Restructuring, Members and Mission

Dear Lehigh Community Members,

As we wrap up a most unprecedented year, we would like to take a moment to thank the campus community for their support in advancing Lehigh’s efforts to become an actively anti-racist institution. 

For us to make progress on diversity and inclusion across campus in a strategic and systemic way, we need to engage the entire system. Thus, it is essential to engage every unit, every college, every stem in this process, as well as organizations that work across units such as the Faculty Senate, Undergraduate Student Senate, Graduate Student Senate, and Employee Relations Advisory Committee (ERAC). Each unit and organization has their unique challenges, priorities, and cultures. Therefore, each one must own the change and lead the change. As part of the Council for Equity and Community’s (CEC) inclusive efforts to ensure that all voices are heard, the CEC announces changes in its structure, membership, and mission.

Since it was formed in 2008 and reconstituted in 2014, the CEC has been a formal body championing diversity, inclusion, and equity (DI&E) at Lehigh University. Subsequent to the hiring of the university’s inaugural Vice President for Equity and Community (VPEC), the CEC transitioned primarily into an advisory council to the VPEC. Additionally, many units and stems across the university initiated and strengthened their own unit-specific DI&E-focused groups. At this point in time, nearly every unit across campus has an internal group focused on diversity and inclusion. Where there isn’t one, unit leaders are striving to create one. 

Given this reality, the CEC has been restructured from an elected body to an appointed body that will serve as the backbone for communication, coordination, and cross-pollination across 30+ unit-specific and university-wide DI&E groups and the VPEC. 

The CEC was always an independent council and it will remain independent while serving in an advisory capacity to the VPEC. Given current priorities identified by the VPEC, four distinct working groups have been created. The CEC has taken on the charge of advising the VPEC in the creation of the strategic plan that includes anti-racist actions. Other working groups are engaged in inventorying priorities and needs of units across campus, developing an ensemble of resources to help units contribute to strategic goals, and supporting educational programming to address systemic inequities.

We are very excited about this direction and the opportunity to directly support the university’s systemic approach to diversity, inclusion, and equity.

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