Adelphi Proudly Joins the Top 2 Percent of Universities in the Country for Initiatives in Diversity

Adelphi has made significant gains in reaching its Momentum strategic plan goal of becoming a model of diversity and inclusion in the past two years—and now awards like INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine’s Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award are the icing on the cake.

In October 2018, soon after Adelphi received the Heed Award, Perry Greene, Ph.D., vice president for diversity and inclusion, spoke about the importance of that recognition. In 2015, as part of Adelphi President Christine M. Riordan, Ph.D.’s strategic plan, Momentum, he said, “We set out to become a model for diversity and inclusion. The Adelphi community came together and worked hard to make that goal a reality … because it is the right thing to do for students, ourselves and the broader community.”

Here are the achievements in diversity and inclusion that helped Adelphi become one of just four private colleges in New York to win a HEED Award:

• The University’s Fall 2018 first-year class is the second most diverse in our 122-year history—making our overall student body the most diverse it’s ever been. More than 46 percent of that incoming class identify as nonwhite. Twenty-one percent of that class is Hispanic, 9.5 percent black and 12.8 percent Asian/Pacific Islander.
• For the 2017–2018 academic year, Adelphi hired 28 new faculty members, 46 percent of whom are people of color, making Adelphi’s current faculty its most diverse yet. By comparison, 36 percent of new faculty hires were people of color in 2016, 33 percent were in 2015, and 30 percent were in 2014.
• Adelphi’s Horace G. McDonell Science Research Fellowship program was recognized with INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine’s 2018 Inspiring Programs in STEM Award for helping underrepresented groups enter the science, technology, engineering and math fields. Two-thirds of McDonell Fellows have been women, many of whom belong to other underrepresented groups.
• Assisted by Adelphi Board of Trustee member Marc Strachan ’81, Adelphi is endowing four new multicultural scholarships created specifically to help students of color achieve their academic goals at Adelphi. Three will be awarded annually to undergrad students: the Helen Holmes Taylor ’49 Scholarship in Nursing; the Hidden Figures Scholarship for Excellence in Math and Sciences; and the W.E.B. DuBois Scholarship for a student minoring in African, Black and Caribbean Studies. The Frances R. “Fannie Mae” Strachan Award will be presented to an incoming student who has overcome a significant challenge.

• The University also is supporting diversity with #YouAreWelcomeHere scholarships. Adelphi, joining a national movement supporting cultural exchange, will now offer annual, renewable tuition scholarships of $25,000 to two first-year students from abroad, starting with students entering Adelphi in Fall 2019. The recipients cannot be U.S. citizens or permanent residents, must have attended high school outside the United States and must be committed to intercultural learning. Adelphi is one of 57 schools offering #YouAreWelcomeHere scholarships; this campaign began in 2016.
• Adelphi President Christine M. Riordan, Ph.D., was recognized among the Top 25 Women in Higher Education for her diversity initiatives by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.
• Adelphi is over the rainbow about its latest score from the Campus Pride Index, the national rank benchmarking tool that measures an institution’s commitment to LGBTQ+-inclusive policy, program and practice. In growing to 4.5 stars out of a possible 5, Adelphi was named a Premier Campus for its commitment to inclusive LGBTQ+ policies and programs. Thanks to new policies put into motion since Dr. Greene became vice president for diversity and inclusion, that score is up sharply from a 3-star rating two years ago.

“Growing enrollment, growing diversity, growing pride—that has been our story this year,” said Dr. Riordan in her 2018 year-end letter. In her State of the University address last October, she anticipated still more strides in Adelphi’s diversity and inclusion efforts continuing into the new year.

For more about Adelphi’s diversity efforts, see diversity.adelphi.edu.