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Zeinab Karake

Zeinab Karake

Associate Dean for Culture & Community
Clinical Professor

Diversity and Inclusion Committee

Diversity and Inclusion Committee, 2019
2019 Diversity and Inclusion Committee

Faculty and Staff

The diversity and inclusion committee at Smith is comprised of Smith faculty and staff. This committee is formed to:

  1. CREATE a vision statement that transforms Smith;
  2. EXPAND the existing portfolio of experiences for diverse students at Smith; and
  3. DIVERSIFY the voices of leadership and decision-making at Smith.

Melanie Ashton
Assistant Director
Undergraduate Programs
mlee19@umd.edu

Shannon Broughton
Employer Relations Program Manager
Office of Career Services
sbroughton@umd.edu

Sherri Campbell
Assistant Director, Exec. Assistant to Assistant Dean
Office of Career Services
slcamp50@umd.edu

Darrell Claiborne
Director
Smith Operations
dclaibor@umd.edu

Nicole Coomber
Associate Clinical Professor
Management & Organization
ncottre@umd.edu

Rachel DiDonna
Program Coordinator
QUEST Honors Program
rdidonna@umd.edu

Nima Farshchi
Director
Center for Social Value Creation
farshchi@umd.edu

Mark Forrest
Program Director
Office of Development and Alumni Relations
maf31@umd.edu

Ebony Fullwood
Associate Director
Undergraduate Programs
efullwoo@umd.edu

Mary Beth Furst
Associate Clinical Professor
Marketing
mbfurst@umd.edu

Zeinab Karake
Clinical Professor
Decision, Operations & Information Technologies
zkarake@umd.edu

Joyce Koo
Coordinator
Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets
joyceck@umd.edu

Adam Lee
Associate Clinical Professor
Decision, Operations and Information Technologies
adamlee@umd.edu

Millicent Locke
Associate Director of Marketing
Office of Marketing Communications
mlocke@umd.edu

Maria Pineda
Director of Admissions, Full-Time MBA
Master's Program Office
mpineda@umd.edu

Justin Reyna
Lecturer
Department of Logistics, Business and Public Policy
jreyna@umd.edu

Jessica Roffe
Assistant Director
QUEST
jroffe@umd.edu

Michael Sparrow
Manager
Smith Operations
msparrow@umd.edu

Amy Swann
Director of Specialty Master's Programs
Master’s Program Office
amyswann@umd.edu

Pam Talbott
Coordinator
Office of Transformational Learning
ptalbott@umd.edu

Smith's Black Agenda
Jeanette Snider, Mark Forrest, Nicole Coomber, Melanie Ashton, Darrell Claiborne

Smith Pride Committee
Rachel DiDonna, Greg Rafal, Jeanette Snider

Faculty resource development around anti-racism in the classroom
Doireann Renzi

Dis/Ability and Accessibility Committee
Tori Shay, Ebony Fullwood, Jeanette Snider, Kristin LaRivere

Diversity and Equity Council

Smith Student Committee

2022 Diversity and Equity Council Student Committee
2022 Diversity and Equity Council Student Committee

The students at Smith are dedicated to creating a truly welcoming environment in Van Munching Hall. The Diversity and Equity Council (DEC) is comprised of graduate and undergraduate students who care deeply about the experiences of diverse students within our community. Their goals are to:

