Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging at the Bloustein School
A commitment to faculty, students, staff, alumni & community partners
The Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy values diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) and aims to improve and grow these efforts strategically by managing and assessing performance.
Accountability is shared among our family of faculty, students, staff, and external partners. Investment of School resources will be enhanced, where required, to realize our vision, mission, and purpose in alignment with our shared institutional values.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Strategic Plan
The Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy is fully committed to, and unequivocally shares, Rutgers University’s core pillars related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. These values are consistent with and essential towards the realization of a vibrant and high-performing community of support. By committing to this mission, our ability to achieve true diversity, equity, and inclusion is strengthened.
We believe in and will work towards:
- Creating, maintaining, and assessing our performance toward equity;
- Creating a diverse school-wide community of faculty, staff and students;
- Maintaining an inclusive and belonging community; and
- Creating a community of equity; equitably accessing the school’s enterprise of academic and research assets; and fostering transparently engaged communications with our family of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and external partners.
Learn More about our Five Priorities
Recruit, Retain, and Develop a Diverse Community
- Enhance outreach and recruitment processes to attract diverse student population
- Develop support and mentorship for staff and faculty to increase belonging and retention
- Endowing student fellowships and scholarships on social and environmental justice and DEI-related research, outreach, communications, and events.
- The Bloustein School Congress should report as a standing agenda item, the School’s progress on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
Promote Inclusive Scholarship and Teaching
- Increase support and resources for instructors to advance equity in the classroom, and recognize exemplary examples.
- Review, amend, and expand curricular offerings to promote understanding of obstacles to DEIB.
- Examine our curriculum to determine revisions to include social justice issues and equity in the school’s programs.
- Provide support for curriculum revisions and expansion including time and financial resources.
- Include guest speakers to shine spotlights oncontemporary issues, the school’s activities, and directions regarding DEIB.
- Leveraging the University’s programs that support faculty development to support retention.
Define Sustainable and Substantive Community Engagement
- Adopt a definition of community engagement, in which reciprocity serves as a guiding principle.
- Strengthen relationships with the New Brunswick community engaging in the purposeful work of repair and relationship building.
- To facilitate long-term mutually beneficial collaborations and establish mechanisms to facilitate information and resource sharing.
- Creating and/or expanding academic programs to support community engagement
- Provide and/or expand existing student opportunities to engage with community organizations.
Build the Capacity of Leaders to Create Inclusive Climates
- Make a school-wide commitment to develop, mentor, and promote a sense of personal responsibility for creating an inclusive environment.
- Review the equity in terms of workload, pay, and scholarship across gender, ethnicity, and race and see that workload and compensation are equitable.
- Review everyday communications and processes to ensure equitable participation in decision-making is at the heart of shared governance.
- Reflecting the contributions of the entire community throughout the Bloustein School including in shared spaces such as the lobby, hallway walls, student lounges, computer labs, and stairwells.
- Providing resources for initiatives that would familiarize students with career opportunities in urban planning, public policy, and informatics.
- Expanding resources for peer mentoring for incoming international and first-generation students.
- Expanding resources for students, faculty, and staff with disabilities.
- Providing DEI training (including cultural competencies, implicit bias. etc.) to students with recognized leadership roles.
Develop an Institutional Infrastructure to Drive Change
Establish information-sharing mechanisms to facilitate transparency and data-informed decision-making to support goal achievement, such as dashboards to report and track applicant pools for students, faculty, and staff.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Task Force at the Bloustein School
The Bloustein School’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Task Force was created in Spring 2020 to advise the dean about strategies to build awareness of and foster a positive climate for increased diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging within the school and among the school’s students, staff, and faculty.
The school is home to individuals from many cultures, races, nationalities, genders, identities, and life experiences and with different beliefs and values. The work of the Task Force is critical in embracing individuals with such multifaceted backgrounds by making them feel supported and empowered, by working through student, staff and faculty-driven processes to advance a culture of belonging, tolerance, and mutual respect for others, and by inspiring excellence in cultural awareness, competency, and equity.
The Task Force works within the framework of the foundational institutional values of Rutgers University and in consultation and collaboration with the Rutgers New Brunswick Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement.
School-wide Standing Committee on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging
The Bloustein School’s Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Task Force recommended the formation of a standing committee to provide advice and counsel to the dean on matters related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. The overarching role of the Committee is to envision, develop and serve as a progressive force for transformative change within the school. The committee will give serious focus toward increasing the number of faculty, staff, and students from among historically underrepresented minority groups (as defined by federal, state, and Rutgers University workforce utilization standards). The committee will work to build awareness among the students, faculty, and staff and to create a positive learning, working, and service climate within the school, and with our external key stakeholders.
Rutgers University’s four campus-wide educational communities comprise one of the most diverse (in terms of student demographic populations) AAU, BIG TEN Academic Alliance, and research-intensive higher education institutions in the United States. However, this diversity is unevenly distributed among the four distinct campuses. It is also presumed that much of the Rutgers diversity of individuals from many cultures, races, nationalities, genders, identities, and life experiences and with different beliefs and values—is more circumstantial than intentional—given the population diversity of the New Jersey/ New York region.
The Committee on DEIB is to continue the work of the Task Force on DIB created by the dean of the school last year. The Task Force submitted a report to the dean in February 2021. The Committee will explore deeper and more comprehensive understandings of the nature, scope, and varieties of concerns related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the school. The Committee will engage and respect the extensive input from and engagement of student, staff, and faculty-driven processes to advance a culture of belonging, caring, tolerance, and mutual respect for others, and by inspiring excellence in cultural awareness, competency, and equity. Key to the successful implementation of the previous Task Force and newly formed Standing Committee goals is holding ourselves as a school-wide community accountable for achieving the agreed values and goals for DEIB in our school.
The Committee will work within the framework of the foundational institutional values of Rutgers University and in consultation and collaboration with the Office of the Senior Vice President for Equity, and Rutgers New Brunswick Division of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Engagement.
The Committee will undertake the vision for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging at the Bloustein School by progressively undertaking, (on an ongoing basis) the committee’s core charge. These roles and functions may be expanded as recommended to the dean by the consensus of members of the Committee.
Committee Members
Faculty and Staff
Patricia O’Brien-Richardson
Chief, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer / Committee Chair
Associate Teaching Professor
Juan Ayala
Professor of Professional Practice, Planning and Urban Design
Elizabeth Cooner
Executive Director, NJ State Policy Lab
Stephanie Kose-Crozier
Business Specialist, Office of the Dean
Aakanksha Deoli, MHA
Teaching Instructor and Internship Coordinator
Anita Franzione, Dr. PH
Associate Teaching Professor
James DeFilippis
Professor
Andrea Hetling, Ph.D.
Professor and Chancellor Scholar
Jane Kaye
Assistant Teaching Professor
Ron Quincy
Professor of Professional Practice
Julia Sass Rubin
Associate Dean of Academic Programs & Director of the Public Policy Program
Shavona Schenck
Senior Learning and Development Manager, National Transit Institute
Christina Torian
Associate Dean of Undergraduate Student Services
Steve Weston
Assistant Dean for Student and Academic Services
Graduate Student Members
Maia Hill
MPP Student and DEIB Scholar Fellow
Beauty Oghomwenyemen Okunbor
MHA Student and DEIB Scholar Fellow
Molly Basdeo Mountjoy
PhD Student
Roni Woitovich
MPAP Student with Disability concentration