Dean’s Ambassadors and Pardee Leadership Meet to Discuss Diversity and Inclusion
On December 9, 2020, the Pardee School Dean’s Ambassadors and the Pardee School’s leadership met to discuss a student-led approach to addressing diversity, inclusion, and justice at the Pardee School and at Boston University. The meeting was called by Dean of the Pardee School Adil Najam, and was also attended by William Grimes, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs; Henrik Selin, Associate Dean for Studies, as well as the Pardee School Student Affairs and Services staff.
In opening, Dean Najam expressed a desire for the Dean’s Ambassadors to live up to their “ambassador” titles and provide advice, guidance, and advocacy to leadership on matters that are important to the school and BU in these most important of times on how to make diversity, inclusion and justice central to the Pardee School in all aspects of its intellectual and community life. To that end, Dean Najam asked the Dean’s Ambassadors to help develop a meaningful and actionable plan that will create deep cultural change within the Pardee School.
The meeting then broke up into smaller groups for an initial brainstorm on ideas and actionable proposals. It was decided that the group will reconvene early in the Spring Semester with the Dean’s Ambassadors after consulting wider circles of students and colleagues to devise a student-driven agenda for elevating the importance of diversity, inclusion and justice issues at the Pardee School.