JEDI - Justice, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

In February, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering held the inaugural meeting of its Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion initiative (JEDI). JEDI works to advance the department’s values of respect, acceptance, fairness, and accountability, and build a community in which the diversity and intersectionality of our members’ identities are recognized, accommodated, and celebrated. The initiative represents a joint effort among faculty, students, and staff, and hosts meetings every two weeks that are open to the entire departmental community. Our current efforts are multipronged: we are evaluating and making transparent our department’s metrics on student experience, recruitment, and retention; we are spearheading the effort to compose a departmental values statement; we are planning and coordinating recruitment and outreach activities to broaden access to graduate school in general and to Cornell’s programs in particular; and we are working to educate ourselves and our community to tackle the challenge of making our communities—small and large—more diverse and inclusive, more just and equitable.