Office for Equity and Diversity

Dear New Pirates,

It is my pleasure to welcome you to East Carolina University. The Office for Equity and Diversity (OED) would like to serve as a resource for your success during your time with the institution. It is our belief that all community members—faculty, staff, and students—contribute to creating an inclusive and diverse working, learning, and living environment. Specifically, through the curriculum, research, community-university partnerships and programs, you are instrumental in carrying out the University's mission. Without you and your leadership, we could not achieve the institution's commitments to maximize student success, to serve the public, and to lead regional transformation.

The scope of the Office encompasses institutional equity and diversity functions and involves education, intervention, compliance, consulting, programming, special initiatives, outreach and assessment. OED provides leadership in the university's efforts to foster a welcoming and inclusive environment through policy and practice. The Office also promotes an environment of respect and inclusion for all members of the university community in addition to promoting equity for faculty, staff, students, and visitors in educational opportunity, programming, initiatives, and employment.

Administrators in this Office monitor institutional data and practices in support of the principles of diversity and equity so that these guiding principles are applied and assessed institutionally on all levels, including but not limited to, administrative, academic, budgetary, and strategic fronts. OED programs and services of the Office are available to faculty, staff, and students. In an effort to further the goals and vision of equity and diversity at the university, OED supports a number of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) to create and enhance opportunities for employee engagement around affinity groups.

The current ERGs are:

• American Indian Faculty and Staff Group
• Chinese Association of ECU Faculty, Staff and Friends
• Chancellor's Committee on the Status of Women
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Faculty and Staff Group
• Organization of African American Faculty
• Organization of African American Staff

Please visit our website at www.ecu.edu/oed to learn more about our educational offerings, upcoming programs and initiatives, required educational modules, and institutional efforts to advance diversity and perceptions of its impact at ECU. I invite you to contact the Office to explore ways that we can support you in your success and assist you in advancing diversity in your role at ECU.  I look forward to meeting you personally and wish you great success here at ECU.

Sincerely,

LaKesha Alston Forbes
Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity
Title IX Coordinator and 504 Compliance Officer 
alstonl@ecu.edu