Dear Members of the Brown Community,

After three years of strong leadership in diversity and inclusion at Brown, Vice President for Institutional Equity and Diversity Sylvia Carey-Butler plans to step down from her position in October.

As the country has witnessed troubling efforts to defund and dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at colleges and universities in many states, Sylvia will pursue opportunities to ensure equity and inclusion across higher education. This work informed much of Sylvia’s career before Brown, and I was excited to learn of her plans to pursue this long-held career aspiration as part of cementing her legacy in academia.

Sylvia has been a champion for strengthening programs and initiatives to solidify Brown’s national leadership in integrating a commitment to diversity and inclusion in all that we do. She began her role at Brown in August 2021, soon after we launched Phase II of Pathways to Diversity and Inclusion: An Action Plan for Brown University (the Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan, or DIAP). Since then, she has led efforts to fulfill the mandate of the plan to address barriers to inclusion and create a more equitable academic community.

Sylvia spearheaded the University’s 2023 Campus Climate Survey to identify areas to strengthen inclusion and belonging; developed new events and resources for building understanding to sustain Brown as a community dedicated to learning across differences; and both broadened and deepened Brown’s engagement with historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

Among her many achievements, Sylvia appointed the inaugural HBCU Presidential Fellow. She stewarded convenings with presidents of other HBCUs, solidifying Brown’s standing as a national model for cultural and academic exchange. This included reinvigorating our pioneering partnership with Tougaloo College. Sylvia led the Brown-Tougaloo Partnership’s 60th anniversary celebration at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts earlier this year.

Sylvia also has embodied the principles of collaboration and shared commitment to making an impact, with a focus on building partnerships with colleagues in administrative and academic departments across campus. She worked with the John D. Rockefeller Library to launch "Building A Bridge Back to Brown," an oral history project that captured the lived experiences of Black alumni, and she established the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity's DEI Partners Group with colleagues across the institution. This has helped cultivate a community of practice for sharing effective initiatives for advancing diversity and inclusion efforts.

I am grateful that Sylvia helped sustain Brown’s work in DEI by embracing the vision that fulfilling Brown’s promise to be a more diverse and inclusive campus requires contributions from community members at all levels. Through her commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, Sylvia has met with hundreds of students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents and prospective students to advance and support inclusivity across the University. She established the Global Day of Inclusion to provide workshops that facilitate DEI skill-building for staff; co-hosted a symposium on the lives and legacies of Lani Guinier and bell hooks in partnership with the Department of Africana Studies; and enhanced OIED's educational and training offerings for students, faculty and staff.

All of these efforts add to an exceptional record of accomplishment in higher education. Prior to coming to Brown, Sylvia built a career as a pioneering leader in strategic planning and innovative initiatives in diversity and inclusion at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and the United Negro College Fund. She also held numerous positions in higher education in New York state and served as assistant provost and dean of honors at Dillard University in New Orleans and as associate dean of studies at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. She is nationally known for her expertise across decades of work in a field that has continued to evolve.

Sylvia’s last day at Brown will be Oct. 31, 2024, and we will conduct a national search for her successor. I will share plans in the coming weeks for developing a search committee. Please join me in thanking Sylvia for all she has done for Brown.

Sincerely,
Christina H. Paxson
President