As a minority faculty member at Boston University, Gene Jarrett feels his colleagues have been very supportive as he has ascended from associate professor of English to associate dean for the humanities in the College of Arts & Sciences.

But Jarrett knows that not all of his fellow minority colleagues feel that support in their own endeavors. That’s why he takes his role a a co-chair of BU’s newly created diversity and inclusion task force seriously. Steve Brady, chair of the Faculty Council, is the other co-chair.

The BU provost office created the task force, which consists of 18 staff members, in August. At the time, President Robert Brown and BU provost Jean Morrison said in a letter that it was formed because the university needed to increase the number of under-represented minorities on staff and to make sure those staff members stayed on the faculty.


This isn’t the first time the university has addressed diversity amongst faculty members. The BU faculty council has compiled reports on diversity and inclusion in recent years. But Jarrett said this year marked the first time that the provost office has become involved, which is why the task force was created. Rather than simply highlight the issues, they want to address them head-on and develop steps to fix them.

To do so, the task force launched a new website last week to encourage staff members to share their experiences with diversity on campus.

The group will compile those personal stories, as well as research about how similar universities recruit and retain diverse faculty members, into interim recommendations that will be submitted to the provost’s office in February 2016. They will submit a full report in May 2016.

Minority professors members made up 6.9 percent of all faculty members in 2013, according to Institutional Research.

In an interview with the university’s student-run newspaper, the Daily Free Press, sophomore Hanaan Yazdi said she worried that a lack of faculty diversity could prevent students from relating to their professors.

“In general, diversity is very important to me just because I feel like it’s important for the professors to bring in different perspectives, but I think it’s also important in terms of relatability to students,’’ Yazdi said. “So if students only ever see professors of a certain race, I feel like they won’t be as likely to see themselves in that position or profession.’’