Committee on Equity and Diversity (CED)

The Committee on Equity and Diversity (CED) is comprised of tenured faculty, including representatives from the Divisions of Natural Sciences, Social Science and Humanities, and in partnership with the Associate Director of Faculty Diversity and Development and the Dean of Academic Planning and Governance. CED works to support A&S, its members and units to develop and sustain the equitable and inclusive practices, policies and climates that allow faculty, and hence our institution, to thrive. Current and planned projects include:

Diversity Matters: networks, events and funding to foster conversations, action and growth.
Mobilizing Departments: promoting faculty and department agency in their own work through connections both between departments and with professional expertise and other resources.
- The IDEAS Initiative: supports departments in developing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility Strategies.
- Restorative Practices: developing individual and collective competencies to challenge bias and discrimination and work with differences; supporting individuals and communities when those competencies fail (e.g. in cases of discrimination, micro-aggressions, bullying and harassment); and learning from those failures.
Measuring Progress: establishing timetables for data collections and surveys and tools to assess outcomes, sustain success and respond to problems.
Framework for Excellence: updating A&S structures to recognize and reward contributions to the full diversity of needs that allow Columbians to excel.

MEMBERS

Members of the Committee

Committee Chair:
Lila Davachi, Psychology, [email protected]

Committee Members:
Clemence Boulouque, Religion, [email protected]
Nicholas Dames, English and Comparative Literature, [email protected]
Deren Eaton, Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, [email protected]
Lena Edlund, Economics, [email protected]
Timothy Frye, Political Science, [email protected]

Committee Chair, 2022-23:

Lila Davachi, Professor of Psychology, [email protected]

Committee Members:

Timothy Berkelbach, Chemistry, [email protected]
Clémence Boulouque, Religion, [email protected]
Allison Carnegie, Political Science, [email protected]
Lena Edlund, Economics, [email protected]
Marcus Folch, Classics, [email protected]

MISSION STATEMENT

Mission Statement

The Committee on Equity and Diversity (CED) is the central faculty governance body working to foster diversity and equity in the scholarly, pedagogical, and administrative practices in Arts and Sciences. Formed in the Fall of 2018, and supported by the Office of the Executive Vice President for Arts and Sciences through the Office of Academic Planning and Governance and the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity, the committee is a faculty-driven and faculty-centered initiative to address practices that have limited the access and advancement of underrepresented groups as identified in the 2017-18 Policy and Planning Committee’s Equity Studies. The Committee sees diversity and equity as integral to the University’s education and research goals. A diverse scholarly community working in equitable conditions increases intellectual richness, vibrancy, and innovation and cultivates and models excellence and inclusion for our students and those outside the University. To this end, the CED supports programming and policies and procedures that promote inclusive and equitable work environments for faculty within their home departments and more broadly across the University. The CED works with faculty, departments, and administrators to foster more equitable climates and cultures and to establish and evaluate policies intended to enhance diversity and equity; such policies and procedures include those focused on the continual hiring of scholars who further the goals of diversity and inclusion and those that address inequitable dynamics in departmental and school culture.

Mandate

The Committee on Equity and Diversity (CED) in Arts and Sciences is the key faculty governance body to address the recommendations of the 2017/18 PPC Equity Studies and the 2018-2023 A&S Diversity Strategic Plan, providing concrete suggestions about the best methods and approaches to implement the recommendations. We ask that the committee study and identify concrete next steps on issues around salary (including considering merit- and equity-based raises; incorporating service, research, and teaching, as well as student advising and mentoring on annual salary increases; addressing salary compression); harassment, discrimination and bullying (including developing definitions, considering professional/research misconduct, exploring information escrows); and faculty diversity (reinforcing inclusive department climates, studying tenure trajectories for URM faculty), among others. We ask that the committee regularly oversee and evaluate climate, workload and satisfaction surveys and review climate, inclusion, and bystander training. The CED will be an advisory group for the EVP/EC for the implementation of protocols and policies addressing key issues from the equity reports and acting on its recommendations, including review of salary equity, strategies to improve faculty diversity, implementation of exit interviews, and priorities for data collection and reporting, including the Faculty Information Form. The committee makes recommendations to the EVP/EC and provides PPC with updates on their work, identifying the most pressing issues and significant challenges, four times per year (ideally twice in each fall and spring term).

