Dear Colleagues,
We are writing to share an update on our efforts to promote gender equity.
Six years ago, President DeGioia charged a Task Force on Gender Equity, which reviewed many of Georgetown’s policies and procedures related to faculty, benchmarked best practices across higher education, and developed a report that was shared with our community in May 2021.
In January 2022, the University formed a standing Gender Equity Committee, co-chaired by Soyica Colbert (C’01), Ph.D., Vice President for Interdisciplinary Initiatives, Idol Family Professor, and Professor of Black Studies and Performing Arts, and Naomi Mezey, J.D., Agnes Williams Sesquicentennial Professor of Law and Culture, to advance the report’s recommendations. Faculty from the Main, Medical, and Law campuses serve on this Committee, which works in partnership with Rosemary Kilkenny (L’87), J.D., Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer.
This Committee produced an annual report last year and has developed an updated report as we begin the 2024–25 academic year. The report documents the University’s progress, highlights gender equity priorities and actions within each of our schools, and recommends steps to advance our collective work in this next phase.
We have reviewed the report and discussed it with Soyica Colbert and Naomi Mezey. Based on the Committee’s annual report, we have agreed to prioritize the following issues for this coming year:
- Support and complete the current search for the Associate Vice President of Gender Equity, who will chair the Gender Equity Committee and help lead the University’s initiatives to support gender equity going forward. This position will engage with faculty at the school level to better receive feedback about each school’s priorities and progress.
- Continue to build upon the productive work of the past year in improving data collection and integrity, with a focus on creating common data definitions among schools and input of data on academic/educational fields from faculty curriculum vitae for inclusion in GMS.
- Support the Office of Advancement to focus on fundraising for research in the Gender+ Justice Initiative.
- Host the Gender Equity Committee’s web-based statistical information dashboard on the website of the Office of Assessment and Decision Support (OADS). This dashboard is now live on the OADS website.
These are important steps in our ongoing work to create an ever richer and stronger University, where each member of our community can thrive. We offer our sincere appreciation to the Committee for their efforts to ensure we are advancing gender equity and strengthening our entire community.
Sincerely,
Robert M. Groves
Provost
William M. Treanor
Executive Vice President and Dean of the Law Center
Norman J. Beauchamp Jr.
Executive Vice President for Health Sciences
David B. Green
Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Rosemary Kilkenny
Vice President, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Chief Diversity Officer
Joseph A. Ferrara
Vice President and Chief of Staff to President DeGioia