Building a Just Social Sciences

Working together with this community of committed stakeholders, the initiative will seek not only to transform equity in hiring, admissions, mentorship, and faculty/student support, but also seek to broaden and diversify intellectual horizons for Berkeley and for the public we serve. These times call for comprehensive and systemic solutions that will shift the ways in which we attract, retain/sustain, and support a diverse community of students, faculty, and staff. How do we overcome the “leaky pipelines” that push people out of career pathways in higher education? To do so we use research to identify and address structural biases in hiring, unhealthy and exclusionary climates, and the lack of intellectual diversity that often correlates with narrow understandings of excellent research. Based on our research, we will work with our partners to build new pipelines, and thus have a transformative effect on the makeup of the academy and on the industries that draw from the academy. Over time, the transformation we seek will reverberate/resonatebeyond the academy, into the structures and the ideas that feed careers in law, policy, government, non-profit organizations, and private industry.

Toward a Just Social Sciences recognizes that simply hiring to achieve diversity is inadequate. We must build institutions with the necessary support structures that affirm inclusion and belonging, in addition to diversity. Which bodies and which ideas belong in the world of higher education? Our consortium will undertake a serious and radical (in the sense of getting to the roots) examination of the troubling lack of faculty and student diversity, and acquire the resources that are essential to building and sustaining a vibrant educational and intellectual community. We will identify the ways in which underrepresented minorities and women are directly or indirectly diverted out of undergraduate studies, graduate work, and entrance to the academy, and even more importantly, create new pathways of inclusion.

Launch partners include the Social Science Research Council, Berkeley Economists for Equity, UC Berkeley African American Studies, UC Berkeley Black Alumni Association, UC Berkeley Sociology, the Advertising Research Foundation, the UC Berkeley Women in Leadership Circle, and other experts equally committed to pursuing social justice in higher education.

Led by Dean Raka Ray in close consultation with students, faculty, industry, and philanthropists with the knowledge, experience and commitment needed to foster structural change in higher education. The launch event will feature a discussion panel led by Dean Ray, convene stakeholders, announce our objectives, and discuss areas where we may collaborate and benefit from one other's experience, resources, and commitment.

Mission:

This initiative builds on UC Berkeley's unique positioning as a global engine of teaching, research, economic mobility, and social justice to create a social science that is more inclusive and more oriented towards justice. The Social Sciences seek to understand the institutions, cultures, and structures within which we live. We analyze the effects of these structures, institutions, and cultures on democratic functioning, inequality, and freedom, as well on the stuff of our daily lives -- whom we spend time with, love, work with, and aspire to be like. But this knowledge must have a purpose. The purpose of Toward a Just Social Sciences is to build a community of experienced individuals and organizations who commit to, and are actively engaged in in the pursuit of knowledge for a better, more just and more inclusive world, and who are fiercely committed to fostering collaborations amongst students, faculty, donors, and institutional leaders to develop new thinking and create lasting, structural change.

We invite all individuals, organizations, companies, institutions, and partner academic units focused on removing systemic barriers to success to join this effort.  For information on how you may be listed in our consortium please email socialsciences@berkeley.edu. Partners will be invited to our launch event and ongoing series of programs. They will also receive access to the broader network and to data that inform progress and cutting-edge research that may be employed in our workplaces and daily lives.  The launch event will feature a discussion panel led by Dean Ray, convene stakeholders, announce our objectives, and discuss areas where we may collaborate and benefit from one other's experience, resources, and commitment.

To you need assistance or if you would like to reach out to learn more, email us at socialsciences@berkeley.edu