Faculty Council Committee Corner: Racial and Ethnic Equity

The CU system Faculty Council Committee on Racial and Ethnic Equity (CREE) considers the needs and priorities of students and faculty of color. The scope of this committee includes racially and ethnically minoritized faculty, including international faculty of color and indigenous faculty.

CREE is tasked with assessing the cultural climate, fostering academic success, ensuring fair recruitment and retention, developing support networks, and recommending policy that supports faculty and students of color across the CU system.

In this vein, a key component of the work of CREE is helping to create and maintain a campus community and culture that is committed to inclusion, ensuring access and opportunity for faculty and students of color, and equity, ensuring the fair treatment of faculty and students of color. This focus means identifying sources of inequities, recognizing the value that differences bring to our campus community, and providing and maintaining the structures to support meaningful access and opportunity for all.

Over the past year, CREE has spoken out against racism and the disparate health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on marginalized communities (CREE pandemic video); the need for CU to address racial justice and equity (CREE BLM letter); and helped make Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access a key pillar of the CU system Strategic Plan.

The committee’s focus for the 2020-2021 senate year includes reviewing and revising our charge; continuing to advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in the CU System Strategic Plan; advising the CU system on a plan for recruitment, retention and advancement of faculty of color; and continuing to build and maintain a climate of diversity, equity and inclusion by speaking out against racism and fostering networks and systems of support for faculty and students of color.

CREE recognizes the diversity across the CU system, and we are interested in learning more about the challenges, efforts and opportunities that you see across the campuses. If you or your team, group, office or committee also incorporates racial and ethnic diversity in your mission, we would love to connect with you: We would like to put together an informal directory that lists individuals or groups that currently work to advance the university’s racial and ethnic diversity goals. Who are you, what are you (or your team) working on, what kind of support are you looking for, what opportunities for partnerships do you have, and how can we get in touch with you? To that purpose, we have prepared a Qualtrics poll: https://cuboulder.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_ezZNYuyYtO01IBD

Here are our representatives from each campus. Feel free to contact any of us: