Dear members of the Harvard Chan School community,
I am writing to share information and reflections on the report from the Harvard University Presidential Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging, distributed yesterday by President Drew Faust.
The Task Force included representatives from each of Harvard’s schools. Our School’s representatives were Erika Eitland, Vincent James, and Meredith Rosenthal. Much of the Task Force’s work over the past year and a half involved listening to people across Harvard through a variety of outreach efforts. The conclusions and recommendations contained in the report draw upon these efforts and reflect the experiences, convictions, and active participation of our community and others across the University. The recommendations are intended to provide guidance not just to the University’s central administration, but to all schools and business units, where many of the most critical decisions about recruitment, educational programs, pedagogy, and campus landscape take place.
As shown in the report and in the data we collect on an ongoing basis, the Harvard Chan School is fortunate to have a wonderfully diverse student population, with the highest percentage of female students and one of the highest proportions of international students of any Harvard school. This diversity is one reason why our students regularly point to their peers as a rich source of learning and describe their classmates as one of the best parts of their educational experience here. Yet we, like the rest of Harvard, still have a very long way to go. Our School has one of the lowest proportions of U.S. underrepresented minority (URM) students at the University, and we have made only nominal progress in recruiting URM students over the past 10 years. Our staff is somewhat more diverse—about on par with many of our Harvard peers. But our faculty is still more than two-thirds male and continues to lag behind most other Harvard schools in URM representation.
At a School and in a field that values diversity and inclusion as we do, we cannot accept this status quo. The measures set forth by President Faust—including the appointment of John Silvanus Wilson as senior advisor and strategist to the president and the creation of a $10 million fund for faculty recruitment—represent important first steps on the part of the central administration. Enhanced support from the University, as well as the ability to learn from and benchmark against other Harvard schools, will greatly energize and strengthen our continuing work on inclusion and belonging at the School. But meaningful progress will require sustained action and attention by all of us. I urge all members of our community to read the report and carefully consider measures they can take—both personally and professionally—to help implement its recommendations.
Looking ahead, our first opportunity to discuss the report as a community will be at our annual Diversity and Inclusion Town Hall, which will take place on May 1. I encourage all faculty, students, staff, and researchers to attend and take part in this important conversation. In addition, we will work with volunteers from across our community—and particularly with the Dean’s Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion—to develop concrete plans for the advancement of inclusion and belonging at the Harvard Chan School.
I am confident that in time, with the University’s support and with the concerted effort of people throughout our remarkable community, we will succeed in bending the curve toward inclusive excellence at every level of our School.
Thank you for your energy and determination.
Sincerely,
Michelle A. Williams, ScD
Dean of the Faculty
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
