President’s Council on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

The President’s Council on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), created by President Lachance in June 2020, is committed to making Thomas College a welcoming and safe place for everyone by addressing systemic racism, discrimination, and inequality on our campus. It will complete the following tasks:

  • Review of college’s previous reports, plans and discussions around campus equity, diversity and social justice.
  • Review of current literature and best practices on how this information is used in colleges and universities.
  • Explore tradeoffs and benefits that arise from different organizational structures, responsibilities, and resource models pertaining to campus equity, diversity and social justice.
  • Development of a process that engages discussion and input from a broad spectrum of campus constituents and helps facilitate broader conversations about equity, diversity, social justice, and antiracism on campus.
  • Identification of major challenges or tasks that will be left unaddressed, or that will need further attention.

Co-chaired by Dr. Richard Biffle and Professor Judith Hansen-Childers, the council is comprised of 35 members across three working groups.

Working Groups

Establishment and support of educational programs that address diversity, social justice, racial injustice, and antiracism training through dialogues and community discussions, reading circles, symposiums, guest speakers and lecturers

  1. Review documentation, assessment and evaluation information of how Thomas College promotes multiculturalism, cultural competency, and antiracist training throughout the campus community by delivering a variety of educational programs and services advocating for social justice and diversity.
  2. Produce specific workshop designs, structured experiences, instrumentation, and resources to increase a person’s knowledge and understanding of some of the essential characteristics of persistent conflict between racial and ethnic groups.
  3. Describe the development of equity, diversity and social justice training for students, faculty, and staff that deepen their understanding of bias and racism and strengthen their commitment to creating inclusive spaces. Our community aims to move beyond simply accommodating people’s differences to instead creating spaces that are universally designed—accessible to everyone.
  4. Develop a systematic and sustained process to monitor and collect data on campus climate for faculty/staff/students; these surveys on students, faculty, and staff should be conducted regularly. Survey should ask students, faculty, staff, and administrators about their:
    1. Perceptions of Thomas’ climate
    2. Perceptions of how Thomas supports equity, diversity, and social justice policies and practices
    3. Experiences with discrimination, harassment, racial intolerance, and racist attitudes/behaviors at Thomas

Facilitator: Dr. Allison Maloney

Expansion of curriculum and co-curricular activities related to addressing diversity, social justice, racial inequality, racial injustice, and racism in our society

  1. Design instructional strategies and opportunities on how multicultural and antiracist education transforms the curriculum so that faculty and students acquire the knowledge, attitudes, and skills needed to become effective citizens in a pluralistic democratic society.
  2. Design instructional opportunities to further participate in a series of facilitated discussions, listening sessions, and workshops that allow us to process and share our thinking and learning.
  3. Identify social justice, racial inequality, and racial injustice education instruction that utilizes multi- and interdisciplinary perspectives, as well as project-based and collaborative teaching/learning approaches.
  4. Design professional development opportunities for faculty to lead more advanced discussion sessions about various materials and resources, and to engage in dialogues about the readings or film documentaries with students, faculty, and staff.

Facilitator: Chris Santiago

Identifying and delivering support materials and resources for addressing equity, diversity, and social justice for use across the campus

  1. Update the website that identifies resource links for addressing equity, diversity, social justice, and antiracism information.
  2. Design and development of resources and materials that present new perspectives on equity, diversity and social justice in the U.S. These resources are designed to further enhance antiracist thinking and better understand the ways in which race intersects with other identities, working on coalition building, exploring the divide and conquer tactics, or investigate how communities of color are complicit in maintaining white supremacy even while being impacted by it.
  3. Provide professional development opportunities for faculty and staff to lead discussion sessions about various materials and resources, and to engage in dialogues about readings or film documentaries with students, faculty, and staff.
  4. 4. Identify opportunities and support for faculty and student research on diversity, social justice, racial inequality, racial injustice, and racism in our society.

Facilitator: David Smith

In the News

School creates group to address racism“ – Morning Sentinel, 22 June 2020

Thomas announces launch of diversity task force“ – Morning Sentinel, 17 August 2020