Current Initiatives

Northern’s recently approved Interim Strategic Plan includes diversity, equity, and inclusion as one of the University’s five priority focus areas. The interim plan is meant to highlight strategic work that can be done now through the 2023-24 academic year, which campus leaders believe will be the time period it takes for a new president – expected to be hired in the Fall 2022 semester – to learn enough about the University to begin to guide the campus in the development of a new strategic plan. Information about NMU’s DEI goals and strategies is available here.

Jill Compton, a longtime member of the President’s Committee on Diversity, has agreed to assist Northern with supervising, office management, and planning duties for the Office of Diversity and Inclusion for the 2022-23 academic year. The temporary assignment provides general support for the University’s diversity, equity, and inclusion units until Northern hires a new president, after which a national search for an executive director of DEI is expected to take place. Compton, who is NMU’s internal auditor and director of risk management, will also take the opportunity to review NMU’s DEI-related policies and procedures, financial management of DEI accounts, and compliance with state and federal grants in the DEI areas.

The Diversity Common Reader Program (DCRP) is a semester-long, campus-wide initiative that focuses on reading as a means of social dialogue and change.

Held annually since 2013, this program comprises an interdisciplinary series of events inspired by a nonfiction book that advances discussions of diversity, inclusion, and justice.

Each year, books are distributed free of charge to interested NMU students (on a first-come-first-served basis), and all events are free and open to the public.

This year's diversity common reader is TBD.