  1. REPRESENT the collective views of the student body;
  2. FACILITATE interaction within the community at large; and
  3. UNITE Smith so that we may thrive together, rather than struggle separately.
  • Abaan Kermani (Undergrad)
  • Alexis Faucette (Undergrad)
  • Camille Burt (Undergrad)
  • Devin Srinivas (Undergrad)
  • Ed-Lamarr G. Petion (Undergrad)
  • Emily Fernandes de Oliveira (Undergrad)
  • Feven Tadesse (Undergrad)
  • Joy Lee (Undergrad)
  • Katherine Robinson (Undergrad)
  • Mahum Jabir (Full-time MBA)
  • Miriam Oke (Undergrad)
  • Nicole Chen (Undergrad)
  • Ray Mizui (Undergrad)
  • Rishi Chary (Undergrad)
  • Ryan Saunderson (Undergrad)
  • Siri Rao (Undergrad)
  • Yifei Wang (PhD)
  • Malcolm Woodbury (Undergrad)
  • Alumni/Faculty Mentorship – Creating a platform on the Smith website to spotlight alumni that are willing to provide mentorship for affinity communities and minority demographics within Smith
  • Networking Awareness and Career Prep – Creating a platform for students to develop study groups, and build a list of specific minority scholarships, internships, career prep, and professional affinity networks
  • Professor Guide to Inclusive Instruction – Expanding the “Inclusive Instruction” resources for professors on the Smith School website
  • Race and Ethnic Identity Education – Creating educational deliverables to live on the Smith diversity website and to be sent out in the Smith newsletter
  • Supporting International Students – Creating guides and online materials to support and provide resources for international students
  • Transfer Student Focus Groups
    • Purpose: Creating a space for Smith transfer students to share their experiences with peers and administrators in an effort to inform Smith administration on how to best improve the design of the Transfer Student Experience 
    • Results: Formal drafted and presented recommendations for improving the transfer program after successful focus groups held in collaboration with the Dean's Student Advisory Council (DSAC) 
  • Pronoun Workshop
    • Purpose: Encouraging Smith faculty and staff to better support gender identity at Smith by educating them on pronouns, how they vary among individuals, and how to appropriately use pronouns in and out of the classroom
    • Results: Held successful workshop resulting in the addition of pronouns to a number of class syllabi and professor ELMs accounts
  • International Game Night
    • Purpose: Providing international students at Smith with a safe space to practice casual English
    • Results: Planned full-scale game night with large number of RSVPs (cancelled due to COVID-19)
  • Smith DEI Data Analytics
    • Purpose: To build an infrastructure for Smith to make data driven decisions after highlighting a thorough analysis of grade & recruitment data
    • Results:
      • Successfully built a tableau dashboard that highlights the recruitment trends of International students from the company/industry perspective as well as the actual position
      • Identified grade data averages by area to highlight patterns of low performing students coming from certain areas in order to figure out why and allocate resources more effectively
      • Within tableau, administrators can now search a class, and see the grading distribution between transfer students and non-transfer students

Equity in Career Services

Purpose: To identify any inequitable gaps in Smith's Office of Career Service (OCS) resource and service offerings and make recommendations for improvements.

Results: Learned that OCS does not have gaps in resources, but needs support in disseminating and advertising resources to a targeted audience. Established an ongoing and collaborative relationship.

Deliverable: OCS Initiative Task Force Results Summary

Voting and Political Education

Purpose: To ensure the Smith community is aware of the American voting/registration process and provide unbiased resources to educate about political information and how politics relate to business.

Results: Developed and disseminated a Voting and Political Education resource for the Smith community

Deliverable: Voting Equity

Inclusion Accountability & Oversight Coalition (IAOC)

Undergraduate Student Committee

Smith Student Leaders from the organizations of Dean’s Student Advisory Council (DSAC), Smith Undergraduate Student Association (SUSA), and the Diversity Empowerment Council (DEC) unified together to found the Inclusion Accountability and Oversight Coalition (IAOC). The IAOC is responsible for holding Smith leaders and the community accountable to building a truly diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment. The IAOC leverages its scale of influence to champion projects that push the status quo of the Smith community closer to its ideals in DEI. Their pillars are:

  1. Accountability of participating organizations and those within our purview. 
  2. Collaboration on both small and large-scale projects on advancing DEI within smith
  3. Representation of student voices within the Smith community organized to address their concerns. 

To learn more about the IAOC, email the chair, Alexia Ayuk, at ayukalexia@gmail.com.

  • Alexia Ayuk, SUSA, DSAC
  • Rishi Chary, DEC
  • Emmanuel Corporal, DSAC
  • Alexandra Hargrett, SUSA
  • Soda Lo, DEC
  • Katherine Robinson, DEC, DSAC
  • Paula Shin, SUSA

Internal and External Audits

Each fall semester, member organizations will conduct an internal audit to diagnose key problems and inform the external auditing party of the current state in regard to DEI. The external audits will measure the progress made in the interim and identify areas of improvement from an unbiased perspective.

Fall 2022 Internal Audit Summaries

Each spring semester, member organizations will be audited by others on IAOC who have been removed from the organization for at least 1 full semester and/or have never been a part of that organization. The external audit serves to diagnose key problems within the organization and inform the Smith community about the status and progress of DEC, DSAC, and SUSA.  The ultimate goal is to ensure all Smith organizations are continuously striving to be more equitable and inclusive. The external audits summaries will be published at the end of April.

Older Audit Summaries:

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