EVENTS

Events

Peer-Reviewed Journal Publishing from the Perspectives of Editors and Authors

Heyman Center for the Humanities, Columbia University (and online)
October 18, 2021; February 7, 2022; April 4, 2022
organized by Susan Boynton, coeditor of Gesta
note: preregistration is required

Full information on each workshop at
https://sofheyman.org/events/peer-reviewed-journal-publishing-from-the-perspectives-ofeditors-and-authors

These three workshops will be useful for all early-career scholars who seek information about publishing in peer-reviewed journals, and will illuminate aspects of journal publishing that can promote diversity, equity, and inclusion for all involved in the process, from copy editors and editorial assistants to editors and authors. The presenters will offer diverse perspectives on the mechanics of publishing in peer-reviewed journals, which constitute a major hurdle for inclusion and diversity in academia. While publishing in a peer-reviewed journal is often a benchmark in the evaluation of job and fellowship applicants, as well as for promotions later in their careers, many authors lack access to the mentoring and guidance needed get their research through the rigorous and often demanding process of peer review and publication.

The workshops will address holistically the many ways in which scholars are involved process of publishing journals. In addition to being authors of research articles, scholars at all career stages from early graduate study through retirement serve as editors, peer reviewers, members of editorial boards, editorial assistants, copy editors, or authors of book reviews. Many scholars work as freelance copy editors and thus have a crucial role in the infrastructure of scholarship; some work for publishers as full-time editorial staff. Crucially, these workshops will cover the practical aspects of journal publishing, and presenters will include those who support digital journals through the Columbia University Libraries, as well as the editors of journals across a broad spectrum of disciplines and platforms: Archipelagos, a new, interdisciplinary, multimedia, and born-digital journal published by the Columbia University Libraries; Current Musicology, also published by CUL, has been edited by graduate students in the Columbia Department of Music since its founding; Gesta (published by the University of Chicago Press), founded and edited by scholars in the International Center of Medieval Art, a scholarly society of medieval art historians; and the Romanic Review (published by Duke University Press), which was founded in 1910 by a Columbia professor and has always been housed in the Columbia Department of French.

Past Events

“We have to reimagine”: A Conversation about Anti-Asian Racism and Violence

Panel conversation including David Henry Hwang, Akemi Kochiyama, Lydia Liu, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, and Mae Ngai. Moderated by Ellie Hisama.

Wednesday, April 21st

2:00pm - 3:30pm (EDT), Virtual via Zoom

Event page: https://events.columbia.edu/go/AddressingAntiAsianRacism

Event Contact:

Adina Brooks
[email protected]

Unsung Stories: Women at Columbia’s Computer Music Center

This symposium focuses on women who have studied and worked at the renowned Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (renamed the Computer Music Center in 1996). It features panels and roundtables with over thirty composers and scholars who will discuss the legacy, musical excellence, experience, and visibility of the diverse women who have worked at the Center from the 1950s to the present.

Friday, April 9, 2021 - Saturday, April 10, 2021

1:00pm (EDT) Friday and 9:00am (EDT) Saturday, Virtual via Zoom

The Future Repeats Itself: Historical Roots of Anti-Chinese Animus in the time of COVID
Part of the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society's Medical Humanities and Pandemic Urbanisms and Understanding Systemic Racism Spring 2021 web series

Ari Larissa Heinrich (Australian National University)
with a response from Eugenia Lean (EALAC, Columbia University)
moderated by Lydia H. Liu (ICLS Director)

Tuesday, March 23, 2021, 6-8 pm, Virtual via Zoom

Event Contact: Sarah Monks, [email protected]

Add your event to our calendar by completing this form. Please note that any events submitted should be relevant to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in Arts and Sciences. If you have any issues submitting your event, please contact [email protected].

You can also find other relevant events at:

School of International and Public Affairs Diversity Events
Teachers' College Office of the Vice President for Diversity and Community Affairs

DIVERSITY MATTERS

Diversity Matters

Equity and Diversity Events Program

The A&S Equity and Diversity events pilot program encourages and supports events and programs that highlight the benefits and value of diversity to academic excellence and that help create and sustain an inclusive community within A&S. Faculty members and departments are encouraged to apply for funding to cover costs associated with special events, speakers, workshops, or programs that help advance A&S efforts toward a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive climate.

