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Email Archive

January 9, 2020

Subject: Community Meeting with Provost Drell

Stanford Wants to Hear from Black Alumni 

Hello Family,

 

Happy New Year! As we move into this new decade, do you know what Stanford is doing to radically modify its approach to better address the “mission to advance human welfare” in today’s rapidly changing world? Do you know how Stanford intends to be one of the leading institutions of higher education in fully embracing and understanding the power of diversity and inclusion? It’s not just a catch phrase. Stanford is taking its place as a leading institution seriously and has integrated a new initiative called IDEAL into its long-range plan to institutionalize a series of programs that will lead to “outcomes that benefit the broadest cross-section of our diverse society.”

IDEAL stands for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access in a Learning environment. IDEAL seeks to maintain Stanford’s status as a premier institution for research and education by moving the institution culturally into the future. We highly encourage you to spend a few minutes to learn more about Stanford's vision with the IDEAL initiative here. We think you will be pleased with what you read.

We need your valuable input! Provost Persis Drell wants Stanford Black Alumni to submit questions to her in order to get our thoughts about the IDEAL initiative. Provost Drell has invited leaders from Stanford’s national alumni clubs of color to engage directly with her in a conversation about IDEAL on January 24th on campus. During this session, Provost Drell will respond to questions curated directly from our respective club memberships.

To join the conversation please submit your questions here by Friday, January 17, 2020.

The SNBAA board of directors will review all submissions and prepare a slate of representative questions that will be posed during the session.

Over the past year SNBAA and other national alumni clubs of color have been engaging with Stanford’s administration regarding a variety of issues including SNBAA’s Board of Directors' response to the “noose incident.” You can help us ensure that our voices are heard and that the programs from this initiative are not just given “lip-service”.

 

Last October, members of SNBAA’s board engaged with Provost Drell to discuss ways in which we could establish a long-term partnership to address the needs and interests of the Stanford Black Community in the context of Stanford's evolving thought process and action. This in-person meeting with Provost Drell on January 24th is a direct outcome of that outreach. Our immediate past Co-Presidents Alma Derricks ’88 and Raquel Rall ’04 will serve as SNBAA's representatives for this conversation with Provost Drell.

As the results generated by IDEAL will impact our communities, Stanford is committed to keeping alumni of color informed about this work and their progress. To that end, the Drell conversation will be recorded and a link to the session will be shared with all community members shortly after the meeting. In addition, IDEAL will be updating a dashboard on certain key diversity metrics on a quarterly basis, showing the composition of the community. Please view the current IDEAL dashboard here.

 

Thank you in advance for your support and participation in this important dialogue. Don’t be silent. Let your voice be heard!

 

Christopher Gourrier and Mackenzie Tudor

2020 SNBAA Co-Presidents

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