Vice Chancellor Basri's Full Message
The University of California has long valued the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion as essential ingredients of excellence in higher education These ideals have recently been articulated by its Academic Senate, President, and Regents. Under Chancellor Birgeneau’s leadership, the Berkeley campus has taken an important step towards realizing them by creating the position of Vice Chancellor for Equity & Inclusion. With responsibilities to all members of the campus, it is one of the most comprehensive approaches in the nation.
I consider it a great honor to be the first person to hold this office, and extend my warm greetings to all of you.
The responsibilities of my position are daunting, but exciting:
I need to be familiar with all the campus efforts that relate to equity, inclusion, and diversity, and help bring forward new ones;
I need to understand the relevant issues for undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and staff;
I need to examine the relationship of our campus and programs to the UC system and its alumni, as well as educational institutions at all levels in the state and higher education across the country;
I need to understand and affect how we allocate our resources, and develop strategies to augment them with outside help.
Also, in the tradition, I will encourage ongoing research to understand the effectiveness of activities here and elsewhere; and very importantly, I want to be a bridge between you and the senior management of the campus.
This position is something many of us have advocated for, working hard to bring the campus to this point. With the support of the Chancellor and the campus administration and community, I believe we have one of the brightest opportunities for positive change since I joined the campus in 1979, and I am eager to do my part. Our goal is a campus which fully taps the pool of talented people at all levels and fosters each person’s success.
Of course, one person cannot and should not do this work alone. I will be joining the many existing and worthy efforts in all areas of my responsibility. I encourage all of you to participate in this exciting opportunity for UC Berkeley, and look forward to working with you to achieve greater success. I hope you will contact my office if you have ideas or concerns. I am already holding many meetings with groups, units, and networks on campus. This year I will also convene two representative advisory groups -- one consisting of students, staff and faculty on campus and one consisting of our partners beyond the campus, including alumni -- to help gather information and ideas from their respective communities.
For further information please continue to visit my website at http://vcei.berkeley.edu/, which will become richer over time and will be regularly updated. We have also launched a general diversity website at http://diversity.berkeley.edu/ containing much useful information for all. If you are doing something that should be represented there or have a suggestion to make it more effective, be sure to let us know. Please also make use of its calendar of campus events.
I am very excited about the possibilities before us. Only by working together can we assure that UC Berkeley achieves the very highest standards of excellence in fulfilling its public mission.
Sincerely,
Gibor Basri
Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion
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