The Office of the Provost will host two in-person presentations featuring candidates being considered for the University of Michigan’s next chief diversity officer and vice provost for equity and inclusion.Read More

On Wednesday, March 23, 2022, President Joe Biden announced his intent to appoint several individuals to serve in key roles on the President’s Council on the Commission of Fine Arts, the President’s Committee on the National Medal of Science, and Sports, Fitness & Nutrition. Robert Sellers, Vice Provost for Equity & Inclusion, Chief Diversity Officer,… Continue Reading Robert Sellers to be appointed as member of the President’s Committee on the National Medal of ScienceRead More

How are attitudes toward free expression evolving on college campuses? How do college leaders respond to claims that their institutions have become unwelcoming places for certain views? How can colleges mitigate potential conflicts when they do arise? I talked with Michael S. Roth, the president of Wesleyan University; Eduardo Peñalver, the president of Seattle University;… Continue Reading What’s the State of Free Expression on Campus?Read More

The Society of Personality and Social Psychology has named Vice Provost for Equity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer, Dr. Robert Sellers, as the 2021 recipient of the Distinguished Scholar Award. Started in 2011, the Distinguished Scholar Award is a senior career award that recognizes the broad scope and potentially integrative nature of scholarship in… Continue Reading Robert Sellers Recipient of Distinguished Scholar AwardRead More

“DEI is the core of every job. Every job is a DEI job,” Walsh said. “If you’re not thinking and working from this social justice lens rather than a deficit-based narrative… asking yourself what you are being trained to center… you’re not going to be successful.”Read More

During meetings with deans and administrators, departments are evaluated on recruiting, retaining, and developing a diverse community, alongside other annual benchmarks.The tactic is part of the university’s five-year strategic DEI plan, rolled out in 2016. Action items for each department are different, but the goal is uniform: Create a more equitable climate and culture at the… Continue Reading Race on Campus: What national conversations about racial equity and inclusion mean for you and your institutionRead More

We will remember this summer. To remember it will hurt, because what we have gone through, what we are still going through, involves a lot of pain. It is that very pain that has pushed the summer of 2020 deep into the soft tissue of our collective memory, that has made it stick to the… Continue Reading Slouching Toward Equity: The lonely task of the chief diversity officerRead More

The University of Michigan acknowledged its campuses are not immune to systemic racism, and president Mark Schlissel said one solution is recruiting more prospective black students. Schlissel made the remarks in a one-hour virtual town hall broadcast Friday on YouTube. “We need to be smarter about ways to grow the black student population,” he said. “We need… Continue Reading U-M president on black enrollment: ‘We’ve got a lot more work to do’Read More