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

  1. Objective: Create a school-wide Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee to impact SPH culture and practice, and disseminate information to departmental DEI committees.
    Measure of success: Increase the number of people involved in strategic planning, taking action, and evaluating success.
  2. Develop a system for sharing and responding to individual concerns.
    Measure of success: Increase school responsiveness to individual concerns.
  3. Educate our community on sexual harassment and misconduct prevention in an effort to promote a safe and supportive environment for all members to work, learn, and thrive.
    Measure of success: Completion of sexual and gender-based misconduct training module by faculty and staff.

  1. Objective: Recruit and retain a diverse faculty.
    Measure of success: Increased diversity in our applicant pools, interview pool, and overall faculty.
  2. Objective: Improve faculty’s ability to teach and mentor a diverse graduate and undergraduate student body. Using a professional development cycle of learning, feedback, reflection, and implementation, faculty of all ranks and roles will increase their knowledge of and experience with inclusive teaching practices.
    Measures of success: Increased number of course syllabi reflect DEI commitment statements. Course DEI evaluation scores improve. Rackham exit survey scores improve.
  3. Objective: Create a Continuing Professional Education system for faculty focused on the leadership, communication, and supervision skills needed.
    Measures of success: Improve the climate survey scores pertaining to faculty behavior. Reduce the number of faculty-student and faculty-staff incidents reported.

  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: Create a Continuing Professional Education system for staff focused on the leadership, communication, and supervision skills needed 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.

  1. Objective: 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: Improve student-student interactions in the classroom.
    Measure of success: Reduce negative interactions (assess via climate survey).
  3. Objective: Increase students’ understanding of the role of diversity and inclusion in public health.
    Measure of success: Increase in the number of courses that address ASPPH diversity competencies.

Committee Members, 2020

Name Representative Title
Laura Scott BIOSTAT Faculty Rep
Dave Kubacki BIOSTAT Staff Rep
Deborah Watkins EHS Faculty Rep
Anagha Tapawsi EHS Staff Rep
Rachel Morgan EHS Student Rep
Alison Mondul EPID Faculty Rep
Megan Mueller Johnson HBHE Staff Rep
Sheeba Pawar HBHE Student Rep
Cathy Killaly HMP Staff Rep
Peter Mancuso NS Faculty Rep
Carole Durgy NS Staff Rep
Molly Carter NS Student Rep
Nichole Burnside DEI Program Manager
Whitney Peoples DEI Director
Marie O'Neill Professor of Environmental Health Sciences; DEI Co-Lead
Enrique Neblett Professor of Health Behavior and Health Education; DEI Co-Lead
Cely Smart Chief of Staff and Strategic Advisor to the Dean
Rachel Casanova Director of Student Affairs
Sharon Kardia Millicent W. Higgins Collegiate Professor of Epidemiology, Professor of Epidemiology and Associate Dean for Education
Lynda Lisabeth Professor of Epidemiology, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, School of Public Health and Research Professor, Neurology, Medical School
Whitney Vojtkofsky Project Manager, Marketing and Communications