In the words of the Governing Council Statement on Equity, Diversity, and Excellence (2006), reflecting the diversity of our region:

…is uniquely valuable to the University as it contributes to the diversification of ideas and perspectives and thereby enriches our scholarship, teaching, and other activities … We believe that excellence flourishes in an environment that embraces the broadest range of people…

As most of you are aware, the University’s Employment Equity Survey has recently been updated in order to capture more detailed statistics regarding the diversity of our faculty and staff complements. We do not yet have an initial dataset from the updated Survey. Nonetheless, we are aware that there are groups that have historically been, and continue to be, underrepresented in the faculty and student complement at our University, in particular Black and Indigenous faculty and students. We have also been hearing increasing calls from members of our own community that the diversity of the Greater Toronto Area and of our student body is not reflected in the diversity of our faculty complement in particular.

Given that “excellence flourishes in an environment that embraces the broadest range of people”, we continue to seek ways to ensure that faculty hiring committees have the broadest, most diverse pool of excellent candidates from which to select future colleagues. We also wish to ensure that we recruit and support outstanding graduate students who will be the next generation of faculty.

Recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Steering Committee will address these issues from the perspective of Indigenous colleagues and students.

In response to a request made at a recent meeting of PDAD&C, Vice-President, Human Resources & Equity Kelly Hannah-Moffat and I will be striking three new faculty working groups, looking at issues of 1) Black Faculty Recruitment and Retention; 2) Black Student Recruitment and Success; and representation in 3) Curriculum and Academic Programming.

These three working groups, which will serve in an advisory capacity to me and Professor Hannah-Moffat, will conduct additional consultations with other members of the University on the issues under consideration, and will place an open Call for Submissions from all members of our U of T community.

The working groups will each be co-chaired by a Vice-Provost and a faculty member, and will be asked to present a final report by the end of the 2016-17 academic year.

We would therefore like to invite nominations of faculty members to serve on these working groups: 1) Black Faculty Recruitment and Retention; 2) Black Student Recruitment and Success, and 3) Curriculum and Academic Programming. Nominations, which may include self-nominations, should indicate the name of the working group to which you are nominating an individual and a brief statement of interest. Nominations should be submitted electronically to provost@utoronto.ca by Friday, November 25.