MEMORANDUM

To: The Dalhousie University community

Date: January 21, 2015
Re: Strategic initiative on diversity and inclusiveness

Members of the Dalhousie Community,

As you know, on January 9, President Florizone highlighted the important role Dalhousies strategic
initiative on diversity and inclusiveness plays in our work to nurture an inclusive, diverse and respectful
community at Dalhousie.
Charter 5.2 of Dalhousies Strategic Direction 2014-18 states that building a collegial culture grounded in
diversity and inclusiveness is an institutional priority. That work is now underway. We have come
together as a committee with the objective of involving you in helping to advance this priority. Our
committee work, which will be undertaken in partnership with Senate and the broader Dal community,
will both support an inclusive environment proactively and focus on how we can better respond when
members of our community experience misogyny, sexism, racism, ethnocentrism, heterosexism, ableism,
socio-economic disadvantage, colonialism, sexualized violence, harassment or discrimination.
We have been reaching out to various groups on campus who have engaged in this work for a long time
and we will continue that outreach work this week.
We also encourage individual members of the campus community (especially those who think their
perspective is not adequately reflected within current groups on campus) to share your thoughts on how
we can continue our progress toward an inclusive and diverse Dalhousie.
Heres where you can find us to share your ideas anonymously or let us know if you are part of a group
that is working on diversity and inclusiveness at Dalhousie and you have not heard from us.
We expect to complete the outreach portion of our work by February 5, 2015.
Additionally, we are building an online resource of publicly available materials. This resource will
include public reports produced by other universities and related groups in the last five years. We would
also like to profile published work by Dalhousie faculty members that focuses on inclusion.
In terms of next steps, following our outreach work, our receipt of individual comments and our resource
review, we anticipate the release of an implementation plan in late February.
While the work of this university-wide committee is distinct from that of the Presidential Task Force on
Misogyny, Sexism and Homophobia, we anticipate our work will complement that effort.

Sincerely,
Brenda Beagan, Associate Professor, School of Occupational Therapy
Dianne Pothier, Professor of Law Emerita, Schulich School of Law
Gregory Power, Director, MedIT, Faculty of Medicine
Jacqueline Skiptunis, Vice-President, Academic and External, DSU
Katherine Frank, Assistant Vice-President, Human Resources
Kim Brooks, Dean, Schulich School of Law (Outreach Chair)
Mahbubur Rahman, Vice-president, Finance & Operations, DSU
Maya Churbaji, Research and Operations Coordinator, Human Resources
Quenta Adams, Director, Advising and Access Services, Student Services
Samuel Mason, Board Member, South House
Sara Swasson, Native Post Secondary Liaison, Native Post Secondary Education Counselling Unit
Wanda Thomas Bernard, Professor, School of Social Work