The University of Maryland’s 10 year Strategic Plan for Diversity, Transforming Maryland: Expectations for Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion, continues Maryland on the “path toward realizing our vision of being a “model multiracial, multicultural, and multigenerational academic community.” The plan sets forth goals and strategies in six core areas: Leadership; Climate; Recruitment and Retention (of outstanding faculty, staff and students); Education; Research and Scholarship; and Community Engagement. The first step in the implementation of the Strategic Plan for Diversity was to name a strategic leader of diversity for the campus. After an intensive five month process, University of Maryland (UMD) President Wallace Loh name University alumna Kumea Shorter-Gooden, Ph.D. as the University's first-ever Chief Diversity Officer. She assumed the role in 2012.
As the first Chief Diversity Officer, Dr. Shorter-Gooden plays a vital role in implementing and unifying diversity goals and programs.
In this capacity, Dr. Shorter-Gooden oversees that newly-created Office of Diversity and Inclusion, which assumed the responsibilities of Office of Human Relations Programs with focuses on multicultural and diversity education programs. It is her job “to foster constructive interactions, to help unify the many diversity resources on the campus and to build on them in support of our ambitious strategic plan for diversity.”
Upon her arrival to campus, Dr. Shorter-Gooden spoke at the Lavender Graduation ceremony in 2012. Speaking on behalf of the University, she reaffirmed its focus on diversity and its culture as a key to educating and preparing students to succeed in an exceedingly diverse workforce and community, while recognizing that there is “still work to be done.”
Two years after her appointment she continues to fill a much-needed role in having “senior leadership to provide voice to diversity issues.” In an article on the University's Diversity Plan in the Profiles in Diversity Journal, Dr. Shorter-Gooden said that “I see my job as helping to pull together the pieces, helping to align the various offices and initiatives so we can really harness the strengths and the capacities that were set out [in the Strategic Diversity Plan]." Since starting in this role, she has done just that through increasing enrollment and retention rates of minority students and faculty, the creation of the Rise Above Campaign, the creation of the Diversity Advisory Council, the merger of the Office of Diversity Education and Compliance (ODEC) with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion among many other actions that further unify the diversity initiatives on campus.