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Dear Students, Faculty and Staff:
In light of the significant
budget reductions that Smith is facing, I
have decided with great reluctance to suspend the search for the
Director of Institutional Diversity and leave the position vacant for
several years. Given the value that our community places on diversity,
excellence and equity, this was not an easy decision to make. However,
when facing the trade-off between hiring a new director, at a fairly
high salary, and preserving the jobs of several lower salaried
employees, I decided the latter should take priority at the current
time. I am now developing a plan to assign the responsibilities of the
position in order to ensure that diversity remains the high priority at
Smith to which I am committed. I will divide the responsibilities of
the position into two areas -- compliance, the monitoring of hiring
searches, and complaint resolution, and the development of programs (and
advocacy for them) that enable the community to continue to grow in its
understanding of diversity and commitment to it. I will change the jobs
of two individuals currently on the staff at Smith to take on these
tasks. In addition, I will create a diversity council, which I will
chair, that will regularly bring together those people with
responsibility for diversity at Smith so that we can continue to keep
those important issues front and center on the campus's agenda.
I thank the search
committee for its work, the candidates who gave of
their time to come to campus to meet with us, and each of you who
offered feedback and insights throughout the process. When the financial
crisis eases, I intend to relaunch the search, building on the
experience we will gain in the interim from a distributed model of
diversity responsibilities and the work of a diversity council.
Sincerely,
Carol T. Christ
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