The University of Chicago (UChicago) recently announced it will be adding a new Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity.
The interdisciplinary department will be housed within the university’s Division of the Social Sciences (SSD). Nearly 83 percent of SSD faculty supported the department’s creation in a November 2021 advisory vote.
“This outcome is the culmination of years of dedicated collaboration among faculty and students across the university,” said Adom Getachew and Leora Auslander, two faculty leaders who led the proposal to form the department, in a statement. “Our collective work has produced an original approach that will benefit our colleagues, students, and this field of study as a whole.”
The department’s goal is to “produce new understanding and fresh insights into the world we live in by studying how conceptions of race have emerged in different eras and circumstances,” according to a joint statement from UChicago President Paul Alivisatos and Provost Ka Yee Lee.
The department will launch with an undergraduate program and plans to develop master’s and doctoral programs in the coming years.
