University Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Purpose and Mission
The University Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (UCD) was formed in July 2019 as a result of a joint agreement between the university and the AAUP-AFT, the faculty union which represents faculty, graduate assistants, and teaching assistants at Camden, Newark and New Brunswick (faculty represented for collective negotiations purposes by the AAUP-BHSNJ are not represented on the UCD because the UCD was created as part of the July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2022 collective negotiations agreement between Rutgers and the AAUP-AFT).
The charge of the committee is to, amongst other things, recommend initiatives pertaining to diversity, including diversity training, recruitment, retention, mentoring, and professional development.
2024–25 Recipients of the Cheryl Wall Faculty Fellowships
We are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024–25 Cheryl Wall Faculty Fellowships. Fellowships recognize full-time faculty committed to addressing issues faced by the university’s diverse student population. The fellowships pay tribute to Dr. Cheryl Wall, who was a champion of these efforts, pioneered cluster hiring at Rutgers and helped guide various diversity projects.
Leadership
The AAUP-AFT elected Professor Deepa Kumar to Co-Chair the committee to continue her work on gender and race equity, which she made central to the mission of the AAUP-AFT starting in 2016. SVPAA Barbara Lee initially co-chaired the committee. The UCD is comprised of six members of the AAUP-AFT negotiations unit selected by AAUP-AFT, and up to six members, selected by, and including the now-Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs (EVPAA) or designee, with representation from the three geographic areas of the university (New Brunswick, Newark, and Camden). Each co-chair selected five committee members who then began meeting in Fall 2019. In spring 2021, EVPAA Prabhas Moghe appointed Professor Michelle Stephens as his designee to co-chair the committee.
The UCD liaises and works collaboratively with both the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs (EVPAA) and the Senior Vice President for Equity (SVPE) as well as other Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) leaders at the four chancellor-led units, bringing to the table the perspectives, ideas, and proposals of faculty and teaching assistants/graduate assistants.
Committee Co-Chairs
Deepa Kumar (AAUP-AFT Representative)
Michelle Stephens (EVPAA Designate)
2024–2025 Committee Members
Corinne Castro | Representative for Anna Branch, Senior Vice President for Equity
Senior Director for Faculty Diversity and Institutional Transformation
Rutgers University
Carlos Decena | Chair
Associate Professor
Department of Latino and Caribbean Studies| Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Rutgers University–New Brunswick
E. Lev Feinman
Rutgers University–Camden
Keith Green (sabbatical fall 2024)
Associate Professor
Department of English and Communications
Rutgers University–Camden
Stacy Hawkins
Professor
Rutgers Law School
Rutgers University–Camden
Taja-Nia Henderson | Dean, Rutgers Graduate School, Newark
Professor
Rutgers Law School
Rutgers University–Newark
Angela Mullis
Associate Vice President for Faculty Affairs | EVPAA Support (non-voting member)
Office of the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Rutgers University
Ileana Nachescu
Assistant Teaching Professor
Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Rutgers University–New Brunswick
Herminio L. Perez
Assistant Dean of Student Affairs, Diversity and Inclusion
Rutgers School of Dental Medicine
Rutgers Health
Edward Ramsamy
Associate Professor
Department of Africana Studies
Rutgers University–New Brunswick
Luis Rivera | Interim UCD Co-Chair, spring 2024 and fall 2024
Vice Provost, Office of the Chancellor
Professor, Department of Psychology
Principal Investigator, Rutgers Implicit Social Cognition (RISC) Lab
Rutgers University–Newark
Henry Turner
Vice President for Academic Initiatives
Office of the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Professor
Department of English
Rutgers University–New Brunswick
Staff
Joann Segarra
Senior Executive Associate
Office of the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Rutgers University
UCD Work and 2021-2022 Report
In 2019-2020, the committee gathered information from the Camden, Newark, and New Brunswick campuses on their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts as they relate to faculty. Committee members also examined the scope and scale of the mentoring programs that were then housed in the Office of Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, now the Office of the Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs of Dr. Prabhas Moghe.
In spring 2021, now co-chaired by Professors Kumar and Stephens, the committee focused on updating and gathering new information from the relevant campuses and offices on all the areas under the committee’s purview (subcommittees gathered information on hiring, retention, both faculty and graduate mentoring, and diversity training). At the end of the year, committee members voted on the key initiatives and funding goals to be prioritized for consideration in 2021-2022, including mechanisms to promote mentorship for graduate and teaching assistants, non-tenure track faculty, assistant and associate professors, and retention of faculty more broadly.
