DEI Coalition

Purpose and membership

To create a school-level coalition of students, faculty and staff with the following primary aims:

• To have an identified set of people within the Ford School to whom members of the Ford School community can share ideas, feedback and concerns regarding diversity, equity and inclusion.
• To increase communication between students, faculty and staff in regard to DEI activities, achievements and challenges.

2023-24 DEI Coalition members

DEI coalition members will be considered as representing constituencies, and thus need to be connected to and in contact with the groups they represent around DEI issues.

The DEI coalition consists of 10 members and two ex officio members. Faculty serve for three years; students and staff serve a one-year term. They include:

• DEI Co-Leads: Stephanie Sanders ([email protected]) and Dom Adams-Santos ([email protected]), co-chairs
• Associate Dean for Academic Affairs: Jenna Bednar, ex officio ([email protected])
• Faculty representatives: Amy Harris ([email protected]), Molly Spencer ([email protected]), and Attia Qureshi ([email protected])
• Staff representatives: Marissa Day ([email protected]), Trevor Bechtel ([email protected]), Katrina Hamann ([email protected]), and Paige Ziegler ([email protected])
• Undergraduate representatives: Mary Grace Ortega ([email protected]) 
• Master’s representatives: Natalia Rice ([email protected]), Alhan Fakhr ([email protected])

Charge

The Ford School of Public Policy DEI Coalition will:

• Meet 3 times a semester, with agendas that are set by the Coalition chair (DEI Officer), with input from members.
• Review Ford School planned activities in the DEI strategic plan at the beginning of each year.
• Identify issues and propose new activities, initiatives and organizational changes for the Ford School DEI strategic plan, to be implemented by a wide variety of units, committees and stakeholders within the Ford School.
• Review evaluation metrics and progress towards DEI objectives at least once a year.
• Report on DEI activities and progress at least two times a year to the Dean, and at least one time a year to the Ford School community.

Goals

• To provide critical support and leadership for the DEI 2.0 strategic planning process and assist co-chairs with planning and execution of administrative processes.
• To actively engage with respective constituent groups during the DEI 2.0 strategic planning year.
• To solicit feedback from constituents (e.g, host listening session, focus group).
• To share feedback with co-chairs to refine feedback into actionable priorities for DEI 2.0.