New WPI diversity officer hopes to bring all voices to the table

Michelle Jones-Johnson joined Worcester Polytechnic Institute as vice president for talent development and chief diversity officer in July. She previously worked for Aetna as senior human resources business partner.

PHOTO/NATHAN FISKE Michelle Jones-Johnson joined Worcester Polytechnic Institute as vice president for talent development and chief diversity officer in July. She previously worked for Aetna as senior human resources business partner.

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By Laura Finaldi

In Worcester Polytechnic Institute's three-year strategic plan, there is a passage that says integrating diversity more holistically into campus life could be the main driving force behind bringing the technical school where it needs to be. The main goal of the strategic plan, which is in its second year, is to remain competitive by leveraging WPI's scientific and technical expertise to figure out ways to impact the world. WPI pledged, through the plan, to redouble efforts to recruit and retain diverse students, faculty and staff and to institute specific programs that will integrate diversity into every part of student life – to the point where it's part of every conversation.

How will WPI get there? That's what Michelle Jones-Johnson is charged with finding out.

“When you think about talent development, you're not only thinking about how you develop people in terms of your skills and qualities, but you're also thinking, 'How do you leverage who they are as a human being?'” Jones-Johnson said. “We need to make sure we create the environment in our culture throughout the institution where people are very comfortable with that.”

Jones-Johnson, who has 23 years of varied experiences in human resources, in July became WPI's vice president for talent development and chief diversity officer. In her newly-created position, Jones-Johnson is not only responsible for human resources duties like recruitment and employee development, but is also charged with creating and spearheading a plan to make WPI more diverse and inclusive.

“We have a great desire to increase diversity within the workforce, and particularly for faculty because we know for our underrepresented students, having a role model in front of them can make all the difference,” said Kristin Tichenor, senior vice president at WPI.

In 2015, WPI's student body of 6,047 was made up of 33 percent women and 43 percent minorities, according to the school's website, an increase from 27 percent women and 29 percent minorities in 2008.

International students represent 13 percent of the study body, and they represent over 80 different countries such as China and Greece. Jones-Johnson will focus on faculty and staff.

Data from the Federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System shows the university's full-time instructional staff was 27 percent women for 2014-2015.

Though her concrete long-term plan is still in the works, Jones-Johnson said she expects it will include strategic efforts around attracting women and underrepresented minorities to come to work at WPI.

A place at the table

Jones-Johnson sees her job as holistic, and thinks talent development and diversity go hand in hand. That's because talent development means helping people reach their full potential, and diversity work means creating the environment in which people feel they can thrive, she said.

Jones-Johnson's position was developed out of the former vice president for human resources job.

“We've been working for years to grow diversity of our student body, and recognized that we needed to bring in expertise to help us cultivate diversity within staff and faculty population, that that wouldn't magically happen,” said Tichenor.

Last spring, the university did its first ever campus climate survey, which sought to determine a baseline of where WPI is right now in terms of racial, ethnic, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity diversity. Using a survey from the University of Pennsylvania's Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education, the survey posed questions such as, “Have you ever observed a racial issue on campus?” to “How comfortable are you?” to gather quantitative data based on qualitative information, Tichenor said.

Once results are tallied in the fall, the survey can serve as somewhat of a roadmap for Jones-Johnson as she develops diversity initiatives.

“It will give us a good snapshot of where we are now, and we can look back and see how far we have progressed,” Tichenor said.

Need for better representation

Nationally, colleges and universities have added chief diversity officers at a steady rate over the last five or six years, said Benjamin Reese, immediate past president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education and vice president of the Office for Institutional Equity at Duke University and Duke University Health System in Durham, N.C.

Locally, the College of the Holy Cross and the city of Worcester both added chief diversity officers within the last year; Clark University and the University of Massachusetts Medical School also have people in the position.

Reese, a clinical psychologist who has done diversity and race relations work for 45 years, said a chief diversity officer is typically the most senior person in an organization responsible for diversity and inclusion strategy – both in specific initiatives and as an overarching university mission. They are most effective when they report directly to a university president, Reese said, which Jones-Johnson does.

“Everyone – particularly senior leaders – should be thinking about integrating diversity into everything they do, but there needs to be someone thinking about it 24 hours a day,” he said. “It's similar to a CFO. Everyone should be a good steward of funds, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have a CFO, who has the major responsibilities for coordination of funds.”

The woman for the job

Jones-Johnson is originally from Michigan and has lived in Worcester for seven years. She joined WPI in July from Hartford insurer Aetna, where she was senior human resources business partner. She previously worked for UMass Medical School, where she was director of talent management and implemented a 10-week summer internship and mentoring program for underrepresented minority college students with an interest in academic health science administration, according to WPI.

She is still settling into her job and has spent a lot of time over the past month having conversations with faculty, staff and students about their experiences and their ideas about what her job will mean for them. From her conversations so far, she said there is a great understanding of the competitive marketplace in terms of talent around town, a desire to better leverage existing talent, and a want to make WPI more attractive to people from diverse backgrounds.

“It is sort of this holistic view, and I think it's really building on what we've already done, and so the question is, “How do we pull that together into an institution-wide road map that we continue to be committed to?'” she said.

For Jones-Johnson, chief diversity officer means being a partner in WPI's strategic process, and being an advocate for the community by understanding what's meaningful to them and communicating that to other members of the leadership team.

The university's Office of Multicultural Affairs already has several diversity programs, including one that reaches out to middle and high school students from underrepresented minority backgrounds to introduce them to WPI, help them through the college application process, and teach them about math and science.

Jones-Johnson said the question is how to pull all of that existing work together, combine it with new work, and cultivate it into all areas of WPI. That's something she'll better understand through the conversations she continues to have.

“Once the students get here, I can't wait to get talking with them and hear about their experiences,” she said.