View the Spring 2024 Request for Proposals

Download the Budget Template

Spring 2022 Awardees:

Gil Eyal (Sociology): Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Expertise in Racialized Organizations: A Graduate Student Conference and Paper Development Workshop
Raquel Queiroz (Physics): Promoting diversity at the ES22 international meeting held at Columbia University
Alessandra Ciucci (Music): Decolonizing the Ear: Reimagining "West Asia" in Asian Music Humanities
Rachel Rosen (Physics): Continuation of Physics Community Round Table Seminar Series
Tugce Bilgin Sonay (Earth and Environmental Sciences): Tools for integrating anti-racist/inclusive pedagogy into STEM instruction at Columbia
Elena Giorgi (Mathematics): Diversity Lunch Series: Conversations about Research and Careers
Siddhi Krishna (Mathematics): Mathematicians of Color: Colloquium and Association (MOCCA)

Fall 2021 Awardees:

Madeline Dobie (Department of French and Romance Philology): Reimagining French: Diversity, Inclusion, and Pedagogy

Spring 2021 Awardees:

Jack Halberstam (English & Comparative Literature) Saidiya Hartman (English & Comparative Literature), and Vanessa Agard-Jones (Anthropology): Unworlding: Radical Ecologies of Race, Gender, and Sexuality
Susan Boynton (Music), Callum Blackmore, Alex Gil, Kaiama Glover (French, Barnard), Seth Kimmel (Latin American and Iberian Cultures), Elisabeth Ladenson (French and Romance Philology), Michelle Wilson: Publishing in Peer-Reviewed Journals: Workshops to Promote Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity
Seth Cluett (Music), Suzanne Thorpe (Music): Kitchen Table Praxis: Strategies for Belonging in Technical Learning Environments
Ruth Opera, Althea SullyCole, Shirley Chikukwa, Aaron Fox (Music): Gendering Africa: Musical Perspectives
Christia Mercer (Philosophy): Philosophy's Justifications For and Against Slavery
Maureen Raymo Earth and Environmental Sciences): Film Screenings and Panel Discussion on STEM Diversity
Hilary Hallett (History), Jane Gaines (Film): Black American Diasporic Idol

Fall 2019 Awardees:

Premilla Nadasen (History, Barnard) and Celia Naylor (History, Barnard): Community Conversation: Black Feminist Theory and the Disruption of Conventional Spatial Politics
Gray Tuttle (EALAC), Eveline Washul (Weatherhead), and Constantine Lignos (EALAC PhD): Catalyzing Conversation: Gender and Sexuality in the Tibetan Context
Sailakshmi Ramgopal (History): Lecture by Patricia Matthew on challenges facing faculty of color in the academy
Ellie Hisama (Music) and Zosha Di Castri (Music): Women at Columbia's Computer Music Center: Histories and Futures
Christia Mercer (Philosophy): New Narratives Graduate Student Symposium
Christia Mercer (Philosophy): New Narratives in Seventheenth-Century Philosophy: Quaker Women and the Philosophy of Anne Conway
Gregory Wawro (Poli Sci), Page Fortna (Poli Sci), Justin Phillips (Poli Sci): Interdisciplinary Panel on Bias in Academia

During the inaugural 2018-19 year, awardees included:

Zoe Crossland (Archeology): Conversations in Archaeology: Research and Opportunities
Jeremy Dodd, Frederik Denef, Rachel Rosen (Physics): Round Table Seminar Series on Issues Concerning Underrepresented Groups in STEM and Beyond
Ruben Gonzalez , Laura Kaufman, David Reichman (Chemistry): Inclusion in Action: Strategies for Your Classroom, Research Group, and Beyond
Frank Guridy, Adam Kosto, Lien-Hang Nguyen, Rhiannon Stephens (History): Workshop on Enhancing Diversity among Graduate Students in History
Robert Mawhinney (Physics): Site Visit to the Columbia Physics Department by the American Physical Society’s Committee on the Status of Women in Physics
Christia Mercer (Philosophy): New Narratives Graduate Student Symposium