In an email sent to the Georgetown community on Tuesday, President John DeGioia and Provost James O’Donnell gave some updates about the University’s Diversity and Inclusiveness Initiative.

Last year, faculty, student, and staff working groups recommended a variety of methods to increase diversity on campus, which the University began to adopt during the spring semester. This most recent email outlines Georgetown’s plan to continue promoting “community in diversity.”

After the jump, we’ve listed their updates and the full email.

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Georgetown’s Diversity Initiative working groups have made their verdicts—change should come to the Hilltop.

Last night, Provost James O’Donnell sent out an e-mail that listed the recommendations of the Academic, Student Life, Admissions and Recruitment working groups. This year, the three groups were tasked by President John DeGioia to “develop recommendations about how Georgetown can strength our approach to creating and sustaining a diverse and inclusive undergraduate community.”

Out of all the suggestions, highlights include the establishment of an oft-debated diversity requirement, offering a major in African-American studies, a “Diversity Fellows” program, and a push to hire more minority faculty members.

Below, Vox has the complete rundown.

The Academic Working Group suggests:

• Creating a diversity requirement “as part of the General Education requirements for all undergraduates.”
• “[Increasing] the numbers of minority faculty throughout the University,” specifically targeting expansion within the departments of African-American studies, Hispanic/Latino studies, and Asian-American studies.
• Establishing an African-American studies major, to be “followed by” the development of Asian-American and Hispanic/Latino programs.
• A year-long colloquium that brings together “distinguished academics and intellectuals from within and outside our University to discuss and debate current best practices in the study of race, ethnicity, and culture.”
• Focus on “inclusive teaching and learning” by promoting current academic programs and opportunity within the University, such as the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship

The Student Life Working Group suggests:

• Creating a Diversity Fellows program that would offer paid positions to student who are interested in “leading diversity and inclusion efforts in key administrative departments and student initiatives.”
• Expanding the “A Different Dialogue” program, which began in Spring 2010.
• Building a “diversity portal” on the University’s web page to provide the Georgetown community about diversity-related events and information.

After the jump, read the Admission Working Group’s recommendations, plus the complete e-mail.

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The majority of this week’s meeting of the Georgetown University Student Association Senate was spent considering the arguments of Georgetown, Divest!, which is pushing the University to divest from companies that profit from human rights violations in Israel and Palestine. The Senate also spent some time debating the Academic Working Group’s diversity requirement recommendation, but did not vote on any legislation at the meeting. Here’s the wrap:

Georgetown, Divest!: Jackson Perry (COL ’12) presented the case Georgetown, Divest! is making to the Senate in the early part of the meeting. (Disclosure: Perry is an assistant photo editor for the Voice). Perry told the senators that his group has come to the conclusion that the University has exercised little oversight over the companies it has invested in, and has no process to ensure that the University was investing only in socially responsible companies which lived up to the University’s Jesuit principles.

Perry cited an article written by the Voice‘s Cole Stangler saying, “While divestment is non-negotiable to administrators, it appears that Georgetown’s Jesuit and Catholic identity is.” Perry said his group was focusing on pushing the University to institute a process that allows it to invest in a socially responsible way, and to specifically promise not to invest in eight companies selected by Georgetown, Divest! as particularly egregious in perpetuating human rights violations in Israel and Palestine. Several senators seemed to take issue with the group’s focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and on eight companies in particular.

“There seems to be a political agenda here as well,” GUSA Senator Nick Troiano (COL ’11) said.

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On Wednesday afternoon, Georgetown University faculty members and students met at the second town hall about the curriculum and faculty hiring changes recommended by the Academic Working Group last week. While there were only a handful of faculty members who were not associated with the Academic Working Group present at the town hall, students filled the rest of the seats in White Gravenor 208, and some stood at the back and sides of the room.

Chaired by Professors Eusebio Mujal-León of the Government Department and Veronica Salles Reese, the Director of the Spanish and Portuguese, the Academic Working Group is one of three working groups that President John DeGioia established last spring in response to the Student Commission for Unity to increase diversity at Georgetown University. The group is made up of seven students and eleven faculty members.

“We proposed three major avenues,” said Mujal-León, who began the meeting by summarizing the recommendations proposed in the Academic Working Group’s report. “[The first leg] is increasing or extending the hires [of faculty] who are of underrepresented persons in society. The second leg is placing these hires in departments in order to enhance African American studies, Latino Hispanic studies, and Asian American Studies. The third leg is a diversity requirement for students.”

In his introduction, Mujal-León acknowledged that there were still disagreements between students and faculty on some recommendations within the Academic Working Group. He also addressed the proposed diversity requirement for the curriculum, which is contested by many students and faculty members.

The Academic Working Group currently suggests that the core curriculum should be amended to include two courses that have a “diversity stamp.”

Salles Reese explained the requirement, by contrasting it with other required courses at Georgetown, like theology. While “theology is part of a department,” she said, “diversity has different definitions to different groups. A historian may see ‘diversity’ differently than someone who is a sociology professor.”

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