Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Dr. Noelle Chaddock to step down from post in July

Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Dr. Noelle Chaddock has informed the college that they will step down this summer, after leading the college’s efforts to achieve greater institution-wide equity and inclusion since 2019.

“To serve a community that is working hard to make meaningful progress in the work of equity, inclusion, access, and social justice has been a fulfilling professional experience for me,” said Dr. Chaddock. “From the moment I arrived at Bates, I could sense that this community was invested in what it takes to realize its ideals, and that was compelling to me.”

“At the same time, like every community, large or small, Bates struggles with structural racism and other inequities that prevent individuals and groups from participating fully in the opportunities that should be available to all members. Overcoming these barriers is particularly important in higher education, whose mission is to provide students life transforming experiences that set them on a path toward personal fulfillment and social contribution.” 

“Noelle joined Bates at a pivotal time for the college’s work in the areas of equity, inclusion, and antiracism. They partnered closely with students, faculty, and staff to help our community make measurable progress during an especially challenging time in our nation and around the world,” said President Clayton Spencer. “Noelle’s professional expertise, leadership, and determination to engage every corner of the campus were critical to Bates’ momentum in the past two years with regard to the student experience, faculty hiring and support, and the education and training for so many teams within the college.”

Dr. Chaddock played a central role, working with the Board of Trustees, in the creation of a Committee on Equity, Inclusion, and Antiracism as a standing committee of the college’s governing board. This committee is charged with shaping the board’s role as a strategic partner in the college’s efforts to advance its commitment to antiracism in ways that are concrete, effective, and measurable. As a member of the senior staff, Dr. Chaddock worked with committee chairs Evelynn Hammonds and Erica Bullard to shape the work of the new committee during its inaugural year.

When COVID-19 struck in March of 2020 and students were required to leave campus, Dr. Chaddock worked with colleagues across the college to assist students who needed financial or other support for travel, as well as academic or technical support for successful remote learning. Once planning began for the 2020-21 academic year, Dr. Chaddock served as a member of the fall planning team, comprising faculty and staff, to ensure that all members of the Bates community were considered as the college designed and implemented its pandemic response.

From the time of their arrival at Bates, Dr. Chaddock made a concerted effort to engage the entire campus community in the project of learning about equity, inclusion, and antiracism and considering how we could make Bates a more inclusive community. Dr. Chaddock created the Commons Conversations, a series designed to create space for community members to come together and have conversations centered on the topics of equity, inclusion, access, and educational justice. In the last semester of Dr. Chaddock’s time here, they created the In the Academy series that engaged our campus community in starting to identify and value the diversity of lived experiences for Black, Indigenous, Asian, Queer, and Disabled people in the academy.

Dr. Chaddock also led important efforts to provide racial equity education and training to faculty, staff, and various departments across campus. Dr. Chaddock created the position of Director of Equity and Inclusion Education and Training and recruited Nicollette Mitchell to fulfill this role during the past academic year. At this point, the entire senior staff, many faculty, and more than half of the college’s staff have completed racial equity training programs. These efforts have included reading and discussion groups, a three-part series on Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation, and the selection of online training modules to be introduced in the coming year. Programs were also extended to Bates alumni through innovative virtual events during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An active leader across the academic program at Bates, Dr. Chaddock provided strategic counsel to the Office of the Dean of the Faculty, supporting efforts to recruit and retain a more demographically representative faculty. In the fall of 2020, two-thirds of the new faculty cohort were BIPOC-identified. Beyond recruiting, Dr. Chaddock partnered with Associate Dean of the Faculty Krista Aronson over the past academic year to begin the practice of hosting virtual community-building sessions for new BIPOC faculty members several times a month.

To advance the college’s initiatives focused on inclusive pedagogy and curricular transformation, Dr. Chaddock has served as a leader and key advisor on several of the college’s major efforts. Dr. Chaddock chaired the steering committee of the Mellon Foundation grant directed at the Humanities and Humanistic Social Sciences, and consulted with colleagues in STEM on the inclusive excellence grant funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. 

Prior to their arrival at Bates in 2019, Dr. Chaddock held various leadership and academic positions at Rhodes College and the State University of New York at Cortland.

Before launching a search for a new vice president for equity and inclusion, the college will seek input from students, faculty, and staff, as well as outside advisors, so that it can shape the position and the search in ways that will be effective in building on recent progress and advancing this crucial dimension of Bates’ mission.