Four finalists for the University of Maryland’s new diversity and inclusion vice president position will visit the campus and meet with students, faculty and staff in the coming weeks, university President Wallace Loh wrote in a campuswide email Monday.
The position, which will replace the chief diversity officer, will report to Loh and serve as a member of his cabinet in an effort to “foster a welcoming and inclusive environment,” according to the president’s website.
A committee of 16 members has chosen four finalists for the job, and each will have the opportunity to speak in two forums — one of which will be open to everyone, and one of which will be limited to students — over the next two weeks, the email read. Their names and experience will be made public just prior to their visit, Loh wrote.
[Read more: After waiting months for external diversity review, UMD activists say they’re unsatisfied]
Information about the first candidate to visit — Enobong Hannah Branch — was available on the president’s website as of Monday night.
Branch, a sociology professor who researches race and gender, is the associate chancellor for equity and inclusion and the chief diversity officer for the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She will speak to the campus community Wednesday in the Edward St. John Learning and Teaching Center.
After the forums for each candidate, attendees will be able to give confidential online feedback through a Google form, the email read.
[Read more: Drawing a swastika could mean 3 years in prison under this Maryland bill]
The university’s external review of diversity and inclusion measures, made public in November, recommended that former Chief Diversity Officer Roger Worthington be promoted to diversity and inclusion vice president. But Worthington had resigned over the summer, and he later openly criticized the administration for its handling of his role.
“Unless I get the kind of real backing to do this work, I can’t be effective as a leader,” he said at a meeting of the Black Faculty and Staff Association in August. “I’m a better, more effective member of the community as a full professor with a full voice where I can come forward and work together with you without [The Office of] Strategic Communications saying, ‘Here is what you can say and here is what you can’t say as an administrator.’”
The university first announced its plans for the diversity and inclusion vice president position in July 2017 — about two months after 2nd Lt. Richard Collins, a black Bowie State University student, was fatally stabbed while waiting for an Uber on the campus.
Sean Urbanski, a white former student at this university, is expected to stand trial on murder and hate crime charges later this year in the killing.
In the wake of Collins’ death, the university hired a hate bias response coordinator and created an online log to track hate bias incidents.
That log shows 22 reported incidents so far this year, including swastikas drawn on dorm whiteboards and racist and anti-LGBT writings discovered across the campus.
