EDICT - the PSD EDI Coordination Team (Faculty) | Physical Sciences Division

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Coordination Team (EDICT)

The PSD Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Coordination Team (EDICT) is comprised of faculty representatives from across the Division’s departments and institutes who share the view that equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts play an essential role in academia.

Vision: EDICT aspires to be a University of Chicago pioneer for its approach to equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Mission: To formulate and implement strategies to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion within each unit and to recommend policies to the PSD that foster a climate of support and respect.

The pursuit of scientific discovery is an inherently collaborative enterprise — one that benefits from a diversity of perspectives, experiences, and approaches to research questions. To achieve the University's core mission of academic excellence, we must attract the best people, whatever their background, to join our scientific community. To be successful, the PSD must be recognized as a community open to people from diverse backgrounds where their achievements will be evaluated without bias, including historical and societal biases. These aims align with the broader goals of the University as outlined by our President and Provost.

Individuals are routinely evaluated within the University by groups with specific expertise, including admissions, hiring, and promotion committees. EDI efforts recognize that because these efforts require human judgment, they are subject to human biases. It is incumbent upon all of us, therefore, to educate ourselves in order to be aware of and confront these biases.

In addition to increasing the diversity of new members of the PSD, EDI efforts are designed to help provide support and a sense of belonging within our community to people from a wide variety of backgrounds. We believe that fostering such an environment requires deliberate effort and thoughtful new approaches to building and supporting the community of scholars in the Physical Sciences Division.