President Andrew Hamilton announced the appointment of Dr. Lisa M. Coleman as NYU’s inaugural Chief Diversity Officer in a university-wide email on May 4. Dr. Coleman will also serve as Senior Vice President for Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation and will commence her role in September 2017.

Coleman is familiar with the university as she earned her doctorate in Social and Cultural Analysis, American Studies from NYU and bears an impressive academic record with three master’s degrees from Ohio State University in African and African American Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Communication Studies.

She also holds extensive experience in the field of diversity and comes to NYU from Harvard, where she served as the first Chief Diversity Officer and Special Assistant to the President from 2010 to earlier this year. During her time at Harvard, she led several initiatives to advance equity, diversity and inclusion across schools and departments, including expanding the offerings and reach of the Disability Services office there. She also worked in a similar capacity at Tufts University from 2007 to 2010, where she was Tufts' first Senior Diversity and Inclusion Officer.

The Chief Diversity Officer search committee was formed in 2016 based on the early recommendations of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Task Force in NYU New York, which was charged with the task of making specific recommendations that the university could enact to ensure that all members feel like a part of the community.

The search committee was co-chaired by NYU Provost Katherine Fleming and Deputy Chief of Staff Tracey Gardner, and consisted of a diverse group of people including students, faculty, administration and external search firm Isaacson, Miller. NYU Abu Dhabi was represented in the committee by Professor May Al-Dabbagh, Assistant Professor of Social Research and Public Policy. She conducted multiple listening sessions over a period of two weeks for faculty in coordination with Hannah Brückner, Vice Provost for Faculty Diversity and staff in collaboration with Tamu Al-Islam, Senior Director of Inclusion and Equity and for students with Alta Mauro, Director of Intercultural Education and Spiritual Life.

“I am really grateful to the role that members of NYUAD’s DEI [Diversity, Equity & Inclusion] taskforce played in facilitating these sessions and to Carol Brandt, Ken Nielsen, Martin Klimke, Hervé Crès and so many others who really took the time and contributed to a more thorough understanding of NYUAD realities,” wrote Al-Dabbagh.

The search committee in New York received a record number of more than 100 applicants. Al-Dabbagh added that the central question for the search committee was whether they would be able to find someone who understood the global nature of NYU and someone who could present a new approach to diversity and inclusion that goes beyond existing models rooted in singular campuses in the U.S..

“Dr. Coleman signaled very strongly that she is committed to better understanding the global nature of NYU as an institution and that she would like to do so by connecting to people — students, faculty, and staff — to hear how they are defining their community and what they want in terms of DEI,” wrote Al-Dabbagh.

The search for a Chief Diversity Officer arose from a very specific context last year when conversations about race and inequality engaged university students all around the U.S.. But what does this appointment mean for NYU Abu Dhabi?

Laura Waltje, class of 2017 and President of the Anchorage Society, shared the unique position that NYUAD faces regarding the diversity situation.

“Our campus in particular ... struggles not only from questions about diversity contained within one nation, but what happens when many cultures meet. A place where we see that especially is in the legal gray areas. As an institution, NYU has a reputation and a responsibility to being queer inclusive. NYUAD is legally and culturally in a trickier position, and yet we are still NYU and we do still position ourselves as a community dedicated to diversity,” wrote Waltje.

Waltje recognized the appointment of Dr. Coleman as a great first step but recommended that the NYUAD administration task someone responsible for diversity and inclusion on our campus, who would report back to Dr. Coleman.

“Given how important diversity is to our mission and to the buzzword of cosmopolitan that has come to define our institution, I would like to see more fore-fronting of action that addresses bias and proactive stances from the administration. Progress is not a cure. There is more work to be done and it only gets done when we all hold each other accountable,” wrote Waltje.

Al-Dabbagh also wrote that she hopes Dr. Coleman will take the time to visit NYUAD and expand on what diversity in the GNU means for those of us who go to a portal campus.

“This does not mean that the impressive diversity of the global network should be used to dilute the genuine grievances of historically underrepresented and excluded groups in the context of the U.S., especially in the current political climate. However, acknowledgement of meaningful difference must also help us escape a simplistic one-size-fits-all or a problematic center-periphery approach to diversity in our global network,” she said.