See Advancing Racial Equity at Duke to learn more, including data and progress updates, details of new and ongoing programs, research highlights and educational materials. Also see Racial Equity Resources.

Introduction

In his message to the Duke community to celebrate the Juneteenth holiday, President Price acknowledged that we, at Duke, “aspire to be agents of progress in advancing racial equity and justice,” but that “we have often been slow to do the right things, the hard things, the transformative things.” These “hard things” are all encompassing and include both individual and collective levels of change. To mobilize efforts to confront structural racism and for Duke to become a collective agent of positive change, all members of our community need the courage, dedication and willingness to work on our own transformation and growth as individuals. We also need to sustain our commitment over the long term to address the historical structural barriers that support and perpetuate racism and inequities in our academic spaces, particularly anti-Black racism and inequities. Making anti-racism a part of Duke’s identity and values is not only a societal imperative, but it is also critical to the success of our academic mission. An anti-racist and equitable community requires the inclusion of and equity for diverse talent and voices to enrich our students’ academic experience, open additional research horizons, and ultimately deepen the reach of our societal impact.

The Office for Faculty Advancement (OFA) is committed to advancing anti-racism and equity efforts on Duke’s campus. Since its launch in 2017, OFA has made diversity, equity and inclusion the core values that drive its mission for the success of all faculty. Our approach to faculty advancement is inspired by the conviction that those values should guide our entire portfolio and serve all faculty equally. In fact, we do not consider anti-racism and equity work to be distinct from the rest of our faculty advancement efforts. Rather, this work weaves into all of our faculty advancement initiatives, because a truly anti-racist and equitable academic environment is a necessary prerequisite to the success of all Duke faculty and members of the Duke community.

OFA’s efforts are focused on three intersecting areas:

• Hiring faculty from diverse backgrounds and ensuring that our hiring efforts and processes are equitable and consistent with our diversity and inclusion goals are essential. We need to continue to increase faculty diversity across Duke to reflect the diversity of the student body and the country. We also need to enrich the student experience and strengthen the research and service missions of the university. Since the creation of OFA three years ago, the number of regular rank Black faculty at the university has increased from 67 to over 80 (about 7% of regular rank faculty across the university). That is a modest positive development and a foundation on which we must build. In this regard, the Provost has recently secured a $16M grant from The Duke Endowment to further diversify the faculty. This encompasses both individual hiring and cluster hiring to build critical mass and expertise in areas where Duke does not have strong representation of underrepresented faculty. These resources will complement other investments from schools and academic programs.
• Providing faculty and leadership development programs and resources that aim to support faculty throughout their careers at Duke. These programs are important for faculty retention, growth and success. Effective faculty development initiatives that encompass all areas critical to faculty success are crucial to retaining diverse faculty talent and developing future academic leaders. These programs intersect with our efforts to create an inclusive and anti-racist environment (for example, with support for faculty-led initiatives as described here).
• Bolstering climate, culture and community programs and efforts that seek to foster an environment that is equitable, supportive, respectful, professional, and committed to confronting racism and biases within our academic programs. This work also seeks to address conduct that aims to diminish or exclude any group. Without a healthy academic ecosystem that is committed to anti-racism and embraces and celebrates academic diversity and excellence, our hiring efforts and faculty and leadership development initiatives will not be sustainable.

For our anti-racism and equity efforts to succeed, it is essential that they are evidence-based and that they are carried out with transparency and accountability. They also require the participation of and partnership with the faculty, academic units, students, and staff. Below we provide the specific action items that describe how we plan to implement this work and how we will measure its effectiveness. We commit to the following: