health by incorporating ASPPH diversity and inclusion competencies into our classes.
    Measure of success: Increase in the number of courses that address ASPPH diversity competencies.

Committee Members, 2018

Name Representative Title
Veronica Berrocal Biostat Faculty Rep
Anita Pandit Biostat Staff Rep
Holly Hartman Biostat Student Rep
Fatema Shafie Khorasani Biostat Student Rep
Deborah Watkins EHS Faculty Rep
Kelsey Hargesheimer EHS Staff Rep
Anthony Su EHS Student Rep
Marie O'Neill EPID Faculty Rep
Sheila Terrones EPID Staff Rep
Alexis Reeves EPID Student Rep
Shanice Battle EPID Student Rep
Paul Fleming HBHE Faculty Rep
Jennifer Crawford HBHE Staff Rep
Cindy Le HBHE Student Rep
Daniel Eisenberg HMP Faculty Rep
Kaitlin Taylor HMP Staff Rep
Priya Chidambaram HMP Student
Cindy Leung NS Faculty Rep
JeAnna Redd NS Staff Rep
Ayousha Acharya NS Student Rep
Nathalie Lambrecht NS Student Rep
Sharon Kardia DEI Lead
Nichole Burnside DEI LEAD/ DEI Program Manager
Whitney Vojtkofsky Event Strategist and Programming Coordinator
Andrea Lubetkin Human Resources Director
Gennie Anderson Student Engagement Specialist

Images of Success in 2025 and Beyond

Students, faculty, staff and alumni share their ideas of a more diverse, inclusive and equitable University of Michigan in 2025.

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