November 08, 2018 

City News Service 

 

USC Provost Michael Quick announced to faculty today via email that the university is allocating $50 million to a fund that will “promote diversity, equity, and inclusion across our university.”

 

Quick also announced that USC will create a Center for Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion dedicated to recruiting and retaining diverse faculty members. The university will conduct a national search for the center’s director.

 

“As an institution, we have committed to leading locally and globally through our values and through our people,” Quick wrote. “The steps I have announced ... are intended to deepen this commitment.”

 

In 2016, USC’s Office of Institutional Research released a diversity report that detailed the demographic data for students and faculty. According to the report, the majority of faculty is male at 57 percent and white at 65 percent.

 

In the memo, Quick wrote that the new funds will be used to “hire and retain world-class tenure-track faculty and extraordinary RTPC (research, teaching, practice and clinical) faculty. The funds will also be used to grow our pipeline programs that support postdoctoral fellows and their transition to USC faculty members.”

 

Quick said that the forthcoming diversity and inclusion center “will serve as the focal point for our efforts in recruiting and retaining diverse faculty and developing sustainable institutional initiatives.”

 

The provost told faculty that among the most important challenges facing higher education “is addressing historic, systemic inequities as we work to build more diverse and inclusive university communities.”

USC is committed to “instilling the value of listening to distinct voices, and modeling the 21st century for our students, community, nation, and world,” Quick said.

Category: News