Input sought in vice president for inclusion search

Creating a transparent and open process is the goal for the chairs of the search for a vice president for Inclusion and Equity.

More than 100 students, faculty and staff members attended forums over the summer with the search firm Greenwood & Associates, Inc., to share their hopes and dreams for the new position. The firm walked away with a much better understanding of the richness of GVSU’s teaching/learning environment and the strength of the university’s diversity efforts.

In his community address to faculty and staff, President Thomas J. Haas reiterated his commitment to diversity as a core institutional value and spoke to the importance of the vice president for Inclusion and Equity in helping the GVSU community further infuse and embed diversity into all aspects of campus life.

The new vice president is expected to start in January and will be responsible for leading the Division of Inclusion and Equity. This person will develop a university-wide integrated approach to enhancing diversity awareness and intercultural competency for students, faculty, and staff through teaching and professional development.

A Web site (www.gvsu.edu/vpinclusion ) has been launched to solicit feedback from community members. Visitors are asked questions about the characteristics they would like to see in the new vice president, and the greatest opportunities and challenges that new vice president would face.

“We’re getting really insightful comments,” said Marlene Kowalski-Braun, co-chair of the search. “Feedback allows the search committee to better represent the views of the larger Grand Valley community.”

As the process unfolds, Kowalski-Braun said there is some education to be done regarding the new terminology that is used in the vice presidential position and division.

“We’re moving beyond diversity as a descriptor — the words inclusion and equity are meant to invoke action. Creating a campus that is inclusive and equitable requires more than simply having different groups of people present. We want to ensure that diverse voices have an equal opportunity to shape the future of Grand Valley,” Kowalski-Braun said. “Through
this position and division, and all of the work that was previously done, we are striving to continue to make the university’s written commitment to diversity a lived value.”

The larger campus community will have the opportunity to meet the finalists October 15-18. Open sessions are being planned on both the Allendale and Pew campuses. Look for more detailed information in the coming weeks on the search Web site and in the Forum.

Greenwood & Associates, Inc., the search firm that is assisting GVSU noted that, while chief diversity officers are becoming more common in higher education, Grand Valley is one of the first regional four-year public universities to hire a person at the senior leadership level. The search firm has led searches for chief diversity officers at institutions like the University of Michigan, University of Georgia, University of California- Berkeley and University of Missouri-Kansas City.