In his introductory remarks at the Office of Equity and Inclusion's October 31, 2013 Breakfast for Diversity Champions, President Gottfredson celebrated those who champion diversity on our campus daily and called upon all to continue working to institutionalize equity, inclusion, and diversity as commonplace practices at the University of Oregon.

I am very happy to be here this morning to say a few words to encourage as well as empower our campus and community as we begin the process of developing our strategic plan for Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity.

I am also here to celebrate your work as champions of diversity. What you do every day is important in helping our campus and community to institutionalize equity, inclusion, and diversity as commonplace practices. I firmly believe that equity, inclusion, and diversity are the work of everyone, not just a select few or a particular department. So, while the great leadership from our Vice President for Equity and Inclusion and her office are important, it will certainly take all of us working together to bring about the change we desire.

Equity, inclusion, and diversity are core values of this institution. They are values that should permeate everything we do. I don’t just mean that our campus must be welcoming and accessible to all—although of course it must, and you hear me say often that access is one of the twin pillars supporting our mission. I mean that our work as teachers and learners, as researchers, mentors, and scholars, must consider, reflect, and benefit from a wealth of diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and points of view. Quality higher education—the other pillar supporting our mission—by definition includes the recognition and influence of ways of thinking, seeing, feeling, and being in the world that differ from our own. And our students must be prepared to communicate across communities—and respect identity within community—in our increasingly global and diversifying world.

So, I am also here to ask our entire campus to become involved in our strategic diversity planning process. I ask our colleagues, friends of the university, and community partners to work with us in assembling an overarching strategic framework for equity, inclusion, and diversity, as well as individual plans for every unit on our campus. It’s a big job! But it provides the context in which every student, staff member, administrator, faculty member, department head, director, dean, and vice president can play an active and integral role in their respective positions in helping us to focus on both the processes and outcomes that will make our university more equitable, more inclusive, and more diverse—as we are meant to be.

I am asking our department heads, directors, deans, and vice presidents to demonstrate leadership in this important effort as well. We need to identify clear goals, to have metrics and accountability mechanisms and processes to evaluate our progress. The last diversity plan was a great step, it allowed us to accomplish some very important goals for our campus. Now we must do more.

For example, as we grow a more diverse student body, we need more diverse faculty in the classrooms and more diverse staff to support our campus work. We need to examine our policies and processes for hiring and promotion, as well as our assessments for teaching and learning to ensure that they are equitable, fair, and inclusive. We need to teach one another best practices from other schools. We need to engage in partnerships with our alumni and community allies in ways that lead to mutually beneficial gains that align with our academic mission. We need a campus environment where we are all free to bring our best talent, skills, and experiences together to make our institution world class in every way. Strategic planning around equity, inclusion, and diversity is an important mechanism to ensure that this happens.

I should say that I am also committed to the work of diversity, and my office will have a diversity plan and make progress as well. I am fully committed to supporting Vice President Alex-Assensoh and all of you, as we work together, to make the University of Oregon the best we can be.

I am very glad to see all of you here at the “Breakfast for Diversity Champions.” Thank you for your help!