Stony Brook University (SBU) will receive a $957,000 donation from the State University of New York (SUNY) to put toward increasing faculty diversity.
Provided over a three-year period, the funding will support the salaries of six specific faculty members at the university.
Dr. Jarvis WatsonThe donation is part of SUNY’s larger PRODIG (Promoting Recruitment, Opportunity, Diversity, Inclusion and Growth) initiative, which aims to recruit and retain up to 1,000 early-to-mid-career professors from underrepresented groups by 2030.
In addition to supporting faculty salaries, the program focuses on building an educational pipeline by identifying and supporting talented, minority students in high school in the hopes that they will become the next generation of diverse faculty.
“PRODIG is New York’s commitment toward investing necessary resources in increasing the structural diversity within our faculty. This initiative has not only provided a pathway for us to recruit and hire diverse faculty,” said Dr. Jarvis Watson, interim chief diversity officer at SBU. “It serves as a catalyst for academic leaders from Stony Brook sites from Manhattan to Montauk, to work collaboratively and intentionally to create an inclusive and equitable learning environment.”
