Meet Chief Diversity Officer Mary Grace Almandrez
Chief Diversity Officer, Mary Grace Almandrez, discusses her inspirational career. Photo courtesy of Brown University.
Mary Grace Almandrez, the chief diversity officer (CDO) at the University of Rhode Island, an unusual favorite place on campus: the second floor of Quinn Hall.
To most, Quinn Hall is just another academic building: home of the Graduate School, classroom spaces, old bathrooms and a large auditorium. But to Almandrez, it is a place on campus that fosters hope.
“That’s actually where I teach my graduate courses,” Almandrez said. “There’s something special about when class starts and there’s a group of emerging, rising stars who are going to be working in higher education, and when I see students lean in their seats, for example, or they’re really engaged in conversations, even with the masks on, people are really animated and really engaged.”
Almandrez, CDO and associate vice president, started at URI as a professor and ultimately took over the position of interim CDO in early 2019. Preceding her time at URI, Almandrez held various positions at Brown University including director of what is now the Brown Center for Students of Color, as well as Dean of Students.
A Filipino-American, Almandrez came to the United States as a child and has been an activist since the early days of her undergraduate education.
“A lot of what I was working on, which is interesting, are the same issues that college students are contending with today,” she said. “At that time we were looking at affirmative action, hate crimes legislation and bias-incident reporting on campus. We were also looking at ethnic studies and institutionalizing that as a program or as a major on campus. I find it interesting that the issues I contend with as a [CDO] are very similar to the issues I faced as a student.”
Almandrez held the interim CDO position at URI for over a year before being named the permanent CDO in March after undergoing the University’s formal hiring and search process.
Despite all of the formalities, Almandrez knew that her interview for the permanent position actually had begun the day she was named interim CDO.
“From the very beginning, whether I was going to pursue applying for the permanent position or not, I already knew that there was already scrutiny and examination of my performance thus far,” Almandrez said. “So it was important for me to, from the very beginning, to just own that it could be both awkward and advantageous to be an internal candidate.”
After getting her doctorate from the University of San Francisco in organization and leadership, Almandrez was torn over what she wanted to pursue further in her career in high administration: teaching or administration.
Ultimately, Almandrez opted for focusing her work in administration. When she was away from it, she missed being able to work on diverse teams and problem solve together.
Since her arrival to the University last year, Almandrez has worked to address many of the issues surrounding diversity at the University. In her first three months as interim CDO, she held a series of listening tours with students, faculty, staff, colleges and organizations throughout both the Kingston and Providence campuses in order to fully understand the diversity and inclusion needs throughout URI.
Since the listening tours, Almandrez has worked on developments such as recruiting and retaining Black faculty and staff, implementing a University Diversity Council and the campus-wide climate assessment set to take place in 2021.
The climate survey developed by Rankin and Associates Consulting, an outside consulting firm that has conducted hundreds of campus climate surveys for other institutions, will be launched in February to the entire community. It will help the University understand the strategic areas in which community members see a need for improvement and help pinpoint the general sense of diversity, equity and inclusion on campus at the time. The results will be used to help URI outline their goals for their strategic plan in the upcoming year.
“The question people kept asking is ‘did you consider that the survey would take place in the midst of COVID?’” Almandrez said. “Absolutely, we actually did. We realize that, is there ever a perfect time? Even if we weren’t in the midst of COVID, I actually think the issues we’re going to hear about in the survey actually were already there.”
Joanna Ravello, director of community and organizational development, works closely with Almandrez in the Office of Community, Equity and Diversity (CED) to expand diversity initiatives throughout campus.
“One of the strengths that Dr. Almandrez brings to our campus, our community, is that she listens very well,” Ravello said. “She’s also able to see how we can collaborate and cross-pollinate ideas and how we can be more collaborative across campuses, across issues of concern.”
Almandrez and the CED office, alongside the Senior Leadership team, are currently working to implement diversity coordinators in each college, as well as looking forward to the campus climate survey early next year.
Throughout all of her work across URI’s various campuses, departments and programs, Almandrez continues to look forward to those Thursday classes in Quinn Hall where each week she sees the future of diversity and equity right before her eyes.