About
History
In April 2022, the Rev. Canon Hugh Page Jr. was appointed as the inaugural vice president for institutional transformation and advisor to the president. This appointment launched the Office of Institutional Transformation.
“This is an exciting step in the University’s ongoing commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, and I am honored to be the first person selected for this new role,” Page said at the time of his appointment. “We must be intentional and creative in investing our energies and resources if we are more fully to become an inclusive and welcoming community—one where a commitment to justice and love animates all transformational endeavors.”
The office quickly expanded to include Tim Adams, executive assistant, and Eve Kelly, associate director of strategic initiatives and senior advisor. A mission and vision were also established:
- Mission—In collaboration with campus partners, the Office of Institutional Transformation will lead and catalyze Notre Dame’s efforts to enhance inclusive excellence as a premier global Catholic research University, fostering a culture of belonging where all can thrive.
- Vision—Responding to the Gospel’s timeless call, the Office of Institutional Transformation will serve as a wellspring for the University’s commitment to justice, equity, and love, at Notre Dame and beyond.
Among the team’s first endeavors was closely reviewing the many diversity, equity, and inclusion activities already established on campus and determining which had been most successful. Those charged with overseeing DEI efforts in their local units were also invited into a community of practice dedicated to the shared labor of building a local instantiation of the beloved community at Notre Dame. As our work continues, the Office of Institutional Transformation will continue to engage in four key areas: strengthening the community of those doing DEI work on our campus; improving communication among faculty, staff, students, alums, and friends of the University about what we are doing to foster inclusion and welcome; engaging in collaborative projects with other units on campus; and building partnerships through information sharing.
Find out more about our ongoing efforts.
Strategic Framework for Advancing Diversity
The Office of Institutional Transformation honors the mandate set forth by the Board of Trustees Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Notre Dame: A Strategic Framework (2021). The document offers five guideposts—increasing representation, strengthening a culture of inclusion and belonging, institutional accountability, being a force for good in the world, and commitment of adequate resources to change-related initiatives—that animate the work of our office and provide parameters for all of our activities. Read the strategic framework.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Institutional Transformation at the University of Notre Dame: A Brief Statement of Principles
The University recognizes the urgent need to be intentional in constituting itself as a community of discovery and learning in which diverse voices are present and heard, and we develop an awareness of and sensitivity to those who are marginalized in any way. Through our recruitment, engagement, and retention efforts (for students, faculty, and staff); curriculum (undergraduate, graduate, and professional), strategies for institutional advancement; teaching; research; and social outreach initiatives, we seek to realize these aspirations.
Catholic Social Teaching gives us principles that guide us in the kind of community we want to build at Notre Dame: the call to respect for the dignity of every person, to create a community in which all can flourish, and to live in solidarity with all, and particularly the most vulnerable.1 Moreover, the University’s mission statement charges us to be a place: where “the various lines of Catholic thought may intersect with all the forms of knowledge found in the arts, sciences, professions, and every other area of human scholarship and creativity”; and that “requires, and is enriched by, the presence and voices of diverse scholars and students.” It also asks us to develop “a disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice, and oppression that burden the lives of so many.”
Furthermore, the University seeks to bring together and nurture individuals whose life ways, intellectual interests, spiritualities, and vocational aspirations reflect the richness of the Catholic tradition and the breadth of the human family. This objective is iterative and subject to regular assessment. Specific priorities will be informed by the guidelines offered in Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Notre Dame: A Strategic Framework (2021), ongoing community discernment, and allowances made by state and federal regulations.2
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1 See Notre Dame Principles of Diversity and Inclusion at https://diversity.nd.edu/together-at-notre-dame/ (accessed
03 March 2023).
2 Quotations are taken from the University of Notre Dame’s “Mission Statement” — see
https://www.nd.edu/about/mission/ (downloaded 31 October 2022).