Diverse perspectives enhance academic excellence and innovation. We reject on principle attempts to eliminate diversity of experience and thought. View our mission statement for more details.

As part of this advancement, PBS is committed to establishing a culture of collaboration, mutual respect, cooperation, professionalism, ethical behavior, and harmonious relationships between and among administrators, faculty, students, staff, and alumni.

Advancement will occur across three dimensions of diversity including:

Departmental Structures

The way we structure our department impacts our ability to accomplish this work.

1. We strive to recruit, retain, and affirm faculty, staff, students (graduate and undergraduate), and postdoctoral fellows from across a wide range of historically underrepresented backgrounds.
2. We create departmental leadership that reflects diverse perspectives.
3. We strive for continuous improvement at the departmental level and beyond, into our communities.

Curriculum and Training

Diverse perspectives enrich the learning environment, which leads to the formulation of cutting-edge innovations that are then disseminated to benefit communities near and far.

1. Our new undergraduate curriculum (2025) will embed DEI in every module
2. We are increasing representation of diverse voices and perspectives in our course materials.
3. Active research in the department spanning our areas of study is increasingly focused on issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice.

Climate

Since 2019, we regularly reflect and evaluate ourselves through an annual survey on departmental climate.

1. Updated our hiring and recruitment practices to create equity and transparency.
2. Established an ombuds committee to facilitate clearer and safer mechanisms to report and respond to grievances.
3. Redesigned our merit review process to make it fully transparent and to promote equity across roles, ranks, and dimensions of social identity.
4. We strategize proper hand-offs of initiatives to new leaders when they arrive and the development of a layered understanding of how to evaluate progress, success, and ongoing challenges.