he University of Chicago’s Council of the University Senate approved a new Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity (RDI) at its meeting on Feb. 22. The new interdisciplinary department will be a home for ambitious scholarship on concepts that have helped shape the modern world and continue to reverberate in contemporary thought, culture and policy.
“The approved plan emerged from a process among our faculty in which strongly differing points of view have been put forth, through which many people changed their minds as they listened and engaged, and by which the proposal itself evolved in response to ideas of colleagues,” said President Paul Alivisatos and Provost Ka Yee C. Lee in a message to the University community. “We look forward to working with the Division of Social Sciences, as well as faculty, students, alumni and friends of the University as we build for the success of this new department.”
“This outcome is the culmination of years of dedicated collaboration and discussion among faculty and students across the University,” said two of the faculty leaders of the proposal, Adom Getachew, Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of Political Science and the College; and Leora Auslander, the Arthur and Joann Rasmussen Professor in Western Civilization in the College and Professor of European Social History. “Our collective work has produced an original approach that will benefit our colleagues, students and this field of study as a whole. We are deeply grateful to everyone who has contributed to this process.”
At the University of Chicago, the proposal of a new academic department is a faculty-driven process. The Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity, which will have its academic home in the Division of the Social Sciences (SSD), emerged from such a process that began in Autumn 2020. A committee consisting of faculty members and doctoral students from SSD and Humanities studied departments at peer institutions, invited external speakers to help inform the process, and engaged with faculty and students across campus, including colleagues across SSD and Humanities and the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. The discussions included deans and department chairs, students, program directors and other colleagues.
“We took part in hundreds of conversations reflecting an immense diversity of viewpoints. There were many tough questions along the way, and we engaged in good faith, which led to a constructive evolution of the proposal over time. This not only helped gain support for the proposal, it deepened our intellectual vision and the vision for the department,” said faculty committee member Adrienne Brown, an associate professor in the Department of English.
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This story was first published by UChicago News.
