The D&I office opened in 2020, but the first diversity officer started at UM back in 2018. The assignment: improve the diversity of the students and staff, and help create a more inclusive atmosphere. After five years, in 2023, a special commission, led by emeritus professor Wiebe Bijker, was tasked by the Executive Board with investigating the strengths and weaknesses, and answering the question ‘what next’. During the U-Council meeting in November, Bijker said that his commission “was impressed with everything that had been done so far”.
Open goal
Bijker: “Now the ball is in front of an open goal and the question is, how do you kick it in? We have to move from a creative, pioneering role to stable D&I policy.” The focus is now on two roles: expert and incubator. And make it clear from the start what people can expect from the office. Advice on new initiatives? Yes, but then move the responsibility of embedding and coordinating them elsewhere. The latter previously also fell to the D&I team, but according to Bijker and co. that is not effective and it also costs too much manpower. In fact, the commission feels that the 3.2 FTE currently employed by the office is not enough. There’s too much work, especially regarding communication.
Starting position
The commission didn’t only evaluate the D&I office, it looked at overall D&I policy at UM. The responsibility there lies with supervisors, both at a central and decentralised level, within the faculties and service centres. Bijker hopes for more “responsibility and commitment” from those last two in particular. Furthermore, the letter E for equity should be added to D&I, says the report, in recognition that not everybody has the same starting position. Consider, for example, first-generation students or people with a disability.
Report
Then there’s the question why a report published in 2023 was only discussed in the University Council a year later. That is remarkable. Former diversity officer Constance Sommerey, who became director of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS), explained to the Council that she had wanted to discuss the conclusions in the report behind closed doors first, with a sounding board of deans and directors. That took some time. Subsequently, the D&I Advisory Council was involved. That was in the summer of 2024. “And then I left,” said Sommerey.
Future plan
After Sommerey moved to FASoS, Margriet Schreuders, director of the Student Service Centre, took on the task of developing a future plan together with the D&I team. For example, it was suggested that each faculty and service centre should appoint special DEI officers.
But, asked the U-Council, how do you convince faculty directors and department heads to ensure ‘their people’ actually work on it. According to Rianne Letschert, chair of the Executive Board, guidelines must be developed which all faculties can get started with it. It will then be up to the D&I office to monitor everything – are they being adhered to sufficiently?
At the moment, implementation is too often dependent on the personal opinions of whoever is in charge of a department. In other words, if the ‘boss’ isn’t looking out for it, nothing will change. And that is exactly why everyone should be familiar with it, so that D&I policy has bottom-up support. First awareness, then acceptance, as they say.