In April 2016 at the invitation of the Obama Administration’s White House Council on Women and Girls, The Ohio State University joined a national consortium to develop new opportunities for scholarly research that closes the gap in our knowledge around women and girls of color who will constitute more than half of the U.S. female population by 2050. OSU joined the Collaborative to Advance Equity through Research, along with 50 colleges, seminaries, research institutions. These institutions have already pledged more than $75 million to the initiative during the next five years.
Member Institutions pledge to:
- Publicly acknowledge the critical need for increased research investigating women and girls of color and the value this research holds in advancing equity.
- Provide new or continued support for research that engages and addresses women and girls of color.
- Conduct an institutional review of existing research and sharing results of the self-study with the collaborative to establish a landscape of scholarship, share best practices and identify areas that need more attention.
Nationally, the Collaborative is led by the Anna Julia Cooper Center at Wake Forest University.
The Collaborative @OSU is committed to building a research and learning community focused on women and girls of color. Two university leaders, Vice Provost for Diversity and Inclusion Sharon A. Davies and Dr. Wendy G. Smooth, associate professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, are coordinating our efforts to support current faculty who already work on this issue and are focused on growing a community of scholars in this area.
“Building and enhancing the research pipeline on women and girls of color is another demonstration of how we are working to advance excellence through diversity” Bruce McPheron, executive vice president and provost.