On Thursday, March 9th, the Steinhardt Office of Diversity, Equity, and Belonging; the Institute of Human Development and Social Change (IHDSC); the Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools (Metro Center); and the NYU Center for Faculty Advancement invited faculty and scholars across NYU Steinhardt to celebrate the launch of the Justice and Belonging in Development and Education Hub. As part of NYU’s University-wide Cluster Hiring Faculty Initiative to support diverse faculty and broaden NYU’s commitment to influencing positive social change, NYU Steinhardt hired three new faculty in Fall 2022. The initiative has shifted from a hiring initiative to an intellectual hub, referred to as “the Hub”, of interdisciplinary scholars dedicated to understanding how structural inequities impact justice and belonging, in development, education, and society. The Hub will continue as a joint endeavor by Steinhardt’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Belonging, IHDSC, and Metro Center.

The Hub is guided by Drs. Jasmine Y. Ma, Associate Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Erin Godfrey, Director of NYU's IHDSC and Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology, and Fabienne Doucet, Executive Director of NYU’s Metro Center and Associate Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning.

The Hub’s launch event served as a way to foster social connection and initiate partnership. One of the goals of the Hub is to collaborate across disciplines to develop innovation in research that attends to the causes and consequences of inequity for greater social and systematic impact. Jasmine and Erin kicked off the event acknowledging the shared commitment by the community in the room to the goals of the Hub. These faculty and scholars have demonstrated their investment in supporting and conducting research that address inequities in the learning, development, identity, behavior, mental health, access to resources, and life opportunities for historically marginalized groups. Charlton McIlwain, Vice Provost for Faculty Engagement and Development and Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, and Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng, Vice Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Belonging and Professor of Applied Statistics, Social Science, and Humanities, shared these sentiments and reinforced the need for an interdisciplinary research hub at Steinhardt. They hope to see further investment from Steinahrdt to ensure faculty and scholars from groups historically underrepresented in the academy are supported and given opportunities to thrive.

“Scholarly engagements toward social change should and must center care and relationality, and good, impactful work can only be done in community,” says Dr. Ma. “The Hub provides a thoughtful intellectual space for interdisciplinary, interdepartmental collaboration to tackle some of the most pressing issues affecting historically marginalized youth, families, and communities,” adds Dr. Doucet, “We look forward to seeing it develop further.”