Looking Ahead in the New Year

Happy 2022 from the Office for Institutional Equity! As we settle into 2022, we face a complex landscape of emotions and cultural challenges. Many of us are exhausted from ongoing adjustments related to the surging pandemic, while also exhausted from ongoing reminders of the deep work necessary for and related to racial justice.

We enter this year with a very cautious sense of optimism about being able to engage in person more regularly, but we also mindfully look to what lies ahead. Despite the limits, we have been very busy in OIE. Last October, we hosted the first, three-hour-long OIE Liaison Conference in the Trent Semans Center with representatives from across the University and the Health System who engaged in role play exercises, learned more details about the OIE process, and took part in engaging conversations about the recent Climate Survey.

In collaboration with The Office for Faculty Advancement and Institutional Research, OIE led the effort to launch the first DEI Duke Campus Climate Survey at Duke last spring that included the staff of the University, with results made public last fall. On February 10th, OIE will host a retreat for administrative leaders, Understanding the Climate Survey Data to Advance Racial Equity in Your Unit, to support them in evaluating their local unit results and help them to develop methods for applying them to their racial equity goals.

OIE leadership is also deeply engaged in the work of the Racial Equity Advisory Council (REAC) and its three Subcommittees: Climate and Assessment, Education and Training, Infrastructure and Policies, and Communications. REAC was formed to create a structure for Duke’s anti-racism goals, to support the momentum of these efforts, and to identify best practices for communicating our progress. As our recent campus climate survey has illuminated many opportunities for collective growth, OIE has also been hard at work deepening our educational engagements and building capacity for our continued work.

Finally, while we are all hard at work, we encourage the Duke community to focus on self-care during these stressful times. We at OIE also feel these exhausting challenges, but we are buoyed by our Duke community and partners who we experience as relentless in our pursuit of equity and inclusion. We wish you a healthy start to this new year in the most holistic sense! We invite you to be in touch and stay tuned for more information throughout 2022 about our educational opportunities and resources for support.

Kimberly Hewitt, Vice President for Institutional Equity & Chief Diversity Officer
Leigh-Anne Royster, Assistant Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
— January 2022