Nearly a year ago, Christopher Manning was appointed as the Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer, with the expectation of advancing racial equity, inclusion and diversity at USC. According to some students, despite addressing some of the university’s major concerns, the list of issues to be addressed in Manning’s agenda keeps growing.
Manning officially joined the USC senior leadership team on March 1, 2021 after an extensive, four-month long national search. His position became a priority as a result of President Carol Folt’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and the provost’s task force on racial equity, diversity and inclusion (REDI).
Shortly after Manning was hired, the REDI task force — composed of students, faculty and staff — curated a report, for the President Board of Trustees. According to Quinn Anex-Ries, the director of Diverse Equity Advocacy for the Graduate Student Government, they recommended action items to advance DEI and REDI initiatives at USC.
“It’s not simply a matter of who is represented at the university or who is recruited at the university, but also about bigger institutions and systemwide problems or lack of support,” Anex-Ries said.
This report became the basis of Manning’s DEI efforts for the university.
“It was really clear to me that USC was ready to have the resources to try to implement the change that it wanted to see in itself,” Manning said. “Two of those areas of change were around DEI training and also diversifying faculty.”
Some students, though, have expressed disappointment with the chief’s inaction since last year.
William Henry, the executive director of the Queer and Ally Student Assembly (QuASA), said the D.E.I. office is yet to reach out to their organization.
“It’s like a sin of omission with queer students, like often we’re not addressed or thought about,” he said. “There’s a real lack of good gender neutral housing for freshmen on campus.”
According to Henry, the only other option is in Cardinal Gardens, which is isolating, being removed from other freshmen. Having grown up in a conservative area, Henry was initially impressed by the university’s DEI initiatives, but he said has not seen concrete change in his last four years on campus.
Henry acknowledged the difficulty of adhering to students’ individual needs, but he thinks a queer-friendly freshman experience, in terms of gender-neutral housing and gender-neutral bathrooms, is a great place to start.
Thus far, Manning has launched two pilot programs. One is the Trojans for Excellence Program, an initiative in which D.E.I. trainers will be available to anyone at the university who wants to address gender, race, disability, and D.E.I at large in their professional lives. The second is the Search Advocates Program, which is aimed at fostering better understanding between faculty and students.
During his first months as chief officer, Manning said he conducted qualitative interviews with over 100 members of the USC community including students, faculty, staff and alumni. An external company coded this interview data to identify themes about diversity that required Manning’s attention.
“[He] is always very collaborative, always very responsive to understanding what the student needs are,” said Kavita Rai, the Chief Diversity Officer of the USC Undergraduate Student Government. “I worked really closely with him on various Title IX policies.”
She says they have talked about the possibility of a centralized reporting system and a bias intervention team, among other long-term projects which can’t be implemented “overnight.”