Committing to holding the University to the highest standards when it comes to matters of race, diversity, and inclusion, President Sarah Mangelsdorf and Chief Diversity Officer Mercedes Ramírez Fernández have launched a series of initiatives designed to make the institution “a better neighbor, employer, health care provider, and educational resource.”

In a series of messages to the University community this summer and fall, the two acknowledged that progress—in the nation, in the region, and at the University—has been too slow, and they outlined an initial set of steps and a road map for more action.

“Systemic change will take time, but we are committed to doing the work,” they wrote. “As we pursue the changes we must implement, we will rely on you to hold us accountable, and we hope to engage with you as we strive to be a better neighbor, employer, health care provider, and educational resource.”

Among the steps under way as of this fall:

• The Office of Equity and Inclusion has requested that every school dean and unit administrative leader work with the office to set specific diversity goals and produce a diversity report using a consistent set of metrics that will allow for the measurement of progress. The reports will be made public and will inform ongoing diversity efforts.
• The University launched a yearlong fundraising campaign, called Together for Rochester, that prioritizes the recruitment of diverse faculty and other key diversity efforts. The campaign is also the platform for the launch of three new alumni networks: the Black Alumni Network, the Women’s Network, and the First Generation Network. The alumni Diversity Advisory Council, chaired by Noah Pizmony-Levy Drezner ’00 and University Trustee Lance Drummond ’85S (MBA), and the Alumni Board will help to ensure that alumni are consulted, heard, and engaged.
• A new, permanent director of the Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies has been appointed, with the goal of working toward transforming the institute into a department-level program in Arts, Sciences & Engineering. Washington University in St. Louis scholar Jeffrey McCune begins his appointment next summer.

In addition, the Office of Equity and Inclusion has appointed new staff members to lead strategic initiatives at the Medical Center and the University.

The appointments include Adrienne Morgan, a longtime leader in educational diversity at the Medical Center, who has been named associate vice president of equity and inclusion for the University and senior associate dean for equity and inclusion at the School of Medicine and Dentistry. In that role, Morgan reports to Fernández, who also holds the title of Richard Feldman Vice President for Equity and Inclusion, and to Mark Taubman, the CEO of the Medical Center and dean of the School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Morgan helped lead one of the first comprehensive efforts to outline a unit-wide effort to address racism and discrimination. This fall, the Medical Center released its Equity and Anti-Racism Action Plan, a five-year effort to strengthen diversity and inclusion, address inequities in patient care, and reduce health disparities in the Rochester community.

The plan outlines clear strategies and actions that will strengthen diversity across the Medical Center, identifies accountable leaders, sets metrics for measuring progress, and assures transparency through regular reporting mechanisms.

It’s the product of a process that began in June, when Taubman announced the initiative shortly after the death in May of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. Floyd’s death, as well as other instances of police brutality, prompted Medical Center faculty, staff, and trainees to organize White Coats for Black Lives demonstrations outside Strong Memorial Hospital and at other UR Medicine facilities. Hundreds joined to call for an end to systemic racism and violence against people of color.

Later in the summer, the Rochester metropolitan area was the focus of national outrage when the city’s police department released disturbing footage of a Black man, Daniel Prude, being restrained during an encounter earlier in the year. Prude, who had been evaluated at and released from Strong Memorial Hospital before the encounter with police, died days later after being taken off life support. The county’s medical examiner ruled the death a homicide.

In acknowledgment of the nation’s history of racial injustice, Taubman and Mangelsdorf, who also serves as the G. Robert Witmer, Jr. University Professor, jointly signed a declaration this summer that racism is a public health crisis.

And in November, the Eastman School of Music released its Report and Recommendations of the Eastman Action Commission for Racial Justice, a group convened in June by Jamal Rossi, the Joan and Martin Messinger Dean at the Eastman School of Music.

Rossi has implemented some of the report’s recommendations, including the creation of an ongoing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council; developing Eastman-specific education workshops offered this academic year; and commissioning Black composers to write new compositions as part of Eastman’s upcoming centennial celebration.

Mangelsdorf and Fernández have been meeting with constituencies from across the University community and are welcoming feedback.

“We are deeply committed to making the University of Rochester the welcoming, inclusive, and just community that we know it should be, and that we know it can be,” Fernández says. “We are committed to doing the work.”

—Kathleen McGarvey