The Office of Faculty Development, Diversity and Engagement (OFDDE), led by Vice Provost Matt Snipp, supports the faculty through a variety of programs and initiatives focused on fostering diversity and engagement. OFDDE also assists in faculty recruitment and retention efforts to ensure that Stanford has an excellent and diverse faculty. The office works with deans, chairs and search committees with outreach efforts in developing talented and diverse applicant pools, and serves as a central resource for all faculty recruits and newly hired faculty in their transition to the Stanford community. 

A Message from the Vice Provost 

The Office of Faculty Development, Diversity and Engagement hopes that you and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy in these exceptional times. We especially appreciate and thank you for your flexibility in switching from in-person to virtual classes and adapting your research programs in the face of the Bay Area's shelter in place orders. 

We are aware that you have many concerns during these changing times. Many of you have young families and undoubtedly school and daycare closures have been a signifcant challenge. Financial worries also may arise because a spouse or partner may be unable to work or has lost a job. Some of you may be wondering about the status of your tenure review or re-appointment. Others may be needing mental health support for themselves or a loved one. Please visit the OFD COVID-19 Resources and keep in mind the services of the Faculty Staff Help Center and the WorkLife Office, albeit limited by current public health ordinances. 

In order to better support you at this time, we are asking for your feedback as our office is actively working together with our campus partners and University leadership to address your needs and issues. In the coming weeks we also hope to host informational webinars to address some of these concerns. Please use the link above to contact us, or email: facultydevelopment@stanford.edu.

Announcement: The Inaugural Faculty Women's Forum Awards 

The Faculty Women’s Forum presented the Outstanding Leader Award to Jisha Menon, an associate professor of theater and performance studies, and the Outstanding Sponsor Award to Rebecca Aslakson, an associate professor of medicine and of anesthesiology 

RUHA BENJAMIN joins the Community Hour on Sunday, July 12 at 1pm PST

As we continue to grapple with these challenging times and seek spaces to discuss racial injustice in America, I am happy to announce that Professor Ruha Benjamin, Associate Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, will be our special guest on the Community Hour. Please contact Allyson Hobbs if you would like to join this discussion. 

From Professor Benjamin's website:

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University where I study the social dimensions of science, technology, and medicine, race and citizenship, knowledge and power. I am also the founder of the JUST DATA Lab, and a Faculty Associate in the Center for Information Technology Policy, Program on History of Science, Center for Health and Wellbeing, Program on Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Department of Sociology. I serve on the Executive Committees for the Program in Global Health and Health Policy and Center for Digital Humanities.

My first book, People’s Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier (Stanford University Press 2013), investigates the social dimensions of stem cell science with a particular focus on the passage and implementation of a “right to research” codified in California. My second book, Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (Polity 2019) examines the relationship between machine bias and systemic racism, analyzing specific cases of “discriminatory design” and offering tools for a socially-conscious approach to tech development. I also edited a volume titled Captivating Technology: Race, Carceral Technoscience, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life (Duke University Press 2019), which brings together an incredible set of scholars to explore the interplay between innovation and containment across a wide array of social arenas, past and present. Finally, my next book project is tentatively titled The Emperor’s New Genes: Borders, Belonging, and Bioethics Beyond the Genome. It is a multi-sited investigation of how human population genomics reflects, reinforces, and sometimes challenges sociopolitical distinctions such as race, caste, and citizenship, focusing on initiatives in the US, South Africa, and India.

Taken together, this body of work addresses debates about how science and technology shape the social world and how people can, should, and do engage technoscience, grappling all the while with the fact that what may bring health and longevity to some may threaten the dignity and rights of others.

I arrived here by way of a winding road that has snaked through South Central Los Angeles; Conway, South Carolina; Majuro, South Pacific, and Swaziland, Southern Africa. I come from many Souths, and I tend to bring this perspective, of looking at the world from its underbelly, to my analysis.