After three years at the University, Sylvia Carey-Butler, current Vice President for Institutional Equity and Diversity, prepares to step down from her role.
With six weeks left before her departure from Brown, Carey-Butler spoke with The Herald about her time leading the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity and her next steps.
Patricia Poitevien ’94 MD’98 will serve as interim vice president starting in November.
Carey-Butler joined the University as OIED vice president in August 2021. At the time, the University was beginning Phase II of its Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan, which aimed to make the Brown academic community more equitable and inclusive.
In her time at Brown, Carey-Butler revived the Campus Climate Survey, which aims to better understand the experiences of Brown community members. She also led the expansion of the University’s nondiscrimination policy to include caste after speaking with a group of South Asian students about their concerns.
But Carey-Butler’s biggest focus during her tenure was expanding the University’s relationships with historically Black colleges and universities, in addition to continuing the longstanding program with Tougaloo College. This past summer, Tougaloo and Brown celebrated the 60th year of their partnership.
Last fall, OIED announced plans to launch the Brown-HBCU Initiative, which aimed to leverage Brown’s knowledge to support and collaborate with a select group of HBCUs, The Herald previously reported.
According to Elfred Anthony Pinkard, Brown’s inaugural HBCU presidential fellow, the University began conversations with select HBCU presidents back in 2022. With these partner schools, OIED has developed a shared course that will be offered through the Department of Africana Studies starting in 2025, Carey-Butler said.
But with Carey-Butler stepping down, the future of the initiative remains unknown. “I know that the HBCU initiative will continue,” she said. “But to (what) degree, I don’t know,” adding that the program’s future will depend on the priorities of her successor.
Carey-Butler was also engaged in the administration’s response to campus protests and tensions amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. OIED conducted staff and student-facing “learnings” on combating antisemitism and Islamophobia. According to Carey-Butler, these sessions will continue after her departure.
“Last year was pretty intense as we navigated some really difficult times, but I was reminded of the importance of engaging with students,” Carey-Butler said. “Students really want to be able to come to school to learn, to engage with each other, free of anything that might impede that process. We just have to provide that kind of environment.”
Carey-Butler also spoke to the importance of recentering DEI’s definition on “inclusive excellence,” in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action, as well as politicians’ criticism and targeting of DEI.
“You can't have academic excellence without having diversity. Not just diversity around races — it’s gender, it’s ability, it’s perspective,” she said. Some politicians may “say that having initiatives in DEI is taking away from one group,” she added. “It is not. It is ensuring that everyone matters.”
Following a drop in the first-year enrollment numbers of Black and Hispanic students, Carey-Butler said that the University should work to “ensure continual diversity,” creating an environment where prospective students aren’t discouraged from applying. HBCU partnerships and pipeline programs for minority or low-income students can help break those barriers, she added.
“I can tell you, every student who is at Brown, every student of color, every student who's here, is here because they deserve to be here, not because somebody let them in because of affirmative action,” she said.
As she prepares to step away from the University, Carey-Butler is focusing on laying the groundwork for her successor.
Carey-Butler plans to create a transition document that will allow Poitevien to understand the work she’s done over the past three years. She also aims to finalize and publish both a DEI Impact Report and the next DIAP report shortly before her departure.
But the future direction and priorities of OIED will be in the hands of her successors and the Brown community, she explained. “The rearview mirror is small, and the windshield is wide. I'm looking forward, and I'm not looking back,” she said.
Following her departure, Carey-Butler will head back to Atlanta, the city she and her husband call home. After working in higher education for many years, she said she is ready to move on.
“Roles can confine you,” Carey-Butler explained. By “being a part of national committees and conversations, and being able to do research on (my) own, I hope to advance this work in a more impactful way.” She plans to reconnect with institutions she previously worked with through the United Negro College Fund, a philanthropic organization that funds scholarships at HBCUs.
She hopes her departure provides the University with “an opportunity to pause, to reflect and to ask the question: What’s next for DEI at Brown?”
Anisha Kumar is a section editor covering University Hall. She is a sophomore from Menlo Park, California concentrating in English and Political Science who loves speed-crosswording and rewatching sitcoms.
Julianna Chang is a University News Editor who oversees the academics and advising and student government beats. A sophomore from the Bay Area, Julianna is studying Biology and Political Science on the pre-medical track. When she's not in class or in the office, she can be found eating some type of noodle soup and devouring bad books.
