Diversity Committee & Director Search

Dear Pratt community:

For many of us, the past few months have brought a new sense of urgency to the important work of fighting racism and ensuring equity both in our society and in our own communities. At Duke and Pratt, we have heard both impactful observations of areas in we can improve and thoughtful ideas for actions we can take to live out our firm dedication to diversity, inclusion, equity, and community for students, faculty and staff alike.

As we begin the 2020-21 academic year, we are seeking nominations and applications from Pratt students, faculty, postdocs and staff to help guide these efforts to bring about transformative positive change by serving on the school-wide Pratt Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Community (DEIC) Committee. 

Please consider nominating yourself, a friend, or colleague for this committee, which is vitally important for our community.  To nominate a colleague, please send their name to Susan Bonifield, susan.bonifield@duke.edu, who will reach out to each nominee encouraging them to apply.  To nominate yourself, please express your interest by Friday, August 7. 

As many of you know, in 2017, the Pratt School hired our first Director of Diversity and Inclusion, Dr. Johnna Frierson, and formed a school-wide diversity committee of students, staff and faculty. We were sad to lose Dr. Frierson to a well-deserved position in the School of Medicine last year, and we are now recruiting a new Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. We are grateful to Dr. Frierson and the committee for their hard work that resulted in new initiatives such as the Engineering a Community mentoring program, successful recruitment events for underrepresented students, education and training for our community, and much more.

Although the pandemic has halted many of Duke’s usual hiring processes, we are working closely with the University to continue our search for the Director position given its importance to our school, and anticipate relaunching our national search to identify strong candidates in the next few weeks.

Thank you in advance for your support of diversity, equity, inclusion and community, and for applying yourself or encouraging your colleagues who are passionate about this work to apply to the DEIC committee. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact either of us.

Nan Jokerst
Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives

Susan Bonifield
Sr. Associate Dean for Administration & Finance